Note: This article was written in 1996. I've left it intact, but added comments at the end.
Recently two things happened in my life that got me thinking about the
future of the Net and the Web. At 1:50 am on February 12, my grandson Teddy was born. And,
just about two weeks later, I took a trip to Mexico City to give a speech about using the
Internet in business.
When I got home from the hospital after holding the baby and
talking to my daughter, it was about 3:30 in the morning Pacific time. Before I went to
bed I sat down at my computer and fired off an email note to a bunch of friends around the
World. I told them about Teddy's birth and I asked them to send me newspapers from
wherever they were for his birthday.
I got the idea about the newspapers from a friend of mine named John Daly. John, an old
newspaper man and noted publicist had done something similar for his kids. The difference
was that I used email to reach my friends around the world. And the result, even to me,
was stunning. I received newspapers or the front page of newspapers from every continent.
Without electronic mail there's no way that I would have had the reach necessary to turn
that trek.
Later on in the day I picked up the electronic print pages of several online
publications for the day. Not the physical paper, to be sure, but still a part of the
newly emerging digital world.
We also went out and got some news magazines and a TV guide to put in Teddy's stack. As
one friend of mine said, "the kid's got extra credit projects for just about the rest
of his life in that stack."
Also, later on in the day, my son Dave and I talked about putting up a Web page for
Teddy. Dave had the job done in about an hour and a half. He used the video capture board
and his computer to grab some of the video that he'd shot in the hospital and added some
sound files.
Now think about how Teddy's starting life and what he's likely to expect and look
forward to. The notice of his birth shot around the world instantaneously using email. The
result of that was communications from around the world from an array of friends who now
became, at least in a small way, part of his life. In a large way they're part of mine.
And because of the Net I'm able to stay in touch with those friends even when we don't
have geographical proximity very often.
Teddy also has his own Web page less than a week after he was born. That may in fact
become the norm. Now who would be interested in my grandson's Web page? Well the first
answer to that is anyone who sent him the front page of a newspaper. They might like to
see what the little fellow looks like since they've already contributed something to his
extra credit projects in the future.
But if no one else, members of my family who are on the Net will be interested in his
page. And I imagine that there are lots of people out there willing to put up pieces of
their personal lives, not as magnificent advertisements, but because their friends and
family want to know things.
With the advent of digital video and the ability to have your pictures turned into
digital format as well as prints or slides, well the Web page possibilities just become
pretty awesome.
Think too about what Teddy's going to think about several years down the road when he
looks back at those newspapers and that TV guide. I can imagine that at least one thing
he's going to say is, "you guys actually watched this stuff?"
But one thing he may also say is, "where's the Internet section?" Actually,
he might not even say it that way. There might not be a "Internet section." That
section might be called something else.
One of the things that I see is that the Internet is becoming a basic part of a lot of
people's lives. Already, newspapers like USA Today have a little Cyber Happenings column
right on the page with TV listings. Already, lots of us start or end our day by checking
our electronic mail and our electronic clippings files.
My guess is that when Teddy starts school he'll already be familiar with how to use a
computer. Except for him it won't be something exotic. It won't be a COMPUTER. It will be
part of his life. He'll grow up in a house with several computers where all the adults use
electronic mail as a regular part of their lives, and where the information gathering on
the Information Superhighway is a part of life as well.
He won't have the problem that my daughters sometimes had when they grabbed information
from the Net and used them in a school paper of trying to figure out how to cite that for
their teacher. Those kinds of things will already be decided.
He'll probably live in a world where there are two Internets and World Wide Webs. One
of them will be the world that we access from routine computers like my laptop and
probably his. The other will be one that we access through cable modems where the speeds
are a lot higher and the graphics, video, and audio possibilities are immense. I can
imagine that we'll see that split in the years before he picks up that TV guide for the
first time.
He'll also probably get used to having friends that he's never met physically. That's a
strange phenomenon to those who grew up in the world where the only real friends we had
were the friends we actually met. Oh, sure, some of us had pen pals and we had them as
friends before we actually met them. But that wasn't a reality for a lot of folks. Almost
everyone who's participated in the online world, though, has friends that they haven't met
physically. They're real friends, though. They share with us our sadness' and triumphs.
They participate in parts of our life related to business and family and recreation.
In fact, one of the things that I see emerging on the Net is communities made up of
friends just like that. Some of those communities will form around special interests much
like newsgroups do today. Others will form around business organizations, families, or
physical places.
