Evolution of the Internet: Whats next ? [kwiqq]

Posted on | May 6, 2009 | View Comments

Internet now just 15 years old has gone through major transformations. As networks of networks has been growing in size it has also had a complete re-branding and found itself becoming more acceptable amongst people of all ages. It was only in early 90s that Internet actually became more freely available, before which it was mainly used for research, universities and sometimes at enterprise level.

Web Tools

Experimental electronic mail i.e. email was first used in 1989 but quickly became one of the most popular activities of users. Email and in general the Internet has made communication easier, faster and more secure. Using SSL certificates, a protocol used for data protection and integrity, its now possible to integrate e-commerce functionality to websites. The number of sites supporting e-commerce facilities has been growing consistently, over the last few years it has seen an exponential growth. The total number of sites on the Internet hit one million in January 2009.

1 million e-commerce sites on the web by Jan 2009

The Internet revolution has seen a new contender and is certainly turning heads, Social Media. Social Media has seen two specific sectors doing extremely well according to Nielson, Video and Social Media. The report claims Video and Member Communities have grown 339% and 87% respectively in the last 5 years. Whilst email has grown at 76%, still an important communication tool. In February 2009, social network usage exceeded Web-based e-mail usage for the first time.

Audience Utilities, Video and Social Media: Neilson

Observations

Sites like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo etc are set to change the communication trends of online users. We are not convinced if Facebook will totally replace corporate communication via email. It will certainly become an important tool of communication for corporates and their users. As a company we are seeing more corporates adding tools like Facebook connect, OpenID to their websites or social networks.

Another important observation is that more companies are looking to form an online community around their product, service or brand. Generally these online communities have a twist to them i.e. they are not specifically focused around the company but other causes like environment, diversity, health, safety etc.

So what is the future ?

It’s unclear what the future of the Internet really is but if we look at the hype cycle of social products all fingers point to social software for high or tangible ROI (Return on Investment) products e.g. Social Networks for Sales, Social Intelligence, Community Marketing etc.

Hype life-cycle of social products.

From the above graph its clear that web presence or products like blogs are simply not enough to get mainstream attention for a company. Going forwards companies will try new and innovative ways to use the web and contribute to evolution of the web.

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