The Times They Are A-Changin’

Posted by Andrew_Cox

Think about what isn’t on the internet right now, any type of service. We are heading for a time when, even if something doesn’t seem like it will have a web presence, it will. Eventually, newspapers and magazines will terminate their paper versions and redirect their efforts to bolstering their online presence. It will be cheaper for these companies, and they will be more nimble and interactive. Instead of simply reading an article on any given topic, a reader will be able to see pictures, videos, and read about other people’s experiences along with the main article. It just makes too much sense in terms of reducing costs on materials, production, and transportation. With better technologies emerging everyday such as the Kindle for electronic reading, there will no doubt come a time when even books cease to be made through standard methods.

There will always be purists who claim that we are destroying tradition or precedent. But I look at it more as a form of evolution. More and more people will reach this conclusion once it’s no longer economically, environmentally, or even socially feasible to remain in the past, keeping our eyes closed to progress. Some people have already started to raise complaints about the information overload in our culture, recently citing the rising popularity of services such as Twitter or the destruction of our language and punctuation through texting. Some question the vanity of users on Twitter who feel the need to constantly express how they feel or what they are doing. But the user chooses the amount of connectivity they receive, plus constantly changing your status is only one of many ways a service like Twitter can be used.

Different niches, ideas, slants, organizations, political groups and anything else can maintain a centralized base to express and teach about their cultures and ideas online. No one has to remain at a certain site or even hear a viewpoint they don’t share when it’s one mouse click to leave a site (which is a problem in its own right). With the explosion of new information generated everyday and the almost exponential growth of the internet, the future of information services won’t lie in creating even more information, but in the categorization and classification of the highest quality and most relevant information so people won’t waste their time on erroneous searches. Depending upon how one judges the use of their time, the faster services and products become, the better it is for the individual. If I can save ten minutes from performing one task, then I have added an additional ten minutes to my life which I can choose to spend on something else. The internet has helped immensely in creating that sense of speed which has become engrained in the younger generations. I agree that part of our instantaneous culture is creating problems such as attentiveness in teaching children but we will circumvent these obstacles with new ideas and new growth. Perhaps that is the greatest contribution of the internet thus far: it has allowed for the creation and execution of almost any type of activity or business easily and cheaply. Was anyone talking about podcasting, blogging, or vlogging ten years ago? What will we be talking about ten years from now?

In the current social and business climate, we are experiencing a reset of not only job positions but our understanding of how business is conducted. To remain competitive, companies must look use all the tools available at their disposal and for cost reductions and increased functionality and connectivity, the web represents the future. Why pay millions for a radio or television add when you can specifically target your audience for free where they already congregate online? Rather than attack their competitors for trying to act trendy, companies should try harder to understand long term trends and embrace them rather than ignore what they don’t understand.