That leads me to the other thing that got me thinking recently and that was my trip to
Mexico.
The purpose of the trip was to give a speech to a group of Mexican real estate
developers about using the Net in business.
During my research one of the things that really jumped out at me was that while there
are lots of people out there in the world that speak Spanish, there don't seem to be a lot
of Web sites that do so. Even Netscape seems to miss this. A couple of weeks back they
introduced new browsers in different languages. But the languages were French and German,
not Spanish.
Part of the reason for that might be the infrastructure. During the conference in
Mexico City I was asked several times about how people could actually get connected to the
Net in a country where the telephone system might not be that reliable and where there are
few Internet service providers. My answer was always pretty much the same: that demand for
the Net will drive these kinds of things and that the situation in Mexico is not really
that different from other parts of the world.
But, think about this. The world that we're heading into, the world that my grandson
will grow up in is going to be increasingly global. Right now I was able to check out
attractions and things to do in Mexico City using the World Wide Web, just as a month or
so earlier, I checked out similar things in Aspen, Colorado.
Right now there is a Web site devoted to Latin American Museums. Imagine what you can
learn there.
Right now there's a world-wide community with access to the Internet and the World Wide
Web. What that means for you, and for me, and for Teddy is that we're going to live in an
increasingly global environment. We may find increasing need to be multi-lingual even
though English is likely to be the standard for business around the world. We're going to
have to be sensitive to customs and colors.
That latter is kind of interesting, actually. One designer at the Mexican conference
pointed out to me that Web pages from different cultures tend to use different colors and
type styles. When I thought about it that was obvious to me but it wasn't before he
mentioned it. If you're thinking about doing business with people in Mexico, or China, or
India, or Australia, or Germany, you'll want to be sensitive to the language, the culture,
and the expression of those in terms of design.
Fortunately this is all going to get a lot easier. The infrastructure, telephones,
service providers, cables, etc. is going to pop into place over the next couple of years.
The software and software standards that will enable us to do commerce will do pretty much
the same thing.
And we'll, "pop into place" too. We'll learn what it is like to do business
in a global world where the Net is a major means of communication. For us it will be new
and exciting. For Teddy it will be the world as it is. What you and I do to help form that
world in the next couple of years is the world that Teddy and his generation will inherit.
That's a heck of a responsibility but it's going to be an exciting one to tackle.
Comments in 2001
What's happened since I wrote this back in 1996?
On a family note, Teddy and his mom and dad now live in Germany. Teddy also has a brother, Diego.
Email is a dramatic part of our lives. When my daughter takes pictures of the boys, they show up in my email box right away.
They also show up in my father's email box. He's the boys' great (in more ways than one) grandfather, and he lives almost on the other side of the globe from them, but the pictures reach him as fast as they do me.
Teddy does call that box in the corner (or the one his grandfather carries around) a computer, but it's nothing special. It's part of his life. It's normal. He gets email. He still needs help from mom or dad to read it or send a reply, but that's a matter of language development which a year or two will fix. He's got the computer part under control.
Teddy is in pre-school. Both his school and his class have web pages. Other schools and daycare centers have live cameras so parents can view their children in real time.
Soon, Teddy and the family will be moving back to the United States. Debbie and Martin are using the web to find out about their new community, look for a place to live, and check travel options for the trip home.
As with so many other families, the net and web are part of our lives. It would seem strange today not to be able to check news quickly, or not to be able to search an encyclopedia for an article.
And the rest of the world? There are still not many companies that do business effectively in many languages and cultures. Most of those that do, have separate websites for their different markets, rather than a single site with multiple language options. The biggest exception to that comes from countries like Canada where multi-language sites are mandated.
In many places, the development of the net is driven more by infrastructure than by culture. In the US, where good landline phone service is available at a low price, most connections are dialups and most accounts are unlimited access.
In other areas, though, where the landline services isn't as good, or where it's metered, we've seen more wireless development. And it turns out that businesses in Europe and India, who've grown up with cross-border concerns, don't seem to have as many issues with them on the web, compared with Americans, who are used to a single, homogeneous, humungous market.
One thing that hasnt' changed, for me, is the excitement of it all. I missed the Golden Ages of aviation and television, but I'm living in a different one. I think we'll look back on this time (remembering all the "good" things and conveniently forgetting the hassles) as the Golden Age of the Net.
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