Search
Recommended Products
Related Links


 

 

Informative Articles

Finding the Right DS3 Bandwidth Provider
Telecommunications contracts can be much like a marriage and as we all know there are good and bad marriages. The fact is, when you enter into a telecommunications contract with a DS3 Bandwidth provider for reasonable amount of bandwidth or voice...

Get the most out of your VoIP provider
Features and pricing are the two prime considerations in selecting your VoIP provider and deriving the maximum benefit from the product. With most VoIP users, all the features available in a particular product will rarely if ever be used. All...

How Does Broadband Work?
These days, "broadband" is a word that is thrown around easily in telecommunications and internet lingo, but the average consumer may not have a clear understanding of how broadband works. It's easy to understand why; the technology industry even...

How To Speed Up Your Dial up Connection.
Do you remember the days? Firing up your 200Mhz turbo PowerPC, dialling up using your 56k modem, waiting an age for your hotmail page to show up, waiting some more to check your e-mails only to have your connection die just as you hit the send...

Unraveling The Mysteries Of Broadband Internet Service Providers
Broadband internet service providers are widely varied and offer several different connection forms. Broadband can be separated into several different categories, such as cable, DSL, and satellite. The major benefit of broadband service...

 
Google
10 Years in Internet Time

2005 marked approximately 10 years since what many consider the dawning of the commercial internet and World Wide Web with the newly-formed WWW Consortium (W3C) and the availability to purchase domains by the public. It's been quite a ride for some and a yawn for others, but one thing is for certain: the internet has changed the world forever.

For starters, as of last year, more people in the US are using broadband access as opposed to a dial-up connection providing many times the download speed. From news to sports to business and online shopping, internet users find it difficult to remember the days of plain text and waiting for sometimes hours to download pictures, videos, music and other media-rich content. Today the use of such interactive content is main-stream and provides infinite more utility to the internet than a decade ago.

It was recently reported that Instant Messaging is used more often than e-mail by more than 50% of adult Americans, and among the younger set, that number jumps to over 62%. Instant messaging has become a routine activity from college campuses to corporations, integrating simple text and multi-media with PCs and even cell phones.

This year also marks the first point in history that more people turn to the internet to search for businesses and shopping than they do to the printed material we have traditionally kept in the kitchen drawer under the telephone, and over 60% of US households in a recent survey said they research the internet before shopping locally for products and services. Relevancy, accuracy, variety, and rich content have made the internet an integral part of our daily lives. Who would have guessed so much as recently as 10 years ago?

So what will the next 10 years bring? Here are some predictions based on a variety of industry watchdogs and experts:

1. With nearly 45% by some counts, of the US population meeting legal handicap and/or other impairment criteria, expanding the usability of the


internet to those individuals will be both an ethical and financially prudent investment. Addressing motor and cognitive impairments as well as vision and hearing challenges the internet can, and will be improved and adapted to providing accessible content to more and more of the population. The UK and Australia both already have laws on the books requiring internet sites to be accessible to various degrees and accessibility guidelines/recommendations are already in place here in the US with several agencies reviewing appropriate requirements and ultimately laws in our country. WSI among others is already in position to offer products and services geared towards this new and important initiative.

2. The internet will continue to expand and provide convenience to our lives outside of the traditional computer. Available as we speak is a 3rd generation (3G) of cell phones which allow downloading of directions, maps, music, scores and even video entertainment right to your phone on demand. In some markets, users can shop, place orders via their telephones, be notified that their order is ready and see a map of how to get there to pick it up. Even Dick Tracey would have gotten a kick out of that!

We have come a long way in the first 10 years of the commercial internet. It has helped to form many aspects of our culture for both good and bad, and by all predictions will continue to be an increasingly important part of how we work, study, shop, and even play in the coming decades. What role are you or your organization playing?



About the author:

John Geiger owns and operates a local affiliate of WSI Internet Consulting and Education, a Toronto based global network of consultants, developers and production centers providing consultation as well as turn-key internet business solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises to include web-site design, development and hosting; site maintenance and upgrades, full e-commerce solutions,etc. See www.webmasters-wsi.com