The evolution of the Internet

& it’s impact on print & other

media
Rohit Varma
M.Design (Visual Communication), Sem. 3 students
Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay
29.10.09
One of the pillars on which the
Internet rests is digital data.
 Being Digital*
Data => “bits”

Why digitize :
- data compression e.g. video
- error correction e.g TV, radio, telephone
- bits can be moved around & commingled =>
consumed differently

Fibre optics allows transfer @ Gigabits / sec

*From the book “Being Digital” ,Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab, 1995
 Being Digital : Implications
Geography does not matter
Data can be stored, time does not matter
High volume bits => power shifts to the
user
High volume bits => User Interface will
have to evolve
Concerns : Piracy, privacy, data theft,
digital vandalism…
Internet : a history
By means of electricity, the world of matter
has become a great nerve, vibrating
thousands of miles in a breathless point of
time ... The round globe is a vast ... brain,
instinct with intelligence!"
 The Sputnik, 1957

The surprise launch of Sputnik by Russia caused President Eisenhower to launch the
Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, that gave rise to the Internet
Internet : An outcome of military
and scientific research
Defence needs : ARPANET, to withstand
enemy missile attacks, 1960s
Science research lab CERN
- Internet protocols : TCP/IP ‘83-’84,
- First Web servers and client m/c, ‘90
- WWW invented to exchange papers with
scientists of other labs, ’91
Internet sector in India privatized ‘98
 Three things needed to get
Internet going.. Access, devices,
content
 Access
Over 1.6 billion* Net (PC access) users
worldwide
India has 50 million^ users
Broadband penetration & speeds going up
Access via mobile going up : is the future
of Internet access

* Internetworldstats.com
^ my estimate, conservative
 Devices
Servers, PCs, laptops, netbooks,
smartphones, iPhones, mobile phones,
tablet PCs, thin-client PCs, gaming
consoles,..
 Content
230 million* + websites worldwide
What’s hot items : Video, Social media,
Search
Indian languages use has not grown
Worldwide, language growth is forecast

* Netcraft, Sep ‘09

Some industries impacted by the Net

Advertising, auctions, auto, banking, bill

payments, classifieds, DVD rental,
education, financial services, gaming,
governance, jobs, libraries, matrimonial,
music, news, photography, politics, real
estate, retail, shopping, stock trading,
telephony, travel, ticketing..

Q. : Which got impacted first & why ?

 Some reasons why
Where there is a high direct sales cost
e.g. encyclopaedia
Where cost of physical distribution high
e.g. newspapers, music, tickets
Where the cost of information is high
e.g. health care (U.S.)
What do people use the Internet for ?
Communication
Information
Commerce
Entertainment

Q. : Which two uses dominate ?

 The 3 Cs of the Internet

Content => Community => Commerce

One leads to the other

 Why is the Internet important ?
It has both reach and richness
Reach :
Already reaches ~ 2 billion people
Richness :
A combination of
- bandwidth
- interactivity
- customization / personalization
This has profound implications..
Which applications are more in
use in India, the U.S. & China &
why ?
 Useful things every working
professional should know
(about the Internet)
How do people ‘consume’
Internet content (vis-à-vis other media) ?

What is ‘the long tail’ ?

What is (the big deal about) Web 2.0 ?

What does it cost to be present

on the web ?
Internet’s impact on print and
other media
U.S. newspaper circulation

Q. Why did
circulation
decline ?
How are these media evolving ?
Newspapers
Encyclopaedia
Music
Movies
Graphic Design !
Printing
 How are books evolving !
Amazon.com
Digital libraries
Google Book Search
Mobile learning
Flexbooks (a.k.a. transbooks)
e-Readers
 The Kindle (in
India this
Nov.)
Sure looks
good !
 Q&A

Rohit Varma
http://marketerskaleidoscope.com
http://twitter.com/rohitvarma