When people think about CERN, they generally think about nuclear research, the Large Hadron Collider, and other physics research.
But, CERN was also where Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. In March of 1989, he published “Information Management: A Proposal,” which outlined his vision for what would soon become the World Wide Web.
CERN also had the first website ever to exist. Luckily, they kept the site up and will let you view it in the old-school line mode.
Think how much that one invention has had on the world.
Information Gathering
I remember being in law school, going to the library and scanning through microfiche (or actual books) to study or do research.
I remember reading encyclopedias (and photocopying relevant articles).
I remember paying for newsletters that were mailed to me (or paying extra for fax delivery).
Having access to more data or faster delivery was a huge advantage.
Today, you have all the information you could ever ask for at the tip of your fingers ... Google and Wikipedia are just the tip of the iceberg.
There is almost too much information now. It is hard to separate the signal from the noise. It seems like anyone can find justification for almost anything. The result is lots of data, but too little knowledge.
Part of what is needed is a way to help people make better decisions about what to trust, what it means, and what to use.
Social Interaction
People record every moment, every intimate detail of their lives online, contrasted by a fear of strangers and letting children roam.
While riding around the neighborhood on your bike to see if your friends could come out to play is by no means outlawed - it does seem passé.
Chat rooms, Facebook, Online multi-player ... many people's key friendships are born and kept online.
I remember my son, 13 years old at the time, sending 10,000+ texts a month and thinking it was a phase. I was wrong.
The internet has radically changed the structure of relationships - for better ... or often worse.
Privacy ( ... or the lack of it)
One of the most significant changes is that we (as individuals) have become productized. We take advantage of all these free resources at the cost of being pixeled and cookied into oblivion. We've chosen convenience over safety.
Remember, if you’re not paying for a product - you are the product.
Little bits of our private information, demographics, and psychographics are sold to advertisers to create smarter ads and new offers; and, realistically, we have very little control over that.
It’s been proven time and time again that giants like Google and Facebook will find ways to sneak your data to advertisers even when it’s “illegal” with a slap on the wrist.
Data protection is a massive issue not only for corporations but for individuals. While many companies are trying to manage your privacy while still monetizing your data, there are just as many companies who couldn’t care less.
The GPDR - while frustrating for many - is a step towards protecting individuals.
For every action, there is a reaction. Likewise, every benefit has a cost. The internet is a fantastic tool - but it can also be a scary weapon.
What will the next 30 years hold for the Internet?
"The Internet will disappear. There will be so many IP addresses, so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with, that you won't even sense it. It will be part of your presence all the time. Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room." — Eric Schmidt
It has been ~30 years since the Internet's inception, and there's still radical growth coming.
We’ve gone from bit speeds to megabyte speeds (and if you're lucky, even gigabyte speeds). We’ve gone from crappy-quality video taking hours to download to streaming HD-quality video live.
The Internet is both timeless and timely in an interesting way. While what's popular changes seemingly instantly, and what we're capable of doing on it continues to grow exponentially. Ultimately, the Internet is the digital town square of a global village, where all types and professions gather.
In 2011, I first wrote about what happens in 60 seconds on the Internet.
Each time I write the article, I'm in awe at the amount of data we create and how much it has grown. For example, looking back to 2011, I was amazed that users created 600+ new videos and 60 new blog posts each minute. Those numbers seem quaint today.
Shortly after I started sharing the articles, Data Never Sleeps started standardizing the data, which is helpful.
Today, the Internet reaches 5.4 billion people. Most of them also use social media.
To add some more perspective,
In 2008, 1.4 billion people were online; in 2015, we were at 3 billion. Now, that number has almost doubled again.
In 2008, Facebook only had 80 million users, and Twitter (now X) had 2 million users.
In 2008, there were 250 million smartphones, and now there are almost 7 billion of them!
It is mind-blowing to consider what happens each minute on the Internet today. For example, the 104,000 hours spent on Zoom represents a significant societal shift ... and the over 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube highlights the incredible amount of content that's being created to share.
In 2023, the world created approximately 120 zettabytes of data ... which breaks down to approximately 337,000 petabytes of data a day. Broken down even further, it calculates to more than 15 Terabytes of new data created per person.
The calculations about what happens in an Internet minute will change rapidly again because of AI. Consider the amount of computing power and data it takes to power all of these new GPTs. Now, imagine the amount of new data that AI is creating. Then, try to imagine the challenge we'll have figuring out what's real, what's made up, and what is simply wrong or intentionally misleading.
