The most critical need … is to create a facade of user-friendly software for the globe-spanning Internet. A jumble in interlinked networks, the Internet includes some 4 million “server” computers, housing incalculable volumes of all sorts of information. But because there is no central control over the Net, there is also no master index. That has kept the Net largely a playground for the techno-intelligentsia.
Predictor: Cortese, Amy
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for BusinessWeek magazine, Amy Cortese writes: ”The most critical need … is to create a facade of user-friendly software for the globe-spanning Internet. A jumble in interlinked networks, the Internet includes some 4 million ‘server’ computers, housing incalculable volumes of all sorts of information. But because there is no central control over the Net, there is also no master index. That has kept the Net largely a playground for the techno-intelligentsia, who use arcane programs such as Gopher, Archie, and FTP to dig out what’s hidden in all those databases. Now, the software is emerging that will make it possible for ordinary consumers and business people to do the same, making the Internet the all-purpose route into cyberspace. The big breakthrough began in 1993, with the creation of an Internet subnetwork called the World Wide Web – really just a clever software scheme for imposing order over the mass of free-form information on the Net by organizing it in easily understood ‘pages.’ What makes the Web such a powerful cyberhelper is a software technique known as ‘hyperlinking.’ When composing a Web page, an auther can create hyperlinks – words that appear in bold type and indicate a shortcut to some other information … As Web use has exploded – there are now 27,000 Web sites, and the population is doubling every 53 days, according to Sun Microsystems Inc. – Web browsers have become an overnight software sensation. Millions of copies of Mosaic, the original Web browser, have been distributed for free over the Net. Still companies are piling into the browser business – often with upgrades of Mosaic. Spry Inc., a Seattle-based startup, sells Internet-In-A-Box. Quarterdeck Office Systems Inc., a PC software maker looking for new life, sells a series of Web products, and startup Netscape Inc. offers Netscape Navigator, written by Mosaic creator Marc Andreessen. At the same time, big players, ranging from Prodigy and American Online to Microsoft and Novell, are building Web browsing into their software.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Language/Interface/Software
Name of publication: BusinessWeek
Title, headline, chapter name: Crafting Software That Will Let You Build a Business Out There
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 34
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney