Living in a digital world

New media is old news – Mouse 40th anniversary

For anyone who still hopes the digital revolution will pass by (and there are still some), it’s worth pondering today’s 40th anniversary of the mouse.

Forty years ago today, Douglas Engelbart tgave a presentation where he demonstrated the world’s first mouse. Recently Logitech has announced it’s shipped it’s billionth mouse. But the mouse wasn’t the only revolutionary thing Douglas demonstrated on the day he revealed the mouse to an audience of geeks in San Francisco.

He also demonstrated hypertext, object addressing, dynamic file linking, and showed how two people, at different locations could collaborate on a shared computer screen. And he did this by allowing the people to communicate over a network using video and audio.

Video and audio over a network. 40 years ago. And my point is?

Well, simply put new media is old news. Digital is not a passing fad. it’s been here for ages. It’s beyond mainstream now. For anyone under the age of 16, they’ve grown up with the net as part of the world’s furniture. Here some more examples of how old, new media is (thanks Alex Balfour – head of digital at London Olympics – for these facts):

The first email was sent 37 years ago
Online forums (usenet) have been around for 29 years
Chat for 20 years
The web as we know it started 14 years
Internet telephony 13 years
Web Ecommerce has been up and running for 13 years
The first social networking site also appeared 13 years ago
Ebay launched 13 years ago
Online video has been around for 11+ years (admittedly quite stuttering for a while)
Myspace is now 10 years old
As is Google
And Wikipedia launched 8 years ago.

So, let’s stop talking about this stuff as if it’s somehow cutting edge. Let’s treat it as normal. And if any of our colleagues or clients are struggling to appreciate the full relevance (or are nervous about their lack of understanding) then perhaps it’s past time to say, get over it.

December 9, 2008 - Posted by riksta | Uncategorized | alex balfour, Mouse, new media, old news