Imagining the new Internet?

In The Independent supplement on “Visionaries” (18 September 2008), there is an article by Rhodri Marsden and Clare Rudebeck on “Imagining the new internet” http://www.independent.co.uk/dayinapage/2008/October/18  (I couldnt find the supplement sponsored by SAAB on the website – apologies)! As well as confirming the history/evolution of the internet outlined by Richard Bailey http://prstudies.typepad.com/ during his lecture at Leeds Met yesterday http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/coursehandbooks/rso/downloads/MSc_Corporate_Communications_200809.pdf

the supplement also proposed new internet visionaries:

• Dave Clark: Chairman of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board
• John Gilmore: one of the founders of Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
• Steve Jobs: CEO Apple Inc
• Mike Jensen: expert in implementation of internet facilities across the developing world
• Nova Spivak: co-founder of earthweb.com and twine.com
• Sebastian Thrun: Stanford professor of robotics.

There were also quotes from “leading thinkers” including David Gauntlett, Professor of Media & Communications at the University of Westminster and creator of mediastudies website www.theory.org.uk. He hopes that the new uses of the internet – the Web 2.0 – will “give individuals the opportunity to create, collaborate, and share ideas I see the making-and-sharing cultures now emerging online as part of a broader shift towards a revitalised, creative culture, where people do not hust sit back and hear about the world, but lean into it and try to make things anew”. I was very pleased to see a communications professor quoted in a supplement on visionaries – great stuff! Go, David, go!