The Last Great Human Invention

Yeah, if I may sound a little philosophical for once. During last week’s video about the history of the Internet, I kept trying to think with what little brain power I have - Is there ever going to be another invention that will revolutionize the way we live like the Internet has done? Well, after more than a week of thinking, I am quite unable to fathom anything even remotely possible to the Internet. I know, I am no Bush (No, I don’t mean the President, the other Bush from like 1945). What Bush realized back in 1945 was that we were creating a lot of information, data or whatever you want to call them. Obviously, we were going to have to find a way to store, retrieve and manage all these information. Not to take away any credit from the founders of the Computer and Internet, if they didn’t do it, someone else would have had to do it. After Guns, the locomotive steam engine, Radio, sliced bread, TV and a few trips to the moon, I think we may have reached the apex of human invention. (Sorry Shane, but I don’t expect man to ever be able to fly nor should we want to!)

So Sunday, are you saying there isn’t going to be anymore inventions or innovations? No, am not saying that, there will still be some inventions and I pray we find a cure for AIDS, Alzheimer’s and etc someday, am just saying that I don’t think we will ever see something that has the scope to affect every part of our life as computing/Internet has done. I believe, there will be a lot of innovation on how to adapt but still within the computing/Internet realm. A perfect example from the reading is the move towards Cloud Computing by the likes of Google, Yahoo, IBM and others.

Just last night, Heather, Shane and I were trying to figure out the last time any of us has been to the library or actually used the Dewey system to find a book. We depend on the web for so much now - academic research, news/media search, social networking, political campaigning and of course finding the nearest pizza restaurant. Of course searching for pizza only lets Google know what kind of pizza I like and how frequently I eat pizza. Now, the information Google gets from my Gmail or Facebook and MySpace gets from its users is a lot better than that. It tells who I am, what I like, who my friends are and what they like - in fact, it is a goldmine for advertisers, no wonder Google keeps all that information about me. What the implications are for our privacy, I do not know exactly. I doubt it is going to get as scary as the EPIC 2015 depicted, no company even Google can grow that much without others banding together to compete against it or at the very least government regulators stepping in to break such a monopoly or people just entirely refusing to get on Google and use something else. The Internet is fairly new, we continue to depend on it and we also continue to leave a trail of where we have been on the Internet - information that enriches Google and many others. As time goes by, I believe Congress will have to respond to outcries by privacy groups and individuals to regulate what Internet companies do with information they collect about us - what information they can collect, how long they can store it, who they can share it with and if they need to ask out permission before collecting that data.

On the Microsoft bid to acquire Yahoo (which Yahoo refused the initial offer yesterday), I believe it is not just about Google, but it shows that we are spending an enormous amount of time surfing on the desktops, laptops, phones and soon we will be able to have broadband in airplanes. The inescapable fact is that it is almost impossible to escape from the Internet (no pun intended!). The more we are online in any form, the more people like Google can sell ads. In one of the Wired Magazine Interview, Google’s CEO was asked if Google is just a one trick pony (The other readings on Cloud Computing, YouTube and others should make the answer clear). However, Google makes a lot of money by selling ads online and commands about seventy percent or so of the online search market. If it wanted to, it could be a one trick pony and still make a lot of money for years to come, but businesses know you survive by diversifying, that is where Microsoft comes in. Microsoft sees Google competing with its area of domain - applications. It then makes good economic sense for Microsoft to bid for Yahoo and encroach upon Google’s own turf. The search companies of the future are going to look a lots less than Google and more like Microsoft/Yahoo and Google/YouTube/DoubleClick, that is basically saying few companies (including Google) will focus on search alone. Even Google is growing beyond just search to Cloud Computing etc. When one company discovers a new way of growing their business on the Internet like Google did through selling ads, others are not just going to cede ground, so you have to diversify to survive and compete.

Yahoo may not find Microsoft’s first offer good enough, but its option are running out. Google can’t buy Yahoo, the FTC and the EU would have a field day reciting how many antitrust laws that violates. No one else is willing to buy Yahoo and Co-founder and now CEO Jerry Yang can’t seem to find a way to turn a profit for the investors. Absent any miracle for Yahoo, Microsoft will eventually prevail over a substantial number of shareholders and buyout Yahoo. So what will the implications be? It won’t be felt immediately, Google is so far ahead, but it will be a start for Microsoft and for now it is too early to say if Microsoft/Yahoo will be big enough to fight Google in online search, Microsoft might still have to buy Amazon, Ebay, and Facebook!