What the hell do you think the Internet is for? It isn’t a replacement for radio, TV, and telephones. It’s for exchanging information, not free phone calls … From a store-and-forward perspective, the Internet was a new chapter in the history of human intelligence. It was supposed to lead us somewhere higher, to something better. That some company could then turn this spiritual adventure into another vehicle to support eighth-grade schoolgirls babbling about Luke Perry was nothing short of criminal. Yet all this grousing delayed the spread of the technology only a few hours … the floodgates were open to the chattering hordes.
Predictor: Hapgood, Fred
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Fred Hapgood covers the issues surrounding Internet telephony. Hapgood writes: ”For at least 10 years, hobbyists have been experimenting with the idea of bringing the telephone, the core real-time communications technology, to the Net. Last spring, several programs were released to support this concept … If Alice in New York wanted to speak to Bob in Los Angeles, she now had a choice of either dialing his number or clicking on his name … This technology was more than well received; it was as if a dam had broken. VocalTec Inc. – a company based in Israel but with operations in Northvale, New Jersey – reported 150,000 downloads of its ‘Internet Phone’ demo (aka the IPhone) in a three-month period … While tens of thousands of users eagerly downloaded the program as soon as it became available, others, like one member from alt.irc., complained, ‘What the hell do you think the Internet is for? It isn’t a replacement for radio, TV, and telephones. It’s for exchanging information, not free phone calls.’ Another commented: ‘This is not new technology, it is taking an idea that has been around for a long time (read telephone) and putting it on an infrastructure that was meant for something totally different.’ From a store-and-forward perspective, the Internet was a new chapter in the history of human intelligence. It was supposed to lead us somewhere higher, to something better. That some company could then turn this spiritual adventure into another vehicle to support eighth-grade schoolgirls babbling about Luke Perry was nothing short of criminal. Yet all this grousing delayed the spread of the technology only a few hours … the floodgates were open to the chattering hordes. Events during the last few months suggest those gates are open to stay. Camelot Corp., of Dallas, expected to release the DigiPhone in August … The Electric Magic Company of San Francisco is selling a Macintosh client called the NetPhone, and VocalTec has upgraded its software to full duplex … Just as the high priests of the store-and-forward culture had warned, the introduction of the Internet Phone changed the look and feel of the Net. Night after night I fired up the IPhone and connected with callers from around the world – callers who with no long-distance bills to worry about had no other purpose than to be neighborly. You could hear them lean over the backyard fence, hold out their hands, and introduce themselves. Not once did I hear anyone assailed for being a ‘clueless newbie’ or stigmatized for wasting bandwidth or told to ‘Get a life.'”
Biography:Fred Hapgood took on the role of moderator of the Nanosystems Interest Group at MIT and wrote a number of articles for Wired and other tech publications of the early 1990s. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Communication
Subtopic: Internet Telephony
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: IPhone: Will Telephony on the Net Bring the Telcos to Their Knees? Or Will it Allow Them to Take Over the Internet? (And, Oh, Yes, It’s Damn Hard to Tap)
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.10/iphone_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney