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Where Intellect Meets the Internet

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At Internet Evolution we believe that the next huge leap forward in the history of the Internet is happening now – and the goal of our site is to gauge its likely impact on every aspect of life as we know it.

It's obvious that something big is happening in terms of Internet usage: More than 1.1 billion people around the world now use the Internet... Usage is growing at 18 percent per year*... And in 2006 total digital content exceeded 160 exabytes – enough to fill 161 billion iPod shuffles.**

But the Internet is at a tipping point, not just in terms of the number of people using it, but also in terms of how they use it.

Over the last 30 or so years the communications industry has collaborated, often unwittingly, in developing the Internet that we have today – a low-cost, ubiquitous, multimedia network capable of carrying any type of traffic (voice, video, or data) anywhere, anytime. And that network is here, now.

So the BIG questions now are not about the network itself (been there, built that) but about how the network will be used.

That trend is evident in terms of the new focus from both the industry and its customers on services and applications, on things like overcoming the challenges of searching and making sense of this vast amount of Internet information – including machine-capable search, or the semantic Web, as it's been called.

We also see a big change in people's expectations of what the Internet can achieve. It's becoming obvious that the Internet isn't just a new and better method of business communications (a cheaper, fancier telephone for the 21st Century, as it were). Beyond presenting huge opportunities for companies to invent new businesses and improve the ways they run their old businesses, there is a growing consensus – both inside and outside the industry – that the Net has a much wider and more important role to play in improving the quality of life for the world's population.

Examples include using videoconferencing to reduce the amount of business travel and thus aid with the problem of reducing carbon emmissions; addressing the poverty gap between industrialized nations and the developing world, through things like micro-loans... and, of course, how we live our lives: the ways we educate ourselves and our children, the ways we experience entertainment, how we meet and bond with like-minded spirits.

And these are the kinds of topics that we'll be examining closely in Internet Evolution, in two ways.

First, through a series of investigative reports on the most important issues relating to the future of the Internet. Click here to see our editorial calendar

And second, through the ThinkerNet – an interactive forum where an invited assemblage of the Internet's leading minds blog and exchange opinions, while interacting with our audience via message boards. Click here to view our "virtual masthead," or click here to email us about joining the ThinkerNet as a contributor.

One more thing...

Even by the standards of such an exciting and influential technology, the Internet has attracted more than its share of fluffers, bluffers, and blowhards – often pursuing a thinly veiled M&A or IPO agenda. Our goal is to provide an antidote to the illogical boosterism that has always gone hand in hand with the Internet (often with disastrous results).

At Internet Evolution we're aiming to view the future of the Internet through a prism of pragmatism – acting as an anti-bubble that eliminates hype, cuts through the "conventional wisdom," and provides an overdue dose of realism about where the Internet is headed.

We welcome your input and opinions. Send them to editors@internetevolution.com

Contacts

Stephen Saunders is a successful Internet entrepreneur, award-winning technology writer, renowned flaneur and bon vivant, and the founder of Internet Evolution.

Prior to launching Internet Evolution, Saunders was the founder and CEO of Light Reading (www.lightreading.com), an online startup, which was sold to United Business Media in 2005 for $33 million. Founded in 2000, Light Reading rapidly became the largest and most influential source of news and analysis of the telecommunications industry – attracting a huge and influential readership of telecom professionals and investors around the globe.

Prior to Light Reading, Saunders was an executive editor at Data Communications, where he directed that doomed publication's editorial content. Coincidence.

Saunders has been recognized with many awards for his work, including six Jesse H. Neal Editorial Achievement Awards from The American Business Press and three awards from the Computer Press Association. In March 2008 Saunders was inducted into Min's Digital Media Hall of Fame. In October 2008 the lead developer at Twitter called Saunders "a troll" – something Steve still considers his happiest moment in 21 years of publishing.

In April 2009 Saunders was named to the No. 2 spot on Folio magazine's Folio 40 ranking of magazine industry influencers and innovators, one ahead of President Barack Obama. The magazine subsequently revised the list following a public outcry, demoting Saunders to the No. 3 spot.

He also is the author of two books, The Data Communications Gigabit Ethernet Handbook (McGraw-Hill, 1998) and The McGraw-Hill High-Speed LANs Handbook (McGraw-Hill, 1995). Gripping reads, both.