In addition, as more devices and digital WHOs start creating and sharing data, it's hard to fathom the ramifications and sheer increase in data.
I'm curious about what the next five years have in store for us as we approach the 40th anniversary of the World Wide Web.
My adult son took me to a Pixar movie and Dallas' version of NY Deli today for Father's Day.
Pixar movies never cease to amaze me. Whether you're a child, a teenager, or an adult, there's always something to enjoy and take away from them.
I especially enjoyed watching it next to my 31-year-old son and noticing that he responded emotionally to the same scenes I did. On one hand, it felt good to see what he processed and how he internalized things similar to the way I do. On the other hand, I thought, genetics is a bitch.
Jokes aside, having great kids is a double blessing. It's nice to be proud of who your kids are and the things they do. It's also nice to feel proud of the small part you played in helping them become who they are.
In addition, this weekend, I spent some time thinking about my father and what a terrific influence he had on so many lives.
My Dad was incredibly loving ... yet he was also incredibly demanding.
For example, after winning the State Championship in the shot put, I watched him run down from the stands. I figured he was coming down to celebrate. Instead, he looked deeply into my eyes and asked whether I was disappointed that I did not throw a personal best that day? I replied: "But Dad, I won." He smiled and recognized that winning was important too ... then he reminded me that the other throwers were not my real competition. To be and do your best, the competition is really with yourself ... and we both knew I could do better.
My Dad believed in setting high standards. He explained that most people's lives are defined by their minimum standards. Why? Because once those standards get met, it is easy to get distracted by other things and how to meet the minimum standards for them as well.
The point is to set a higher standard and to have a better life.
Here is another one of his favorite sayings. "The difference between good and great is infinitesimal." This applies to many things. For example, people who are good take advantage of opportunities; people who are great create them.
Here is something else worth sharing. "It's not over until we win!" This concept underscores the importance of resilience, commitment, and grit. My Dad emphasized that many people quit when they're on the brink of victory, simply because they don't realize how close they are.
This has led me to develop several practices. For example, if I pick up a book, I won't put it down until I finish a chapter. If I start a game, I can't stop until I exceed a specific score or level. And when I exercise, there's no way I'd ever stop before finishing a set.
Integrating these concepts involves aligning your head, heart, and feet. What I mean is that it's one thing to know the saying. It's another to make it a value or belief. And it's another thing altogether to make it a practice.
Well, that should explain a little of my dysfunction ... but, if you can't mess up your own kids, whose kids can you mess up?
My mother watches the news religiously. To her credit, she watches a variety of sources and creates her own takeaways based on them. Regardless, there's a common theme in all the sources she watched – they focus on fear or shock-inducing stories with a negative bias. As you might guess, I hear it when I talk with her.
While I value being informed, I also value things that nourish or make you stronger (as opposed to things that make you weak or less hopeful).
Negativity Sells.
Sure, news sources throw in the occasional feel-good story as a pattern interrupt ... but their focus skews negative. History shows that stories about improvement or the things that work simply don't grab eyeballs, attention, or ratings as consistently as negativity-focused stories do.
The reality is that negativity sells. If everything were great all the time, people wouldn't need to buy as many products, they wouldn't need to watch the news, and this cycle wouldn't continue.
It's worth acknowledging and understanding the perils our society is facing, but it's also worth focusing on the ways humanity is expanding and improving.
As a brief respite from the seemingly unending stream of doom and gloom, Information Is Beautiful has a section focused on "Beautiful News". It's a collection of visualizations highlighting positive trends, uplifting statistics, and creative solutions. It's updated daily and can be sorted by topic. I suggest you check it out.
Small distinctions separate wise men from fools ... Perhaps most important among them is what the wise man deems consequential.
This post discusses Socrates' Triple Filter Test, which involves checking information for truth, goodness, and usefulness. It also explores how this concept applies to decision-making in business and life by focusing on important information and filtering out the rest. The key to making better choices and staying focused is to avoid damaging or irrelevant information.
Socrates' Triple Filter
In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, "Do you know what I just heard about your friend?"
"Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. "Before telling me anything, I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."
"Triple filter?"
"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to say. That's why I call it the triple filter test.
The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"
"No," the man said, "Actually I just heard about it and…"
"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?"
"No, on the contrary…"
"So," Socrates continued, "You want to tell me something bad about him, but you're not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though, because there's one filter left. The third filter is Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?"
