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The new Internet: What I think the future holds for the internet

© Wayne Dawe

A little bit of a departure for me this week. This week you get my opinions piece with not a link to be found (well maybe I'll throw one in at the end just to keep you guessing). I've been on the Internet since just about the beginning and in no way did I predict the way it would grow in fact I had to be pushed into getting static IP address (don't worry if you don't know what that is, it doesn't really matter) so that I could run Netscape my home computer. At first I griped about the slow downloading of images and toyed with the idea if turning them off to speed downloading. I believed, like many others, that the whole purpose of the Internet was information and that in most cases huge image maps and cute graphics really weren't necessary. I've changed my mind.

You might have heard of a term called convergence. This is supposed to be the melding together of the Internet and TV into a new medium that will provide both entertainment and information. Think of it as lots more TV stations or the overused term "everyone is a publisher." This convergence is being pushed by both Microsoft and Netscape as they introduce new extensions to HTML that allow more dynamic movement on web pages. This means web pages are moving away from the model of newspaper or magazine pages more to a model of a video page with fades and intros and all kinds of other geegaws. It doesn't matter whether we think this is good or bad, it's going to happen anyway. The Internet our children use will be as different from the Internet today as Morse code is from FM stereo radio. I'm running the platform preview of Internet Explorer 4.0 from Microsoft which incorporates the new dynamic HTML extensions and I just finished reading an on-line comic book that had balloons that expanded and contracted so you can read the text without obscuring the graphic all the time. Mickey Mouse's head zoomed in and then rotated around as an opening shot. The content looks a little rough now but I think that the combination of faster Internet connections, dynamic HTML and java will produce an Internet we can't even imagine now.

Faster Internet connections are coming. Pretty soon everyone will know what ADSL is and then they'll want it. ADSL (asymmetrical digital subscriber link) is a 1.5 Mbps link (25 times faster than your current modem) and cable modems will make the long waits we put up with now almost unheard of. This Friday the cable guys are coming to install a cable modem at my house for a price that is only slightly higher each month than a separate phone line and unlimited Internet access in my area.

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