When not producing videos in far-flung locales, from Reykjavik to Rajasthan to Rwanda, Saunders lives in New York with his increasingly disgruntled family.

saunders@internetevolution.com

Terry Sweeney is a writer and editor based somewhere in the smog-laden environs of Los Angeles. He has covered technology for more than 20 years, with broad expertise in storage, networking, security, wireless, and celebrity stalking.

From October 2005 to June 2007, he was Editor in Chief of Byte and Switch (www.byteandswitch.com), storage networking's most widely read Website, which, when you think about it, is really not saying much. He was also a Founding Editor of the sinister IT security Website, Dark Reading (www.darkreading,com), as well as Storage Pipeline (absorbed in a nearly bloodless coup by the insatiable Byte and Switch). He did not leave under a cloud.

Sweeney was also News Editor at Internet Week and spent three years in Paris working for Communications Week International. When the Germans occupied the city he fled to Geneva, Switzerland, where he served as Editor in Chief of the print, online, and video content for the ITU’s Telecom 99 conference. He later ran guns to freedom fighters in the Belgian Congo. Maybe.

He has contributed to The Washington Post, Crain’s New York Business, Red Herring, Blue Herring, Rogue Herring, Information Week, Network World, SearchStorage, and Chicken Fancier, among other business and IT titles. He also designed a prototype flying machine and a fully functional submarine. No. Wait… That was someone else…

Sweeney surely did, however, graduate from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1982 with a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a minor in Portuguese, for no discernible reason.

sweeney@internetevolution.com

As the Site Editor on Internet Evolution, Nicole writes the editor's blog, produces polls, conducts interviews, and is in charge of the general care and feeding of the site, and the general care and feeding of the staff. Nicole utilizes the editor's blog as a platform to wield sarcastic remarks and broadcast her general feelings of negativity about everything. As a member of the world renowned IQ Crew, Nicole welcomes any opportunity to engage in high IQ debates with readers on the IE message boards. She is also always right.

Nicole received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from Fordham University where she majored in media studies and creative writing and completed a master’s thesis on intertextuality [ed.note: wanky made up word alert!] and televised advertisements.

ferraro@internetevolution.com

As ThinkerNet Editor for Internet Evolution, Mary moderates ThinkerNet, the interactive forum where Internet luminaries can blog and exchange opinions.

Prior to joining Internet Evolution, Mary was Site Editor of Byte and Switch and a longtime Senior Editor of Light Reading. She has spent 18 years reporting and writing on information technology and networking, including nine years on the senior editorial team of Data Communications magazine. She is co-author of Foundations of Service Level Management (Macmillan Sams, 2000). She also spent many years as a freelance copy editor for a range of book publishing companies. Mary has a Bachelor's in English and Business from City College of New York and Marymount/Fordham, Tarrytown. She now lives in rural Nova Scotia, where her hobbies include fly fishing and seal beating.

jander@internetevolution.com

Michael Singer is an editor, writer, and media specialist with a passion for the digital life. Since 1996, he's been writing about PCs, handhelds, and gadgets, as well as enterprise software and semiconductors.

His most recent stint was serving as News Editor for InformationWeek.com. Michael has also previously worked as a writer for ABC-7 News, KTVU-FOX 2, and CNET News.com. Michael started his career working as a production assistant for The Next Step (a TV technology show picked up by Discovery Channel). He's also had extensive TV reporting experience for CTV-30 in Pleasanton, Calif., where he was an anchor and reporter for the award-winning 580/680 News.

Currently, you'll find Michael focusing on digital lifestyle issues, Web 2.0 technologies, and startups. He's also been advising PR agencies on how to better connect with the press using social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

singer@internetevolution.com

Chris Williams is Web Development Manager for the Light Reading Communications Network, a part of UBM's TechWeb division. For 12 years, Chris has imagined, developed, tested, developed, planned, imagined, managed, tested, tested, developed, tested, developed, managed, imagined, developed, tested, and enjoyed Web applications. Yes, Chris has worked with Web applications for 12 years. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (so you know not to bother him during March), Chris can bake a cake with an SQL query, single-handedly stress-test your expensive user-management solution, identify the flaws in your five-year plan, debate the ins-and-outs of British politics, and give you a haircut with VBScript (huh? yeah!). A veteran of the ever-loving UltraPlayer and the always-scooping Light Reading, Chris is surly, remembers almost everything, and resides with his wife and son (and 4 cats and 2 dogs) in Durham, N.C.

* Source: www.internetworldstats.com; January 7, 2007
** Source: IDC; March 6, 2007

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