"No, not really."
"Well," concluded Socrates, "If what you want to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor even useful … then why tell it to me at all?"
With all the divisiveness in both media and in our everyday conversations with friends, family, and strangers ... this is a good filter for what you say, what you post, and even how you evaluate markets, the economy, or a business opportunity.
How Does That Apply to Me or Trading?
The concept of Socrates' Triple Filter applies to markets as well.
When I was a technical trader, rather than looking at fundamental data and scouring the news daily, I focused on developing dynamic and adaptive systems and processes to look at the universe of trading algorithms to identify which were in phase and likely to perform well in the current market environment.
That focus has become more concentrated as we've transitioned to using advanced mathematics and AI to understand markets.
Filter Out What Isn't Good For You.
In contrast, there are too many ways that the media (meaning the techniques, graphics, music, etc.), the people reporting it, and even the news itself appeal to the fear and greed of human nature.
Likewise, I don't watch the news on TV anymore. It seems like story after story is about terrible things. For example, during a recent visit with my mother, I listened to her watch the news. There was a constant stream of "oh no," or "oh my," and "that's terrible". You don't even have to watch the news to know what it says.
These concepts also apply to what you feed your algorithms. Garbage in, garbage out. Just because you can plug in more data doesn't mean that data will add value. Deciding what "not to do" and "what not to listen to" is equally as important as deciding what to do.
Artificial intelligence is exciting, but artificial stupidity is terrifying.
What's The Purpose of News for You?
My purpose changes what I'm looking for and how much attention I pay to different types of information. Am I reading or watching the news for entertainment, to learn something new, or to find something relevant and actionable?
One of my favorite activities is looking for new insights and interesting articles to share with you and my team. If you aren't getting my weekly reading list on Fridays - you're missing out. You can sign up here.
By the way, I recently found a site, Ground News, that makes it easy to compare news sources, read between the lines of media bias, and break free from the blinders the algorithms put on what we see. I'd love to hear about tools or sites you think are worth sharing.
Getting back to Socrates' three filters and business, I often ask myself: is it important, does it affect our edge, or can I use it as a catalyst for getting what we want?
There's a lot of noise out there competing for your attention. Stay focused.
If you're interested in AI and its impact on business, life, and our world, I encourage you to check out some of my past podcast interviews.
As I work on finishing my book, "Compounding Insights: Turning Thoughts into Things in the Age of AI," I've revisited several old episodes, and some are certainly worth sharing. I've collected a few here for you to listen to. Let me know what you think.
In 2021, I recorded two interviews that I especially enjoyed. The first was done with Dan Sullivan and Steven Krein for Strategic Coach's Free Zone Frontier podcast... and the second was with Brett Kaufman on his Gravity podcast.
Please listen to them. They were pretty different, but both were well done and interesting.
Free Zone Frontier with Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein
Free Zone Frontier is a Strategic Coach program (and podcast) about creating "Free Zones." It refers to the green space where entrepreneurs collaborate and create without competition.
It's a transformative idea for entrepreneurial growth.
This episode focused on topics like building a bigger future, how decision-making frameworks and technology can extend your edge, and what it takes to get to the next level. I realize there is a lot of Strategic Coach jargon in this episode. However, it is still easy to understand, and there was great energy and an elevated conversation about worthy topics.
As an aside, Steve Krein is my cousin, and we joined Strategic Coach entirely separately before realizing we had joined the same group.
Usually, I talk about business, mental models, and the future of AI and technology, but Brett Kaufman brought something different out of me.
Brett's Gravity Project is about living with intention, community, consciousness, and connection. He focuses on getting people to share their life experiences ... with the intent that others can see themselves in your story.
In my talk with Brett, we do talk about the entrepreneurial journey ... but we also probe some deep insights by discussing the death of my younger brother, how my life changed almost immediately upon meeting my wife, and why love is the most powerful and base energy in the universe.
This was not a typical conversation for me (a different ratio of head-to-heart), but it was a good one (and I've had many people reach out because of this podcast). It was fun to revisit my childhood, from playing with a cash register at my grandfather's pharmacy to selling fireflies or sand-painting terrariums; it's funny how those small moments influenced my love for entrepreneurship.
Last year, I recorded two other podcasts that I'm excited to share ... It's interesting to see the change in topic and focus - but how much is still the same (timeless).
Clarity Generates Confidence With Gary Mottershead
I talked with Gary about intentionality, learning from the past, and how AI adoption is more about human nature than technology ... and more.
