It’s Not Very Old

All these things we depend on are truly quite young.
This month marks the 25th anniversary of TCP/IP. It was co-invented by our SLA Seattle Conference keynote Vinton “Vin” Cerf.
So TCP/IP is about as old as a university grad just starting out today.
I put up my first website at the end of 1994 based on 1992 CERN stuff. It was awful. The Canadian government went on the web in 1995 about the same time as America Online started offering internet access.
So websites are about 14. Wow – all set for an exciting high school career.
It is joined by browsers that started out in about 1993.
Just getting to sophomore year.
Just recently we noticed that Google’s domain name was 10 years old but the search service is only about nine.
So Google style searching is only in about grade five.
Last week, Wikipedia turned 7 or 8. So it is in Grade 4.
Blogs started in about 1998 but really blossomed in 2002.
So they’re ten too and join Wikis in grade four homeroom.
MySpace is from 1999.
A sturdy 8 year old. Grade 2 is fun.
Delicious tagging started in 2003.
So it’s four and entering junior kindergarten.
Facebook is from 2004 too.
YouTube is almost three.
Tyrannical threes.
Twitter is two, maybe.
So it’s just a toddler. Terrible twos.
Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 are similarly youngish.
Now, it’s no wonder why it’s taking a while to adapt to all this – in libraries, vendors, software, publishers, etc. And a young child shall lead them. Good people are trying hard to make a difference. They share in speeches and blogs and articles and more. Let’s listen and try a few new things. The future isn’t clear yet.
Vin Cerf is currently Vice President and “Chief Internet Evangelist” at Google. I am looking forward to hearing his perspectives in June.
Stephen