The Next Internet - Part 1 - Introduction

Mark Cuban [Disclaimer: To paraphrase the sentiments of my French friend, "I love this guy." Just see the picture to the left.] is constantly informing us on his blog that the internet is dead. He did so most recently on February 10th with his post titled, " The Internet is Officially Dead & Boring." He argued it most eloquently in a post on Aug 24th 2007, in which he concluded:

"So, let me repeat, The days of the Internet creating explosively exciting ideas are dead for the foreseeable future. The Internet is boring. That is not a bad thing. In fact its easy to make the argument that its a great thing. That it has become the utility that the people who worked to get it started firmly believed it would. That it finally is the platform for any number of mundane applications that are easy to write and that anyone can use and trust."

He also makes sure that people will not misconstrue the implications of his statement when he states, "Just as a reminder to some, Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, etc are not the Internet. They are software applications that run on the Internet. Just like MicroSoft Excel is a software application that runs on MicroSoft and Apple operating systems." To summarize his idea: the changes are occurring on the Internet, not to the Internet.

I happen to agree with Mark in terms of the Internet of today. I even somewhat agree with what he thinks is the greatest barrier to innovation when he writes, " The days of the Internet creating explosively exciting ideas are dead. They are dead until bandwidth throughput to the home reaches far higher numbers than the vast majority of broadband users get today." He sees it as a bandwidth issue, and that it certainly is. But it is also about so much more.

The factors that are going to drive the next wave of innovation are already being shaped. When we talk about innovation we often hear the words "wave", "period", or "burst" being used and that is no coincidence. Most great inventions will seemingly stagnate for a period of time from their original "burst." They follow a pattern often seen in nature referred to as a J-Curve. Others describe this effect using analogies from the ideas of entropy and chaos in physics. What they are all getting at is that the period of stagnation is merely an illusion. It is Taleb's black-box of history.

In reality, these are periods of nascent ideas and disjointed innovation. The building blocks for the next wave are being shaped, often by companies unaware of each other, and probably unaware of the impact they will have. Startups are experimenting and learning from every failure. The success of one factor (could be a few simultaneously, as it often is) is that final straw with the disproportionate effect, whether it be a successful innovation, government policy, or cultural shift.

It will be precisely the next step that another 5 companies were unknowingly waiting for to become viable. A chain effect is unleashed. Suddenly, innovators in completely unrelated fields, realize, that the landscape shift they needed has come from where they least expected. The next "wave" is unleashed. It too will stabilize 5-10 years out. But, as long as there are smart people, an entrepreneurial spirit, and fair reward for one's work, Innovation never stops.

[A great example of this innovation process is evidenced by the experience of the Human Genome Project, which saw rapid achievements at the tail-end after a long period of stagnation. It is important to realize that failures, if studied, are truly incremental learnings; after a certain critical point, they can be pieced together to achieve seemingly sudden bursts of greatness.]

I will outline what I see as the Internet 2.0 (as opposed to Web2.0, which Cuban sees as a stable application platform on the Internet), what confluence of factors will get us there, and how a more proper term might be The Next Internet, as it will be less of an upgrade and more of a technological revolution in its own right. [I will not be foolish enough to offer a time line]