On the surface, this episode may seem like just another conversation about AI, but I value the diverse insights, points of emphasis, and perspectives that different hosts illuminate.
In talking with Scott, we dove deeper into emotional alchemy, self-identity, and how to move toward what you want in life - instead of away from what you don't want.
New York and Hawaii top the list with 12% and 11.8% respectively. Alaska ends the list with 4.9%, followed by New Hampshire with 5.6%.
Alaskans don't pay state income tax, but neither do Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, or Wyoming. So, if you're trying to avoid taxes, they all sound like better bets.
New Hampshire still has a better state tax burden than any of them despite its 4% flat tax on interest and dividend income.
If you don't like paying taxes (and don't mind the cold), then Alaska might be worth the winters?
Meanwhile, we hear a lot about the exodus from California, but not from New York or Maine. Maybe it's the people ... or maybe it's their Governor?
A few years ago, I shared a presentation called Mindset Matters that I had given to a small mastermind group.
This past week, I revisited that content in a different group.
One of my core beliefs is that energy is one of the most important things we can measure. I believe it so strongly I paid Gaping Void to put it on my wall.
It means exactly what it sounds like - but also a lot more.
Energy affects how you feel, what you do, and what you make it mean. That means it is a great way to measure your values too. Consequently, even if you don’t recognize it, energy has a lot to do with who you hire and fire. It affects where you spend your time. Ultimately, it even affects the long-term vision of our company. If something brings profit and energy, it is probably worth pursuing.
In contrast, fighting your energy is one of the quickest ways to burn out. Figuring out who and what to say “no” to is a crucial part of making sure you stay on the path and reach your goals.
I believe that words have power. Specifically, the words you use to describe your identity and your priorities change your reality.
First, some background. Your Roles and Goals are nouns. That means “a person, place, or thing.” Let's examine some sample roles (like father, entrepreneur, visionary, etc.) and goals (like amplified intelligence, autonomous platform, and sustainable edge). As expected, they are all nouns.
Next, we’ll examine your default strategies. You use these in order to create or be the things you want. The strategies you use are verbs. That means they define an action you take. Action words include: connect, communicate, contribute, collaborate, protect, serve, evaluate, curate, share … and love. On the other end of the spectrum, you could complain, retreat, blame, or block.
People have habitual strategies. I often say happy people find ways to be happy – while frustrated people find ways to be frustrated. This is true for many things.
Seen a different way, people expect and trust that you will act according to how they perceive you.
Meanwhile, you are the most important perceiver.
Another distinction worth making is that the nouns and verbs we use range from timely to timeless. Timely words relate to what you are doing now. Timeless words are chunked higher and relate to what you have done, what you are doing, and what you will do.
The trick is to chunk high enough that you are focused on words that link your timeless Roles, Goals, and Strategies. When done right, you know that these are a part of what makes you … “You”.
My favorite way to do this is through three-word strategies.
These work for your business, priorities, identity, and more.
I’ll introduce the idea to you by sharing my own to start.
Understand. Challenge. Transform.
The actual words are less important than what they mean to me.
What’s also important is that not only do these words mean something to me, but I’ve put them in a specific order, and I’ve made these words “commands” in my life. They’re specific, measurable, and actionable. They remind me what to do. They give me direction. And, together, they are a strategy (or process) that creates a reliable result.
First, I understand, because I want to make sure I consider the big picture and the possible paths from where I am to the bigger future possibility that I want. Then, I challenge situations, people, norms, and more. I don’t challenge to tear down. I challenge to find strengths … to figure out what to trust and rely upon. Finally, I transform things to make them better. Insanity is doing what you always do and expecting a different result. This is about finding where small shifts create massive consequences. It is about committing to the result rather than how we have done things till now.
If I challenged before I knew the situation, or I tried to transform something without properly doing my research, I’d risk causing more damage than good.
Likewise, imagine the life of someone who protects, serves, and loves. Compare that to the life of someone who loves, serves, and protects. The order matters!
There is an art and a science to it. But it starts by taking the first step. Try to find your three words.
I’ve set daily alarms on my phone to remind me of these words. I use them when I’m in meetings, and they’re used to evaluate whether I’m showing up as my best self.
You can also create three words that are different for the different hats you wear, the products in your business, or how your team collaborates.
