Tomorrowland: Has Web Innovation Peaked?

By Sarah Lacy

When I was a kid one of my favorite parts of Disney World was Tomorrowland’s Carousel of Progress. It was steeped in 1950s futurism: Why, of course! Every family will have their own electric paint mixer in the future! And I only wish I’d been old enough to see this gem before it was torn down and replaced with a souvenir stand: The Monsanto House of the Future, a house built entirely of plastic.

Disney (DIS) likes to talk up inventions the house featured that wound up becoming commonplace, like the microwave oven. What it leaves out are all the ones that never did. You know, the type of things we saw on the Jetsons: flying cars, our food in pill form, robot butlers and maids. Sadly, as it turns out the “future” looked a lot like the past, just more streamlined. Had Tomorrowland stayed intact, it would have looked more like the Tomorrow-that-never-happened-land.

I’ve been thinking about Tomorrowland for about three days. It started when I read Farhad Manjoo’s excellent piece on Slate about the “Jurassic Web.” He painted a picture of what the Web was like in 1996. It was mostly a place you went and then thought, “OK, I’m here. Now what?” He reminded us of the sheer wonder the first time you could search on Amazon by author or browse through Yahoo’s hand built “directory” of Web pages.

The note Manjoo struck at the end of the piece was pure Silicon Valley: If all this happened in just 13 years, what will the next decade of the Internet hold? Will we look back on YouTube, Facebook, Hulu and iTunes as primitive?

This is where Tomorrowland and the Jetsons come in. There seems to be a pattern of diminishing innovation the longer a new technology is on the market. The early years — even decades — of, say, the plane, the car, the telephone, television, computers all saw rapid innovation, such rapid innovation that people would look back with the same kind of wonder that we do thinking of the Jurassic Web. “Can you believe you used to have to crank a car engine?” “What do you mean TV was only in black and white?”

But at some point, the innovation gets more evolutionary than revolutionary. Sure there are advancements in digital filmmaking and editing equipment but has anything in movies yet transformed the medium as much as the change from silent pictures to talkies? At some point, the technology stays the same while the cultural importance of it, or the way it is used is what changes. Put another way, the technology that was used to film a movie like “Deep Throat” wasn’t what changed society and the industry, it was the content of the movie itself.

I know it’s heresy to write this on a site that entrepreneurs and technologists read: But what if the bulk of technology innovation on the Internet is, well, done?

Already, if you think about Web 2.0, the successful companies are building off the technology that was pioneered before — whether it’s the browser, broadband, or the open source stack. Sites like YouTube and Twitter may be technically hard to scale, but are they really technical leaps in innovation, or more of a creative, cultural leap in how existing technology is being used?

Of course, the Internet is still very young. It certainly took technologies like the mobile phone more than 13 years to go from that embarrassing brick that took up half of a briefcase to the iPhone. Some could argue the mobile phone is still ripe for as much game changing innovation, as new models like the Palm Pre promise to integrate the browser experience throughout the user interface. Is it simply too early in the Internet’s lifecycle to even raise the question of whether Internet innovation has peaked?

As someone who writes about the Web for a living, I certainly hope so. But then again, everything has happened faster on the Web. No other technology has been so rapidly adopted by such a large number of people. Is it possible this is it?

Original post

Comments

[Dave Wrixon:]

Well Web business is not so much different than traditional business. Much of it is traditional business switching to a new medium.

OK, in the US much of that process is well advanced, but there are going to be growth areas such as mobile browsing, but please don't get sucked into the trap of investing in Dot Mobi domain names. Those are going nowhere.

Much of the real potential of the internet is the ability to reach out to new markets overseas, which is after all what America now realises it must now do. This, however, is going require marketing that reflects the diversity of culture and language that is out there. One of the US major areas of failure regarding exporting is to try to sell to everyone as though they are New Yorkers. They are not.

For those looking at alternative forms of investment at this time, you could do worse than look at the IDN domain market. These are names that appear in the scripts other than English. This topic will be extensively covered in the ICANN meeting in Mexico. You might also like to do some research at IDNForums.com.

