Why are we here?

So, I guess by now you’ve heard of the World Wide Web.  Duh!  Of course you have.  But have you ever stopped to really think about it?  If you’re under the age of 30 today, you have a hard time remembering / imagining the world without it.  If you’re over the age of 50, there’s a significant chance it’s a mystery to you.  And if you’re in-between – where I and many of you are – then you’re in the phase of adjustment … still.

As the Internet has grown bigger and the world has grown smaller, our lives have changed.  Tool after glorious tool has been created to help meet the needs of our changing lives, in light of the technology that – to a large degree – is responsible for the changes.  This blog is about a new one of those tools.  But I’ll get to that.  Before I do, let’s talk background and introduction … and context (you’ll hear me use that word a lot).

If you want to dig in deep to where the Internet or the web came from, how they work, who the big players were, etc, then check out the Wikipedia.  Couple articles in particular – one on the world wide web and one on the Internet.  Both are fantastic articles, with a zillion links to more good info.  So, that’s not my focus.

Instead, let’s talk dreams of the future.  What do we need to make the Internet all it can be as we become more and more dependent on it?  What do we need from technology to continue to make our lives easier, and to keep us from getting swallowed up in the noise of more data and less world to fit the data into?  Couple hints…  Information and wisdom are not the same thing.  Terabytes and petabytes don’t create knowledge.  Sometimes less really is more.

… and hopefully I’ve peeked your curiosity enough with goofy clichés to keep you coming back for more.

Technorati tags: world wide web, internet, wikipedia, information, communication