Like recipes, your words should have ingredients, orders, and intensities. As you use your words more, the intensities might change. For example, when my son was just getting out of college, one of his words was contented because he was focused on all the things he missed from college - instead of being appreciative of the things he had. Later, his words switched to grateful and then loving. Evolutions that paired with his personal journeys and represented stronger actions.
Realize that we create what we want by doing. As such, choose words that inform or spark the right actions. You can see that in my son’s words. As he grew, he became more comfortable actively prompting the actions he wanted to approach life with, instead of just passively hoping for a feeling.
You can apply these simple three-word strategies almost everywhere once you learn how to create them.
Population growth is an interesting measure. Historically, growth has been slow ... but something changed that, and the implications are stunning.
Scientists estimate that humans have existed for over 130,000 years.
It wasn’t until 1804 that the world’s population reached 1 billion. The population doubled once more by 1927, 123 years later, and then again by 1974, a mere 47 years later.
The Agricultural Revolution spurred early population growth. Subsequently, since 1804, the Industrial Revolution, alongside new technologies and advancements in health and safety, has dramatically enhanced the quality of life and accelerated population growth.
The global population continues to expand as more women are giving birth, despite the statistical trend of each woman having fewer children. Here is a chart showing that.
World population growth rates peaked in the late 1960s and have declined sharply in the past four decades. Nonetheless, world population figures continue to grow. We’re expected to reach 9 billion people by 2050, but a lot of that growth comes from developing countries—it also almost exclusively comes from urban areas.
Urbanization: Megacities
Here is another trend worth noting. Since 2014, over 50% of the world’s population has lived in urban areas – today it’s approximately 55%. That number is growing.
Ironically, as we grow more digitally connected, our world is shrinking, and our populations are concentrating.
An interesting consequence of this rapid urbanization and population growth in developing countries has been the increased development of Megacities – defined as cities with populations greater than 10 million. Today, there are 33 megacities – more than triple the number in the 1990s.
This creates a set of interesting opportunities and challenges. For example, how will these cities deal with infrastructure (e.g., sanitation, transportation, etc.)?
As information and money become increasingly decentralized, and it becomes easier and easier to trade and communicate globally, it’s interesting to see a centralization of the population.
This post considers the “Chart of the Century” created and named by Mark Perry, an economics professor and AEI scholar. This chart has received considerable attention because it contains extensive information about the challenges faced by the Fed and other Washington policymakers.
The most current version reports price increases from 1998 through the end of 2023 for 14 categories of goods and services, along with the average wage and overall Consumer Price Index.
It shows that prices of goods subject to foreign competition — think toys and television sets — have tumbled over the past two decades as trade barriers have come down worldwide. Meanwhile, the costs of so-called non-tradeable items — hospital stays and college tuition, to name two — have surged.
From January 1998 to now, the CPI for All Items has increased by over 90% (up from 59.6% in 2019, when I first shared this chart).
Lines above the overall inflation line have become functionally more expensive over time, and lines below the overall inflation line have become functionally less expensive.
At the beginning of 2020 (when I shared the 2019 post), food, beverages, and housing were in line with inflation. They’ve now skyrocketed above inflation, which helps to explain the unease many households are feeling right now. College tuition and hospital services have also continued to rise over the past few years—even in relation to inflation.
There are many ways to interpret this chart. You can point to items in red whose prices have exceeded inflation as government-regulated or quasi-monopolies. You can point to items in blue as daily commodities that have suffered from ubiquity, are subject to free-market forces, or are goods subject to foreign competition and trade wars.
Looking at the prices that decrease the most, they’re all technologies. New technologies almost always become less expensive as we optimize manufacturing, components become cheaper, and competition increases. From VisualCapitalist, at the turn of the century, a flat-screen TV would cost around 17% of the median income ($42,148). In the early aughts, though, prices began to fall quickly. Today, a new TV will cost less than 1% of the U.S. median income ($54,132).
Compare “tradable” goods like cell phones or TVs (with lots of competing products) to less tradable “goods” like hospital stays or college tuition, and unsurprisingly, they’ve gone in opposite directions. In 2020, I asked what the Coronavirus would do to prices, and the answer was less than expected. If you don’t look at the rise in inflation but instead the change in trajectories, very few categories were heavily affected. While hospital services have skyrocketed since 2019, they were already skyrocketing.
At this point, we’re pretty far removed from quarantine’s most extreme forces. Textbooks have come back down, as have childcare and medical care services. New cars and household furnishings have leveled out. Otherwise, the trajectories have been pretty unaffected.
We can look one step deeper if we consider average hourly income. Since 2000, overall inflation has increased by 82.4%, while average hourly income has increased by 114%. This means that hourly income increased 38% faster than prices (which indicates a 14.8% decrease in overall time prices). You get 17.3% more today for the same amount of time worked ~24 years ago.
It’s interesting to look at data like that, knowing that the average household is feeling a “crunch” right now. My guess is that few consumers distinguish between perception and reality. However, feeling a crunch isn’t necessarily the same as being in a crunch.
For instance, we must account for ‘quality of life creep,’ where people tend to splurge on luxuries as their standard of living improves. With the ease of online shopping and access to consumer credit, it’s become increasingly easy to indulge in impulse purchases, leading to reduced savings and feelings of financial scarcity. This phenomenon is a function of increased consumption (rather than inflation), yet it still leaves consumers feeling like they’re struggling to make ends meet.
Perry’s ‘Chart of the Century’ reveals the complex relationships between inflation, consumption, and economic growth. While households may feel financial strain, the data shows that income has outpaced inflation, and technology has made many goods more affordable. Nonetheless, our tendency to splurge on luxuries and increased consumption have contributed to a sense of financial struggle.
How can policymakers address the sectors experiencing significant price hikes, like healthcare and education, without stifling innovation in tradable goods and services?
How do you think these issues will impact the Election?
30+ Years Of The Internet ...
When people think about CERN, they generally think about nuclear research, the Large Hadron Collider, and other physics research.
But, CERN was also where Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. In March of 1989, he published “Information Management: A Proposal,” which outlined his vision for what would soon become the World Wide Web.
CERN also had the first website ever to exist. Luckily, they kept the site up and will let you view it in the old-school line mode.
It's been 35 years since the release of the World Wide Web (the Internet is said to have been invented six years earlier with the invention of TCP/IP).
Think how much that one invention has had on the world.
Information Gathering
I remember being in law school, going to the library and scanning through microfiche (or actual books) to study or do research.
I remember reading encyclopedias (and photocopying relevant articles).
I remember paying for newsletters that were mailed to me (or paying extra for fax delivery).
Having access to more data or faster delivery was a huge advantage.
Today, you have all the information you could ever ask for at the tip of your fingers ... Google and Wikipedia are just the tip of the iceberg.
There is almost too much information now. It is hard to separate the signal from the noise. It seems like anyone can find justification for almost anything. The result is lots of data, but too little knowledge.
Part of what is needed is a way to help people make better decisions about what to trust, what it means, and what to use.
Social Interaction
People record every moment, every intimate detail of their lives online, contrasted by a fear of strangers and letting children roam.
While riding around the neighborhood on your bike to see if your friends could come out to play is by no means outlawed - it does seem passé.
Chat rooms, Facebook, Online multi-player ... many people's key friendships are born and kept online.
I remember my son, 13 years old at the time, sending 10,000+ texts a month and thinking it was a phase. I was wrong.
The internet has radically changed the structure of relationships - for better ... or often worse.
Privacy ( ... or the lack of it)
One of the most significant changes is that we (as individuals) have become productized. We take advantage of all these free resources at the cost of being pixeled and cookied into oblivion. We've chosen convenience over safety.
Remember, if you’re not paying for a product - you are the product.
Little bits of our private information, demographics, and psychographics are sold to advertisers to create smarter ads and new offers; and, realistically, we have very little control over that.
It’s been proven time and time again that giants like Google and Facebook will find ways to sneak your data to advertisers even when it’s “illegal” with a slap on the wrist.
Data protection is a massive issue not only for corporations but for individuals. While many companies are trying to manage your privacy while still monetizing your data, there are just as many companies who couldn’t care less.
The GPDR - while frustrating for many - is a step towards protecting individuals.
For every action, there is a reaction. Likewise, every benefit has a cost. The internet is a fantastic tool - but it can also be a scary weapon.
What will the next 30 years hold for the Internet?
It has been ~30 years since the Internet's inception, and there's still radical growth coming.
We’ve gone from bit speeds to megabyte speeds (and if you're lucky, even gigabyte speeds). We’ve gone from crappy-quality video taking hours to download to streaming HD-quality video live.
How do you imagine that the Internet will evolve?
What influence do you think the Internet of Things will have?
It’s hard to foresee how innovation and regulation will change the internet, but it’s clear there will be change.
We live in exciting times!
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