Internet today, is different from the original Net. I am not even comparing it to ARPAnet, the network of defense systems that spawned the internet. That was merely a network of computers. That’s going a bit too far back. Just compare it to what the internet was a decade ago. The net that we see today, despite still being a network of computers, is much more than just that!
The early net was all about ease of communication. Email was the hottest thing then. Then came the era of double-clicks! Portals spawned everywhere. All they did was assimilate a summary of information on specific topics and provide you with a zillion different links to click your way to death. And by the time you were on your 10th click-through, you lost track of what you were looking for in the first place. You would start looking for information on nuclear disasters and end up on a breast-augmentation website.
And now we have Web 2.0. Yes, in hindsight, the tehnocrati of our wired world have labeled the original net as Web 1.0. Web 2.0 is all about collaborative computing using the web itself as a platform enabling everything else as web services. The shining stars of Web 2.0 are Google, Skype, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Orkut, Flickr… you get the drift, right?
So what’s different? Well compare the above names to their peers from the bygone era – Google vs Altavista, Skype vs ???, Wikipedia vs Britannica, del.icio.us vs IE Favorites, Orkut vs ???, Flickr vs Ofoto. You see, some of them don’t even have comparables. Google’s adsense has blasted every other search engine out of the solar system. Skype turned the telecom industry on its head. Who goes to Britannica anymore? Where do you look for friends now – on Orkut or on Yahoo People Search? And sharing photographs was never so much fun as it is with Flickr. Every single one of them works on network effects! Their value is in the number of users. And its not surprising that all of them incidentally provide the highest levels of service too. Well, for more and more people to subscribe to a service, it has to be superlative. It has to be good enough to be recommended to friends and family!
Well, makes one wonder, what next??? Google, today, probably has more “relevant” data on you than you know about yourself. We store all our information online. We blog about ourselves and blogroll others. We tag others’ photographs and pages and leave comments everywhere. We have links leading back to us from every page that we visit. And everywhere there is a history about us – I think that’s a serious abuse of the word “history”. With all this info in the public domain, is it surprising that identity thefts are on the rise? Is the day too far when we may have intelligent machines gathering data on individuals and analyzing it in the name of customizing? And let us acknowledge that all of us want the convenience of single sign-on. How convenient would that be, as opposed to memorizing a gazillion user ids and pwds. Well, be glad that you don’t have a single sign-on coz that will put you at maximum risk. One theft of your ID and pwd and your life will not be the same again… just like that!
The early net was all about ease of communication. Email was the hottest thing then. Then came the era of double-clicks! Portals spawned everywhere. All they did was assimilate a summary of information on specific topics and provide you with a zillion different links to click your way to death. And by the time you were on your 10th click-through, you lost track of what you were looking for in the first place. You would start looking for information on nuclear disasters and end up on a breast-augmentation website.
And now we have Web 2.0. Yes, in hindsight, the tehnocrati of our wired world have labeled the original net as Web 1.0. Web 2.0 is all about collaborative computing using the web itself as a platform enabling everything else as web services. The shining stars of Web 2.0 are Google, Skype, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Orkut, Flickr… you get the drift, right?
So what’s different? Well compare the above names to their peers from the bygone era – Google vs Altavista, Skype vs ???, Wikipedia vs Britannica, del.icio.us vs IE Favorites, Orkut vs ???, Flickr vs Ofoto. You see, some of them don’t even have comparables. Google’s adsense has blasted every other search engine out of the solar system. Skype turned the telecom industry on its head. Who goes to Britannica anymore? Where do you look for friends now – on Orkut or on Yahoo People Search? And sharing photographs was never so much fun as it is with Flickr. Every single one of them works on network effects! Their value is in the number of users. And its not surprising that all of them incidentally provide the highest levels of service too. Well, for more and more people to subscribe to a service, it has to be superlative. It has to be good enough to be recommended to friends and family!
Well, makes one wonder, what next??? Google, today, probably has more “relevant” data on you than you know about yourself. We store all our information online. We blog about ourselves and blogroll others. We tag others’ photographs and pages and leave comments everywhere. We have links leading back to us from every page that we visit. And everywhere there is a history about us – I think that’s a serious abuse of the word “history”. With all this info in the public domain, is it surprising that identity thefts are on the rise? Is the day too far when we may have intelligent machines gathering data on individuals and analyzing it in the name of customizing? And let us acknowledge that all of us want the convenience of single sign-on. How convenient would that be, as opposed to memorizing a gazillion user ids and pwds. Well, be glad that you don’t have a single sign-on coz that will put you at maximum risk. One theft of your ID and pwd and your life will not be the same again… just like that!
6 comments:
fantastic...and i do mean FANTASTIC post! totally rocked-on.. i love the way your train of thought started ...and ENDED! Totally different wavelengths!
I must say I've a hangover from it. Will let you know more as i think through...double-think. ;-)
PS: If we were still in B-school, I'd say I think you are hitting the sweet spot between IT and marketing....neat!
hahaha... that last line was a good one. I'd like to think that I am gelling business and technology ideas for profitable usage :).
But seriously, this web 2.0 thing has been on my mind for some time. And it just came out naturally in the post.
And the more networked we get, the more exposed we will be to crimes. It's not funny. And the worst part is that most ppl think it won't happen to them!
I agree with u daddy. Its freaky..if i were to pause for a minute and imagine the quantum of 'personlity' that a thrid party can derive...frm my trace on the net.
But then..isnt this how technology has progressed. risk compromised for convenience..!
Tell me does anyone really care for specks like us??
May be if you got really useful to society? Or made more money than some people find comfortable, or you came into someone's way, or may be just may be you got unlucky, some one could be interested in you.
I have often asked people whether this exposure puts us at any risk.Most times I get the answer, nobody is sitting out there looking out for you.
This is scary nonetheless.
Ankur - risk compromised, or more risk taken... :)
EU - I agree, no one is looking out for specific targets - unless they have your swiss account number ;). However, we read about all the phishing scams, trojan horse softwares, spywares, crawler programs gathering info... and above all the info accessed through call centers spread across the globe. Given all the possible avenues of a web-crime, the probability is indeed high compared to what it was a few years back!
Yes, it is scary... but so is the thot of falling in love! But that's for another post.
when i said risk compromised...i meant risk 'neglected'..whichever direction..!!
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