The Internet has an early lead. There are many differences between the Internet and interactive TV or Compuserve and other online services, but decentralization is its key advantage. The Internet grows from the edges, like a Tinkertoy model, free of centralized control and capital formation. An entrepreneur with a spare bedroom can connect a computer to the Internet, and open for business. Two-year market studies and mergers or stock issues are unnecessary. Similarly, software tool providers can develop products, and introduce them to the Internet community with little cost.
Predictor: Press, Larry
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Communications of the ACM [Association for Computing Machinery] about the commercialization of the Internet, Larry Press, a professor of computer-information systems at California State University, Dominguez Hills, writes: ”Of course, we could have online shopping without the Internet. [In comparing the TV and Internet industries,] the Internet has an early lead. There are many differences between the Internet and interactive TV or Compuserve and other online services, but decentralization is its key advantage. The Internet grows from the edges, like a Tinkertoy model, free of centralized control and capital formation. An entrepreneur with a spare bedroom can connect a computer to the Internet, and open for business. Two-year market studies and mergers or stock issues are unnecessary. Similarly, software tool providers can develop products, and introduce them to the Internet community with little cost.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: Shopping
Name of publication: Business and Industry, Communications of the ACM
Title, headline, chapter name: Commercialization of the Internet
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://som.csudh.edu/fac/lpress/comm.htm
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney