The Digital Theory Of Evolution

Close your eyes for a second. And think back. Back around 10 years ago, and where the web and the internet was at. You remember it don't you? It was early 2000, a new decade, indeed millenium had dawned and the Y2K bug had just bitten.

What a non event that turned out to be.

Remember what was happening back then - Yahoo and Hotmail were dominant, Google didnt really impact on the global stage at that time, and social media was restricted to boring discussion boards. Compared to today it was pretty shallow, but still impressing the world enough to indicate that something special was sweeping the globe and changing our lives forever.

But as the noughties unfolded, the notion of online both expanded and morphed into something far more intrinsically valuable and embedded in our daily lives than we would ever imagine. But its been because of some things that slightly different to what was expected.

• eCommerce was predicted to skyrocket, inverse to the demise of retail and printed books. That didn't occur (perhaps its about too?). eCommerce is only now starting to make large strides.
•  A global village of clones and like minded individuals would spring up everyhere. That didn't occur. The internet allowed people with any interest, commonality and idea to cluster together in small niche groups, rather than large homogenous blobs of online zombies.
• And Microsoft was supposed to make the most of a $40bn warchest and take over the world. Some may argue this is probably still real, or even has occurred. But recent activity between Apple and Microsoft, whilst unthinkable 5 years ago, now almost has to occur to stave off the Google freight train.

Nowadays, being online means something totally different. Those with an iPhone obsessive behaviour disorder like me will know its about plugging in. Its about connecting.

Lets have a look at the realm of online over a 10 year period. This won't be a recap of Web 1 or Web 2.0.

5 years ago
2005 saw the dominance of Google become apparent, but also saw the birth and rapid rise of YouTube and the use of video as not only a formal and scripted online communication tool, but as a person to person informal and impromptu communication tool. Broadband costs lowered, as access to richer content (think those mega flashsites we all loved, like 2advanced)

2 years ago
YouTube was priming, Twitter was launching, Facebook was going strong, as MySpace peaked. The iPhone launched, and in my opinion changed everything. But some of the prevailing ideas that made the web from the start still existed. Web 2.0 was kicking off, and so was the power of data.

Now
Social media is in full vogue as the preferred method to understand products and services. The web must now work in many formats, in lighter ways than before. I'm still not happy with broadband costs though ... but the time really is now to launch dedicated online businesses.

2 years from now
People are predicting touchscreen technology will become the norm, but there will still be back end system and data challenges that will halt the possibility of ALL your life really being in your (iPad holding) hands.

5 years from now
The internet of things will be in full effect, and the line between digital and real will be hard to determine, more so on a small detail level where asking a question is done virtually more than physically.

THE DIGITAL THEORY OF EVOLUTION

So here is my new Digital Theory Of Evolution. Each heading has of course a definition, but also an analogy to human evolution itself, as I believe we approach technology from a similar angle.

Hardware - our physical body and development
Ancient mainframe computers were the birthplace of computing science itself, and pioneers like IBM created processors the sizes of small cars. As time went on, even banks got them in to process transactions as their businesses grew beyond scale.

Software - our mental and intellectual ability to create and build
Now that the hardware was at a reasonable size and capability, it become the software that was the battle ground. Apple and Microsoft in the early 80s set the trend here, as well as particular software tools for security and games.

Data - our ability to create measurement and math out of what we build

Data combined with other data to create insight. Think finance and market data mixed with geographical, political data to create predictions of economic performance

Content - our distinct unique gift of culture, of artistic expression, of opinion
This information was then packaged as content in a browsable experience. Brochure sites and content became the trend, but this soon became less relevant for the medium than offline . Google also became the single access point for content, often stripping away the carefully prepared package that was web design.

Connectivity - our civilisation, democracy and ability to govern as a group
The internet simply became the string between the cans that were the computers, and create shared, hosted files of information. The power of shared content and data created again more insight and expertise, more global context.

Conversation - shared and discussed on a global scale, leading to ideas and innovation
Then the large online players realised that the users had something to say, and in that there would be benefit for everyone. So, more than simply comments and forums, entire online offerings sprang up simply to facilitate conversations.

This is the real breakthrough of the web and online space. After we take the technology for granted, the real benefit of connecting computers together becomes apparent - it connects people, their conversations, their lives and their ideas.

Being online in 2000 meant you accessed a dataset hosted on servers and packaged in browsers.

Being online in 2020 might mean being plugged into the network, accessing cloud data through multiple devices.

Same, but different.

Same because we're using the same infrastructure paradigm.

Different because of who is controlling the direction and change of that paradigm.