Feb 28 12:09 PM

[Dave Wrixon:]

Incidentally, for those that know nothing of the domaing scene, a good insight can be gained at DNJournal.com.

Feb 28 12:34 PM

[morph366:]

I am not quite sure what the point of this article is - the web is a platform that will evolve and enable countless new kinds of content and applications to be deployed limited only by the imaginations of the authors. We are still benefiting from the Gutenberg revolution of several hundred years ago.

As far as entrepreneurial opportunities in creating new kinds of enabling technology that will allow new forms of communication and expression we should take inspiration from one of A C Clarke's thoughts on the matter - The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Feb 28 12:37 PM

[Ricard:]

This is an interesting article. It's always fun to look into the future.

I must say, though, it does resemble that urban myth regarding closing the patent office (I didn't know it was a myth until 5 minutes ago) :

ask.yahoo.com/20050407...

Regardless of its validity, its setting makes a clear point. 1899 was just before inventions like the automobile, radio, television, plastics, etc made it onto the scene. Just think about how radio and television have evolved in the past century, and then think about how much more potential there is in the web, in that it combines the readability of a newspaper, the audio of a radio, and the video of a television... all in an environment in which the user has control of the content he or she views. Our populace would, if nothing else, become a lot less passive in how they choose their entertainment, news, commercials, just about anything.

Anyway, I'd like to close by saying that I'd like one of them plastic houses...! :)

Feb 28 01:26 PM

[Ergo:]

A valid question. But IMO, assuming a stable society, the answer is that web innovation is just getting started. As just one example, look at the explosion of World of Warcraft, currently hosting over 11 million subscribers. Interactive entertainment content is still very, very new. But you will see it increase rapidly with better tech and more consumer demand. What if you could interact with your movies? What if games were more realistic? What if books, games and movies were combined into a single package? That's a bit forward looking, but in the short-term, you'll see better and better content over just the next 5 years, in ways that companies can profit from. The gaming industry will drive a lot of it.

Feb 28 02:22 PM

[Tradememe:]

Web innovation peaking ? I don't think so. It's as if you are saying: Has technology peaked ? The web is only a medium to exchange information and the technology on which it is based will improve just like Moore's law.

Feb 28 11:08 PM

[Marcap:]

Has the Web peaked? Not in the least! I agree with Ergo. It is just getting started relatively speaking.

Just over 20 years ago, the Internet was little more than a dial-up connection through a 1200 or even 300 baud modem to a local ISP, many of which hosted a BBS where you could chat with other users, and send e-mails to one another much as we do today, either at the same ISP or elsewhere. We all worked in DOS as there were no Windows based systems back then. At that time, using the Internet for Video or even Audio, was likely not even thought of, since sending a 100KB file over the telephone lines seemed a near impossibility, let alone attempting to send 100MB files.

Today we use the Internet for all sorts of business, personal, entertainment, and socializing activities, utilizing it for anything from e-mail to browsing and hosting websites, on-demand Live TV, Video, and Product Demonstrations.

Within the next decade however, it will change. Standard TV and Radio as we now know them will likely disappear completely, and the Internet will be the sole source for providing content to those mediums. Telephone line, Cable, and Satelite connections requiring a dish, will all disappear as will most desktop computers. What we will have instead will be laptop type systems similar to what we have now, but which will be able to access the Internet through a wireless connection from anywhere (similar to hotspots or cell-phone) but without restriction. The computers however will have considerably more memory, solid-state drives of gigantic capacity, and batteries which will last for several days, as opposed to just a few hours. They will also have full 2-way video telephone capabilities as standard. And the Internet will be 10 to 100 times faster than even the fastest of connections now are.

So is the Internet peaking? Not for a second. In fact, I believe that in less than 10 years, we will be looking back on today, and shaking our heads in amazement, just as we now look back on those early days of the Internet, 20 or so years ago.

Mar 01 01:57 AM

[John Petersen:]

There may be more truth here than many want to believe. I've always been an early adopter of new technology, but my desire to keep up with advances in cell phones stopped with my Motorola Razer and much of the new web technology including facebook, twitter and social sites is wasted on me. Perhaps it's an age thing, but I think the incremental gains are nowhere near as impressive today as they were during the first 10 years. My sense is that while the web may not have peaked, future innovations will be strikingly useful for successively smaller numbers of users who want a particular functionality.

Mar 01 04:28 AM

[ploden:]

The technologies of Web 2.0 (Javascript, HTML, and Flash) existed in 1996, the year of your "Jurassic Web." If using them in new ways got us this far, I'm sure they can take us much farther.

Mar 01 04:46 AM

[Jeff Noel A...:]

Not at all. Peak still 100 generations away, somewhat exaggerated, albeit some closeness. MSFT and AAPL will probably be a mid-table player. I will be in tough stance and will back it up. Commercialism of software is dying. give it another 20-30 years. or less.

Mar 01 11:05 AM

[Robert Radano:]

To My Fellow Seekers:

This is just the beginning. The current internet doesn't match what many technologists have already created. Even established technology companies are concerned. Look no further than Microsoft in terms of multi-billion dollar companies who may be defining a soon to be outdated business model. Older mature technology franchises will fight to defend their turf. These include telecomm companies, cable companies, some media companies. Others are already thinking "cloud computing" and other trends that will make the current technology baseline seem like "dial-up." The only question is whether our clumsy federal government will actually stimulate this sector of American entrepreneurism in time so that creative risk-takers can help this nation emerge from aging and ineffective business and government models. Moore’s (Gordon,) still exists. And other similar axioms regarding the pace of technological growth behind the scenes are still holding.

Never bet against American innovation.

Mar 01 05:35 PM

[Leftfield:]

I restore vintage American saxophones and sell half of them overseas. It was normal to have great American manufacturing in everything not that long ago. All the sax manufacturers have ceased, but the quality they had is in great demand.

Americans enjoyed widespread prosperity that allowed individual expression that could reward unusual, offbeat accomplishment. The Wright brothers could spend winters working on the airplane and took Sundays off despite heated competition, for worship.

We have been herded by an increasingly regimented, regulated, indebted society where the middle class requires two incomes. Germany and Japan have overtaken our lead in new patents, I read recently.

Major innovations seem to succumb to formulas eventually, pursued by large corporations guided by bean counters.

I'm skeptical that we still "have it" to lead in innovations as we have. For a long time our problems have grown, ignored by a grossly overcompensated leadership class content to game the system. We can't hide the results of ridiculous regulatory, legal, taxation and healthcare burdens that have sunk our living standards with more debt anymore. Slaves don't generally have much time or opportunity to innovate.

Mar 01 08:40 PM

[atlasman:]

The web problem is not technology where there is tremendous room for improvement and innovation, but a broken business model that relies on unreliable advertisements for revenue instead of straight product/service revenue. Give me capitol, and I could have a half dozen profitable web-based ventures going in 6 months.

Atlasman

Mar 02 07:52 PM

[wackyfunster:]

While I respect the author's opinion, I think even using his chosen analogies reveals the face of what is to some: has there really been minimal technological advancement since silent pictures became "talkies?" How many companies have been established on media distribution, video cassettes, dvds, cable and satellite television, not to mention affiliated technologies (audio, copy protection, video rental).

Additionally, the internet is still, in my opinion, in the "silent picture" stage. One of the main factors that is limited progress is internet bandwidth (or lack thereof). In 10-20 years, when everyone has multi-gig connectivity in their home, the idea of storing your data on cds/dvds (and for more casual computer users even hard disks) will be every bit as quaint as black and white television. Cloud computing will be a given, not a buzzword. It will be an even more radical paradigm shift than we saw when we migrated from dial-up to broadband (which enabled 'rich' web content, streaming media, etc.).

There has been substantial progress on the computing hardware side, but until we see similar advancements in infrastructure, it will just be faster 'stuff' doing the same things, with incremental innovation (as the author pointed out). Ubiquitous fast networking and the mitigation of backbone-level bottlenecks will be what spurs (one of the?) next major paradigm shift(s) in computing.

Just my 2c.

Mar 02 11:05 PM