Evangelists On The Information Highway
Alvin Toffler looks back at his forerunners, members of the Lunar Society, who foresaw the far reaching impact of the industrial revolution and met for discourses on its ramifications. The Lunar Society had a habit of meeting in Birmingham at nights of full moon, hence the name, since it was safer to walk back home in moonlight. The members included the inventor of the steam engine, James Watt, and other leaders of the industrial revolution. The gentry in London twisted their name to lunatics.
Two centuries later, the worlds digerati gathered at a power dinner, against the backdrop of sprouting applications of the information highway. The new elite adores serendipity. This was reflected in the diversity of intellectual attributes of those who assembled. Oracle Corporation chief Larry Ellison, David Kline of Wired, Marc Polat of General Magic, Michael Rothschild, an economist with the Bionomics Institute, Daniel Burstein, a political economist, Denise Caruso, New Media Analyst, Denise Luria, a psychologist and Alvin Toffler met to bounce ideas on the future as it might be shaped by the information highway. A common thread, however, is their disdain for Microsoft.
Today, people are much too pre-occupied grappling with an overflow of novel information technologies to be able to benefit from them. Even in a society as literate as America, more than one-third of adults are afraid of using the computer. Like going to a theater and having to watch the projector instead of the movie, sums up Brenda Laurel, a technology researcher. The accent of recent entrepreneurship is on turning information highway into an indispensable tool of the everyday life of people. Home shopping and video-on-demand are some of the first applications that do show promise.
The initial efforts at mass use of the information highway have floundered but the future course has certainly been charted. General Magic, among several other companies, has designed 3-dimensional software that helps ordinary consumers zip through the maze of records scattered in places unknown to them. Once the glitches in such software are fixed, software such as Windowss Program Manager will be a faint memory of a tormented past.
Acquisition or merger of entertainment companies with hardware IT companies is another sign of convergence that will pave the way for a popular medium. The recent acquisition of production companies in Hollywood such as Columbia Pictures by Sony by the Japanese were reviled by those who cherished them as the pillars of American culture. The author, however, sees in the long-term perspectives of Japanese companies a strength that will endure the tumult of convergence. Closer examination shows that the extravaganza of the American executives of Sony, drawing huge amounts as compensation without delivering matching results, was responsible for the debacle.
Information technology is clearly poised to reach the pinnacle of its achievement as it reaches out to a very wide audience. A battle among the telecom and cable companies is afoot. Despite their huge resources, the telecom companies cannot take the fleet-footed cable companies for granted. Indeed, telecom companies have been living in a regulated environment for so long that they have to undergo considerable restructuring before they can expect to succeed. Moreover, the deregulation of local telecommunications has meant that the AT&Ts of the world are collaborating with wireless companies to erode local monopolies. The winners of this churning in telecommunications, cable and entertainment can hardly be guessed.
However, the aggression of all these players will surely speed up the daunting goal of interactive television or personal computer as may be the case eventually.A ringside view of the digeratis discussions about the information highway
Road Warriors: Dreams and nightmares along the information highway Daniel Burstein and David Kline Penguin 466 pages