The prediction, in brief:

We have in the Internet the seeds of this [next network] … What people want, and what people do, will shape what comes next.

Predictor: Cerf, Vinton G.

Prediction, in context:

In a 1995 article for Newsweek magazine, Sharon Begley and Adam Rogers quote Vinton Cerf. They write:”For something that has spread with all the forethought of kudzu, the Internet isn’t half bad. Unless you care that only about 10 percent of Americans can access it, that the equipment to tap into it can cost upwards of $1,000, that it’s as easy to navigate as the Northwest Passage, that the voice and video come through at glacial speed or not at all – the inadequacies go on. How much better a network could they create if you actually planned it? That vision inspires dreamers and schemers who are planning the Nextnet. Tapping the new networks, they say, might require little work than a phone and TV; sound, video and data would zip through something as prosaic as power lines. ‘We have in the Internet the seeds of this [next network],’ says Vint Cerf, a founder of what became the Internet and now a senior vice president at MCI. This time, ‘what people want, and what people do,’ will shape what comes next.”

Date of prediction: February 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: Newsweek

Title, headline, chapter name: MBones and Giganets: What Will Replace the Internet?

Quote Type: Partial quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?m=a02afd22778df975b9d08447fcdbb115&docnum=1&wchp=dGLbVzb-1S1zV& md5=92599ec03d9870741b186ad102a9732d9

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Vellucci, Amanda