Although the internet was standardised in 1982 and the ability to create a worldwide network of fully interconnected computers was feasible. It only really became freely available and commercialised in 1995 when the NSFNET was decommissioned allowing commercial traffic to use it. It is estimated that in 1993 the Internet carried only 1% of the information flowing through two way telecommunication, by 2000 this had grown to 51% and by 2007 more than 97% of all telecommunicated information was carried over the internet.
Maybe this is why people think that the internet is saturated and is at its peak as it has such a major impact on how we communicate worldwide. However figures show that the power the internet uses globally will grow threefold from 419.64 billion kwh of electricity per year to using 1.259 trillion kwh. This means three things. 1. That millions more people will be coming online. 2. That the information on the internet will grow to an even greater level 3. We have only just begun to be understand the impact the internet will affect our lives.
If you look at the last two years (2009-2010) figures show that websites have grown by 8.97% from 234 million to 255 million. Emails have grown by 15% from 90 to 107 trillion (It is estimated that 81% of these are spam by the way) and domains have grown from 81.8 million to 88.8 million a growth of 5.7%.
If these growth figures stay the same by 2020 there could be 599.29 million websites a compound growth of 256%. 432.85 trillion Emails a compound growth of 404% and 154.57 million domains a compound growth of 174%.
If you now look at the business world and see how much it has changed from it base existence thousands of years ago from simple trade of one item for another to where we are today with import and export, CRM systems, different types of trade, stocks and shares etc. what new jobs and applications can we create? For instance some of the most sought after jobs in today’s marketplace didn’t even exist 10 years ago; hence we are schooling our children for jobs that don’t even exist!
If you then take into account the growth in technology mobiles, touch pads, 3D, interactive stories etc you can see that with a combination of all of these things the internet could be in for an even bigger shake up as we find more and more ways of using it.
For instance in three years there have been over 300,000 mobile apps produced (how many are actually useful is another conversation), add to this the impact the internet is already having on world news and brands alike through social media. The gaming word allows children in the UK to play simultaneously with kids in Israel, USA and Russia at the same time brining down divides that have existed for decades.
This all leads me to believe that we have barely scratched the surface of what we can and will do with the connectivity the internet provides.
You think the internet is saturated? Think again.
