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Ten years after its arrival, the Internet is still changing. How will it work 10 years from now?
A decade after the World Wide Web first became popular, it's hard to imagine life without it. Now imagine this: Ten years hence, the Web as we know it will have largely vanished.
It isn't going away, but the Web--and the Internet behind it--will go underground, undercover, and maybe even under our skin (via chip implant). It will melt into our surroundings. We won't speak of accessing the Web any more than we speak of accessing the highway system or the electric power grid. "Computers and the Web will disappear into our lives," says Paul Saffo, director of the California-based Institute for the Future.
Ten years ago, Netscape's initial stock sale launched the dot-com boom, and the Web was thrust into our PC s. A decade from now, we'll rarely use a traditional computer to chat, shop, or entertain ourselves on the Internet. Its connections are already moving beyond PC s, a trend that will accelerate as the Internet goes wireless.
What will become of websites, with their distinct personalities and dot-com extensions? They, too, will slip behind facades. Yahoo! will deliver its stock quotes directly into a television, iPod earbuds, or both. Google will learn our tastes and deliver tailored information and entertainment as they become available, or as they fit into our schedules. We'll still have computers and will surf for what's new and different. But so-called push services "will deliver what you care about all of the time, or don't want to ignore," says Jun Yang, a computer science professor at Duke University. Some will be highly personal: The news from MSN might be that a sensor chip in your toddler's skin has been detected slipping past the front door.
Big issues loom, not least of which is figuring out how companies get paid for all this. It's one thing to have a banner ad atop MapQuest directions--it's another to endure an annoying 10-second ad before the directions are read aloud.
Even tougher to foresee is the future of Web features that have transformed mass media into personal media: blogging, picture sharing, podcasting. "We used to press our nose to the glass and watch," says Saffo. "It will no longer be a one-way trip."
This story appears in the December 5, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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