Murphy's Law of Computing: For every action, there is an equal and opposite malfunction. (off the Net Dummy Newsletter)
NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE TELLS YOU the truth is this: the Internet is still extremely primitive. Computers crash too often. The Internet is too convoluted and needlessly complicated and it is as far from being simple as New York is from New Zealand.
When you come on the Internet for the first time you're in for headaches - a lot of them. The main reason is that your computer and your computer system is talking to computers and computer systems of all kinds from all over the world. And it's extremely difficult to do that flawlessly. And at peak times of the day, it's even harder. And to further complicate things when you ask 5 experts how to fix a problem they will honestly give you 5 different opinions!
There will be improvements. They'll come quickly. These are exciting pioneer times, but they're frustrating times too. In my opinion we're at stage one. And the future of the Internet is... well I'll show you my predictions:
STAGE ONE
TEXT & ILLUSTRATION. Right now the Internet shows text and illustrations reasonably well. It also does e-mail well. Almost anyone on the Internet can get and read text & illustration from websites, and e-mail to others now, with minor problems only. So far so good.
STAGE TWO
AUDIO & VIDEO (Here now for some). The next big thing on the Internet is transferring sound and music from 1 site to another. It's a fairly common practice IF you have a big computer (with lots of memory) and you have the expertise. For these site surfers there's plenty of music to listen to. Video is much less prevalent (too slow), but that'll change.
STAGE THREE
LIVE AUDIO & VIDEO. Only the rarest of geeks has mastered this (it's sort of like sub atomic particles - SOMEBODY knows about them, but not you or I). Radio on the Internet is growing extremely fast, though it's established radio, not 1 person broadcasting from his room radio. Not yet anyway. And how far behind can I-TV be? There are already live 'cam' sites where people have a video camera broadcasting the minutiae of there everyday lives (though these are disappointing because they're more like watching a slide show than the TV we're used to.) But soon, very soon there will be 1,000's of 1 person TV stations.
STAGE FOUR
SIMPLE & OPEN TO ALL: Farthest down the road is an Internet that not only computer college graduates can operate, but that Mr. High-School-Diploma and his kids can use. Also we must grapple with the issue of how to open up the Internet to all. The Internet is going to be big, REALLY BIG, but like breakthroughs in health care, we've got to share the wonder with all. That's the responsibility of being here now. That's the legacy that you and I must pass on.
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