Extract from an article in the 2008 February Review magazine.
 |
Remember the 1995 film Denise calls up? It tells the story of a group of friends and acquaintances–only they communicate exclusively by phone and fax in the days when the www was a mere twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye. |
 |
 |
 |
| The relationships are intense. Except that when one of them throws a party,
no-one has the courage to turn up in person. Are we going through a similar–though
more powerful–process with the Web? In any case, the Web is being used way
beyond its creators’ wildest dreams. After all, the Internet was originally
designed for use by the military, then extended to academia for sharing research
data. Next came businesses, and now, with home broadband penetration approaching
the 90% mark in the US, Japan and Korea and 70% in several European countries,
everyone can use it, and seemingly does. That’s today’s Web revolution. It took
a big step with people ordering their books and CDs from Amazon or cinema
tickets from Fandango or airline tickets from any of the carriers. |
 |
 |
A journalist's nightmare But the latest development is for people to “blog”, putting their own, personal information on the Web for anyone to read, listen to or look at. Read more... |
|
|
Socializing Who hasn’t heard of Facebook, the social networking site founded by a 20-year-old Mark Zuckerberg? Read more... |
|
|
But
is it real? As with Denise calls up, the danger is that the relationships developed by the social networking sites and blogging will remain distant, evanescent, virtual. Read more... |
|
|
An adman’s
dream Facebook has introduced a number of innovative features. Read more... |
© 2006-2008 Gemalto NV |
Disclaimer