Locative and mapping marvels of the web
Ten years after Netscape's stock debut, great review of Internet's history, present and future at Wired: We are the Web by Kevin Kelly. Inspiring, truly, for those working around the net.
One remarkable thing. In the present stage of Internet, as Kelly depicts the 2005 scene, the most outstanding phenomenon in his eyes is blogging. But, then, he remarks several mapping and locative marvels of the web. That's encouraging, as we are so busy with Tagzania right now. Extracts from the article:
- Today, at any Net terminal, you can get: an amazing variety of music and video, an evolving encyclopedia, weather forecasts, help wanted ads, satellite images of anyplace on Earth, up-to-the-minute news from around the globe, tax forms, TV guides, road maps with driving directions, real-time stock quotes, telephone numbers, real estate listings with virtual walk-throughs, pictures of just about anything, sports scores, places to buy almost anything, records of political contributions, library catalogs, appliance manuals, live traffic reports, archives to major newspapers - all wrapped up in an interactive index that really works.
- This view is spookily godlike. You can switch your gaze of a spot in the world from map to satellite to 3-D just by clicking.
- Cartography has gone from spectator art to participatory democracy.
The Netscape stock debut 10 years ago seems to mark the beggining of the net as an economic fact. The newspaper Le Monde also devoted a special report this august to that fact. Bought it while vacationing around. The last quotation of the report, by a Yale professor, Yochai Benkler, specialized in the net economy: Le rôle economique du comportament social devient plus important...