Imagining the Internet

Today's New York Times reports that "Last September, the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a research organization in Washington, sent out a survey asking 24 questions about the future of the Internet to a wide range of technology specialists, scholars and industry leaders." Some 1,200 responded and the results of that survey, along with 4000 predictions made during the "dawn of the Internet era" (1990-95), are available as a database developed jointly by Pew and Elon University called "Imagining the Internet: Predictions Database".

The survey results solidly confirm what media watchers may already know (and perhaps fear): that the Internet and the rise of the blogger are expected to drive greater change in the news media and publishing industries than in any other sector of society. Internet specialists also expect broad changes in education and working life, and 50 percent of respondents say they believe - despite all of the lawsuits filed by the recording and movie industries against online pirates - that the vast majority of Internet users will still be freely trading digital materials via anonymous networks by 2014.

Posted by Tom on January 10, 2005