Social Network

Extract from an article  in the 2008 February Review magazine.

 

Remember the 1995 film Denise calls up? It tells the story of a group of friends and acquaintances–only they communicate exclusively by phone and fax in the days when the www was a mere twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye.

 

The relationships are intense. Except that when one of them throws a party, no-one has the courage to turn up in person. Are we going through a similar–though more powerful–process with the Web?
 

In any case, the Web is being used way beyond its creators’ wildest dreams. After all, the Internet was originally designed for use by the military, then extended to academia for sharing research data. Next came businesses, and now, with home broadband penetration approaching the 90% mark in the US, Japan and Korea and 70% in several European countries, everyone can use it, and seemingly does. That’s today’s Web revolution. It took a big step with people ordering their books and CDs from Amazon or cinema tickets from Fandango or airline tickets from any of the carriers.