Online All The Time

In my lifetime of communicating with a computer, I have lived and been a part of several paradigms of online communcations. I remember the dial-up the BBS days in the 1980s, the CompuServe forums in early 1990s, e-mail in various forms of evolution in the 1980s through the 1990s and the spam infested world of today, groupware in the 1990s, and instant messaging, forums, blogs, portals and wikis in the past few years.

Collaborative online communication continues to evolve. Today, the social networking sites, personal wikis, personal blogs, and portals are all evolutionary forms of storing and managing online information. What I like about today's world is that with open source technology and the numerous online services providing you with all the tools you can imagine, the only thing you need is a modern web browser to access it all! Not having a blog, participating in a forum, being part of some online community, or not being online is like not having access to a telephone in the 1970s.

I remember being a young person in the late 1970s and early 1980s and spending hours talking on the phone. For me, this has translated into the modern equivalent of being online all the time today. With notebook computers, internet gadgets and all types of mobile devices, it is hard not be online today. You actually have to make a effort to stay offline today. The only time I spend less time online is when I am on a vacation. Then I intentionally disconnect.

I find that instead of watching TV and cable, I actually do this while staying online. A few years ago this was sort of a novelty. Today, it is now just a normal way that I watch TV/cable and concurrently browse the internet. My multitasking capabilities are up and my attention span is going down. I am not sure if this is a good thing but I have adapted to this way of personal interactive entertainment over the last few years.

What I have not seen is the smooth convergence of TV and the web that was envisioned in the 1990s. This did not occur. Today, we still have TV/cable that pretty much works the same way it did in the 1990s and the web has become richer but the convergence has not occurred. I think the two industries are intentionally trying to figure this out and no one really wants to the change it all. YouTube and other online video sites are in a big fight with traditional content providers and from what I have seen, it appears that the traditional content providers are resisting the convergence and change. So what else is new?

Well, back to my original topic. I am watching a Comedy Central show right now and writing this blog entry. Maybe in 10-years we'll see the convergence of TV and the web. I doubt it because that is what everyone thought 10-years ago in 1997.