The prediction, in brief:

Different computers on the Web [will share] data in such a way that the most popular information is replicated onto many machines, while the least popular information lives on a single machine. Addresses, in the conventional sense, would disappear. No human being would know where any specific piece of information was stored. The Web would shift its data around automatically, while users could retrieve documents simply by knowing their names. The Web, in this scheme, becomes unlocatable and omnipresent.

Predictor: Raggett, David

Prediction, in context:

In a 1994 article for Wired magazine about the Internet’s latest killer app, Mosaic, Gary Wolf quotes David Raggett, a researcher at Hewlett-Packard. Wolf writes:”David Raggett, who is on the technical staff of Hewlett-Packard’s research labs in Bristol, England, and who is helping to develop the specifications for the next generation of Web documents, speaks of how the Web could accommodate the millions of new users expected to arrive in the coming months. He imagines the different computers on the Web sharing data in such a way that the most popular information is replicated onto many machines, while the least popular information lives on a single machine. Addresses, in the conventional sense, would disappear. No human being would know where any specific piece of information was stored. The Web would shift its data around automatically, while users could retrieve documents simply by knowing their names. The Web, in this scheme, becomes unlocatable and omnipresent.”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1994

Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: Wired

Title, headline, chapter name: The (Second Phase of the) Revolution Has Begun: Don’t Look Now, But Prodigy, AOL, and CompuServe Are All Suddenly Obsolete – and Mosaic is Well on its Way to Becoming the World’s Standard Interface

Quote Type: Paraphrase

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mosaic_pr.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney