It's easy to be cynical, particularly about the future. The unique thing about the period we're living through now is that most people aren't.
One of the slightly frustrating things about this job is that we don't tend to stare into the future too intently. Wherever possible, Revolution tries to avoid blue-sky speculation, much as we try to avoid reporting on all those studies saying that e-commerce will be worth $354,846,297 by 7 May 2004.
But the future is fascinating. If I'd been able to see it when we launched Revolution all those years ago, it would probably have reassured me, and slightly scared me. At a time when we scrabbled around to find enough companies doing interesting things with the internet to fill a monthly magazine, I'd have seen that within three years we'd be so deluged with fascinating stories that we can't fit them all into a weekly magazine the same size as the monthly used to be, and a daily online news service.
At a time when we spent our days desperately evangelising the benefits of digital media and kept hearing the phrase "toe in the water", I'd have seen that a couple of years down the line, more or less every business would understand the power of the internet.
I'd love to look into the future now and see how all this stuff about alternative access devices pans out. I'm slightly, ahem, chilled by the idea of intelligent fridges, speaking as someone who can't even make a WAP phone work (but then, who can? They don't work, do they? Still, they look nice).
It's refreshing that people are interested in the future, rather than just sniggering at innovation, as is the usual British way. People want broadband internet access, mobile internet services that actually work, better digital TV. And if the internet is to be everywhere - part of the fabric of how we conduct our lives, rather than a walled-off thing on a browser - then we'll be able to start talking about companies rather than e-companies, commerce rather than e-commerce, and business rather than e-business. What a relief.
Richard Lord is the editor of Revolution.
If only we could gaze into a magic online crystal ball.
It's easy to be cynical, particularly about the future. The unique thing about the period we're living through now is that most people aren't.
One of the slightly frustrating things about this job is that we don't tend to stare into the future too intently. Wherever possible, Revolution tries to avoid blue-sky speculation, much as we try to avoid reporting on all those studies saying that e-commerce will be worth $354,846,297 by 7 May 2004.
But the future is fascinating. If I'd been able to see it when we launched Revolution all those years ago, it would probably have reassured me, and slightly scared me. At a time when we scrabbled around to find enough companies doing interesting things with the internet to fill a monthly magazine, I'd have seen that within three years we'd be so deluged with fascinating stories that we can't fit them all into a weekly magazine the same size as the monthly used to be, and a daily online news service.
At a time when we spent our days desperately evangelising the benefits of digital media and kept hearing the phrase "toe in the water", I'd have seen that a couple of years down the line, more or less every business would understand the power of the internet.
I'd love to look into the future now and see how all this stuff about alternative access devices pans out. I'm slightly, ahem, chilled by the idea of intelligent fridges, speaking as someone who can't even make a WAP phone work (but then, who can? They don't work, do they? Still, they look nice).
It's refreshing that people are interested in the future, rather than just sniggering at innovation, as is the usual British way. People want broadband internet access, mobile internet services that actually work, better digital TV. And if the internet is to be everywhere - part of the fabric of how we conduct our lives, rather than a walled-off thing on a browser - then we'll be able to start talking about companies rather than e-companies, commerce rather than e-commerce, and business rather than e-business. What a relief.
Richard Lord is the editor of Revolution.
.jpg)
.jpg)