Internet Possibilities

Google will have been broken up into at least two companies.

Google will no longer have advertising under its roof.

The Internet will be the model for urban development in the way the automobile was last century.

Shopping will be done in Internet Kiosks that are keyed to specific industries and retailers.

A person will be able to order on the basis of a guided tour conducted by a real person but with all elements of the transaction handled remotely.

Online will be the default means of all transactions and banks and other on the ground enterprises including health and education will join the march to kiosk commerce.

The internet will enable the creation of new cyber cities and cyber neighborhoods which will be high tech in concept and eco-block savvy.

Pedestrian (walkable) communities will have become the fashion.

While established and older cities will remain and flourish, the developments of the last fifty years or so will atrophy and eventually be replaced by new cyber cities, cyber regions, and neighborhoods adapted and transformed.

This will influence housing and jobs and education.

Within five years the university will be on its last legs as a stand alone institution. It will use its resources to create distance learning opportunities globally and tie them to new forms of schooling based on new means of accreditation, learning and gathering.

Religious and other on the ground institutions will morph into smaller elements within viable cyber communities.

In essence the Internet in five years will have begun to reshape not merely such things as virtual and print media but the actual infrastructure and shape of housing, neighborhood and community.

This is merely a sampling of what one might fantasize regarding the near-term future.

Internet Possibilities