Tim Berners-Lee on the future of the Internet
A few weeks back, I had a blog posting on Facebook and the implications of them being an open source solution, which is relevant to today’s blog post. I recently came across an article by Josh Halliday at the guardian.uk discussing comments from Tim Berners-Lee about how Facebook is fragmenting the web, article at https://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/22/tim-berners-lee-facebook. The central premise of the article is that social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc represent “one of several threats to the future of the world wide web” by creating silos within the Internet that people never leave. In addition Tim also criticized companies such as Apple for building closed networks with iTunes for example that traps customers and prevents an open marketplace. In thinking about Tim’s comments, I am not sure I see his point. The Internet is truly a free, open space where communication and information can be shared, exchanged, etc regardless of location. However, as a consumer, I can choose where I want to engage on the Internet and have options to leverage completely open systems or closed solutions such as Facebook. As the consumer, I have a choice and the Internet provides me with those choices. I can see where Tim is worried that Facebook may close off the Internet to many of its users; however, I don’t think that is the end of the Internet. There will always be people looking for a nice safe choice where the appearance of control and stability comforts people. Likewise, there will always be people who love chaos and total freedom that would never think of joining Facebook and will rebel with alternatives.In a similar argument, I don’t see the horror of iTunes and in fact, am a proud consumer of the tool. I like the way that I can access my music via my computer and mobile device in a single system. As a consumer, it works nicely for me and I have chosen to leverage that closed solution. Of course, there are many alternative music solutions available on the web such as Pandora for example, and when something better arrives on the scene I will switch. In conclusion, competition never stops and just because Facebook is the “it” thing today it doesn’t mean they will take over the world. History tells us that companies and technologies are constantly facing competition from newer ideas that either revolutionize the industry or chip away enough at the powerful to limit their control. So, do you agree or is Tim right and that the evil Facebook must be stopped? Interesting side note, in his discussion he mentions how Google is a nice open company – I thought there were evil just recently?
