Walking the dog is a great way to exercise one's brain as well as one's legs, allowing time to process thoughts and ideas and try and make some sense of them, outside of the busy workplace. The title of this post doesn't relate to some crazy mistake that resulted in me getting lost in the countryside, but more about trying to get a sense of where we are in terms of the evolution of the Internet.

The Internet has come a long way since the early days, which can be read about in full technicolour detail in a very interesting paper on the Internet Society website. I didn't realise that I actually have something in common with the Internet, in that we're the roughly same age (both presented to the world in 1972), which is possibly why fate chose this particular life route for me. Anyway, I digress…

The Internet grew out of the extremely academic and technical world of 'the geek', when in 1962 Mr J.C.R. Licklider (or "Lick" as he was known) of MIT wrote a series of memos about a "Galactic Network" concept, which described "social interactions that could be enabled through networking". His ideas spawned the birth of the Internet as a networking tool, although in recent years it has been regarded as more as a publishing platform (especially in commercial terms) and only the recent, underground 'social software' trend has started to explore the true networking potential that "Lick" originally envisaged.

Examples of the 'publishing' perception is demonstrated with the business processes that support many commercial websites, which involve aggregating as much information as possible and 'pushing' it to potential 'viewers' – e.g.

• Product catalogues
• Services information (e.g. cinema listings)
• Reviews
• News

All of this requires a central 'hub' to own, aggregate, validate, refactor and publish information over the internet, much the same as television companies do with programs and the music industry used to do with music. Because publishing is still how the vast majority of businesses use the Internet (using it as their 'online brochure') I started to think about…

• How publishing evolved over time
• How interest in traditional publishing declined with the advent of new technology
• What this might mean for the Internet

You could say that the first publishing took place on cave walls, when our early ancestors drew pictures to record events and communicate them to others. Then language evolved and we started to write, which has continued to evolve over thousands of years in to what we recognise today. The main point here is that although language itself evolved, the media changed very little until electronic devices were introduced. Publishing of the written word was still done on paper, which was bound in to books, although we adapted this to create newspapers, magazines and other variations on this theme.

When cinema, and later television, were invented they marked a significant milestone in the history of the written word, as the TV generation chose to be informed and entertained in 'moving pictures' rather than go to the effort of having to read and digest the information they want, although in the early years TV was still a novelty and limitations of the early technology (cost, availability) meant that books retained their popularity for some time. However, the balance has slowly shifted, seeing TV become the primary media for information and entertainment for a large percentage of the population. This has been driven by reduced cost, improved quality (remember B&W TVs anyone?), increased choice and (most importantly of all) the lack of effort required to watch it.

The point I'm trying to make here is that we have witnessed an evolution of 'the species' of information publishing:

1. Basic pictures
2. The written word
3. The written word with pictures
4. Black and white moving pictures
5. Colour moving pictures

Of course, the written word and pictures still exist, but the most popular example of this appears to be the magazine because it's 'easy' and provides information and entertainment at the same time.

So, back to my original question… "where are we exactly?"

In terms of the Internet we appear to be in the early stages of evolution, even after 34 years, as it's still only at the stage of text and pictures being published and the 'user' being required to read and interpret this information. This appears to be the case for 2 reasons:

1. The roots of the Internet in academia rather than the entertainment industry
2. Infrastructure limitations
3. Immature technology

So, if we truly are in 'the dark ages' of the Internet, navigating our way through the medieval phase of patent witch hunts, we must surely expect a renaissance at some point in our future. The question is… how this will manifest itself?

There have been many foolish predictions made, but I think I can see a feasible evolutionary route for the 'net.

In the true nature of evolution some 'survival of the fittest' will have to take place and a dominant form emerge. Only 5 years ago I was struggling with dial-up connections and dismayed at the quantity of plugs, leads and adapters I'd have to carry if I hoped to connect my brick of a laptop to the Internet from anywhere other than my office. Now we have mobile phones with awesome computing power, high-speed wireless connectivity, and 8Mb broadband connections. We're starting to see more video appear online, with 'IPTV' technology being developed.

So, what does this mean to our humble television set?

Well, the time must surely come when I can watch exactly the same on my PC as I can on the TV, as all you need is a fast enough connection to stream without interruption. What happens then? Will I have a PC hooked up to my 'plasma wall' that allows me to watch TV in one 'frame', read about how the program was made in another 'frame' and send an email to the director whilst I'm at it? Personally (and I might be a fool) I think this isn't too far away. I can already watch TV programs on my PC, but at the moment it's only once they've been aired in the normal manner, unless I subscribe to some 'real-time' services or buy a reciever for my PC. It appears that TV and PC are on a collision course, heading for a major 'bust up' where the winner will emerge in the form of the consumers champion, which for me would be a single device that halves my average technology spend.

OK, so there have been half-hearted attempts to combine the 2 already, but it's only delaying the inevitable. As for which device will win, only time can tell, but my money is on the Internet connected PC as it has far more to offer.

You see, the main difference between your Internet connection and your TV signal is that your Internet connection allows 2-WAY communication, so as well as watching programs, the addition of a web cam means that you can also participate in them remotely. Image a 'chat show' scenario with audience participation – e.g Oprah or Jerry Springer. How about the host calling for feedback from not only the studio audience, but also a virtual audience of millions, all connected and capable of participating from their own home. In fact, why not do away with the 'real' audience altogether and just have 'virtual' viewers.

So, is the future of the TV industry in the hands of broadband infrastructure providers? Well, with IPTV and video on demand already available it appears that this may be the case, especially if you look at trends within an industry that followed the TV model but didn't require the same levels of connectivity – e.g. Music. When the CD player was introduced 25 years ago did we ever think that the technology would be obsolete before 2010? Did the music industry have the foresight to recognise that music in digital form would eventually be downloadable from the Internet? The answer to both of these was 'no', and look at the results. The entire music industry is under threat, and singles are making it to #1 in the charts with no retail sales whatsoever. The difference? Well, if I had a song and wanted to let a million peolpe listen to it my choices were limited:

• Get a record deal
• Blag or buy some radio air play
• Busk on the streets

Now all I have to do is record it in my bedroom, upload it to the Internet and build some viral interest. The problem for the record companies is that they no longer need to be involved in this process, as I can listen to unsigned bands on numerous web radio stations. The battles are yet to be fought, but the war already appears to be won.

Television is also in decline, with recent research showing that young adults today are spending more time on the Internet than they are watching TV, and the use of books, magazines and newspapers is also in decline. Look at any modern LCD or plasma TV and compare it to your computer monitor. You'll see very little difference other than size and I can use my TV as a PC monitor if I need to, so how long will it be before I stop using my TV to watch 'broadcast' programs and start to watch live streamed programs from the Internet that I have chosen to watch?

I can't answer that question, but if my business was TV manufacturing I'd be getting worried about now!

So, once bandwidth isn't an issue, the TV is dead and the Internet has conquered all, what then?

Maybe that's the question we should be asking. What will we use it for? How will we use it? Why will we use it?

What do you think? Leave me a comment below and let me know.