Pew Internet has a new study out that predicts the future of internet. Among the research findings, the experts in the survey predict that news organisations and publishing will be the area which will see most radical change due to the internet.
One expert wrote, “The most obvious effects on news media are the rise of weblogs supplanting the public’s attentions to traditional news media, and the slow death of newspapers due to erosion of mindshare by online influences such as news Web sites, chat rooms, message boards and online gaming.”
The study contains lots of valuable reading, including this prediction-come-true from Bob Metcalfe, inventor of ethernet and founder of 3Com:
“Governments will tend toward democracy. Transportation will be refined through massive substitution of communication. The current flight to cities will be reversed. The Internet won’t be in schools, it will replace schools. Television channels will be replaced by video blogs and Dan Rather will be dragged off the set.” [written before Rather resigned]