The Worldbeam and the Next Web

What will the web look like in the future? According to one Yale professor, it will be very different than what we use today.

In a recent issue of Forbes,  David Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale University, paints a scenario that once seemed out of reach but now feels more plausible given the rising use of rich Internet applications.

Gelernter envisions a giant beam of information - a Worldbeam - that's organized chronologically. All of your data is stored on the Worldbeam. You decide who can access its micro components and how. However, none of your data is stored locally on your PC. Information follows you no matter what device or computer you use.

The Worldbeam scenario sounds similar to an artificial intelligence vision expressed Google CEO Eric Schmidt. It's definitely the stuff of science fiction. Still, if you squint you can see the building blocks are in place today. These include the River of News approach to reading RSS feeds and - coupled with it - an increasing movement to organize/store content by time and date-stamps.

Gelernter predicts...

"Every organization will tell its ongoing life story via electronic documents. A newspaper will generate a beam of stories and photos. (Fresh stories are posted at the end of the beam as soon as they are filed.) If you get your news from three newspapers, one cable channel and 12 blogs, you can blend their streams and keep an eye on them all simultaneously. When you tune in your custom-blend news stream, you see a time-ordered list of postings--the world according to all 16 of your sources interleaved, shuffled together."

Should this vision becomes a reality, it could have a big impact on how we consume and create media and how corporations tell their story. Whether you buy into this theory or not, the piece is fascinating and worth a read. Clearly there are lots of privacy concerns. People like having their information close at hand, but perhaps today's Gen Yers and others who grew up with the web will be the first to embrace the Worldbeam.

Comments

[Britt]

I agree with you that the building blocks are already there using the backbone we call the internet. He seems to be trying to build a unifying metaphor called the Worldbeam for what many in the convergence arena have been talking about for years.

We can't forget about the importance of the network. We each have our smaller networks and overlap with each other, but we are already building our "beams" based on our interests and connections. I can already store everything online and have it follow me around using online tools and OpenID (for the most part).

The biggest difference is in the delivery. We increasingly get our information straight from the sources, be it a breaking news story or a new product, based on our own preferences. We don't need a new name for what already exists.

Or maybe his vision is just too linear for me.

[Ty Graham]

You're beginning to become my favorite blog! This is another on-point and timely post. If space was digital, then a worldbeam is like a satellite for the internet. Few realize embedded video as THE rocket that launches the worldbeam into "orbit" to enable that ubiquitous world-wide communications backbone. Few Pay Attention, the coming Age of Knowledge is founded on this very idea. Digital orbit is real as space orbit. The first digital satellite will go up into digital orbit this summer.

This won't be the first worldbeam, in real space ONE man launched the first worldbeam and America threw a parade for him as a result. "An increasing movement to organize/store content by time and date-stamps." One of the most important statement I have heard in a blog with regards to the internet. Is anyone listening? Soon, everyone is going to get blipd!

[Michael Clarke]

Hmm. Aside from being vaguely (and slightly creepily) reminiscent of the beam of pink light from the orbiting AI in Philip K. Dick's novel "Valis", it sounds suspiciously like another metaphor building exercise. I agree with Britt - I read the paragraph you've quoted and I don't see anything there that isn't already happening. "f you get your news from three newspapers, one cable channel and 12 blogs, you can blend their streams and keep an eye on them all simultaneously." Uh-huh - it's called an RSS reader. Or Joost, perhaps.

[David Scott Lewis]

What Eric Schmidt is talking about is a leap beyond what David Gelernter is describing. I'd go so far as to saying that Worldbeam is a tiny little step toward Schmidt's vision. Don't get me wrong: Worldbeam is a step in the right direction. My point: It's just a small step.

Here's something to note. Has anyone noticed that there are a disproportionally high number of AI types working at Google? Disproportional relative to Microsoft, Yahoo, the list goes on.

An AI-based future is Google's secret sauce. Frankly, Google is still in its early days ... and has a long, long way to go. And this is good thing for Google. It's why Google will eventually defeat Microsoft and any others currently on the scene. Google has the right mindset; Microsoft doesn't.

[Michael O'Connor Clarke]

Thanks for pointing to this Steve.

Gelernter's ideas matter. I've been following the evolution of his thought along this path for some time. For a couple of years in the early 90's, I raved to anyone who would listen about his book, Mirrorworlds, which essentially predicted what we now know as the Web. It was a hugely influential book for me.

(Incidentally, I believe it was in part due to this book, as well as his contributions to the Linda programming language, that David attracted the very unwelcome attention of the Unabomber. He survived to write a remarkable book ('Drawing Life')about that episode.)

His work on the 'Lifestreams' idea has continued to fascinate me, and this next evolutionary extension of that project seems like it might just be an idea whose time has come. The central concept behind the Worldbeam hasn't altered all that much from the kind of thing David was describing five or so years ago. The big difference now, of course, is the enormous processing and storage power of our computers, and the near-ubiquity of Internet access (at least in 1st World nations) - bringing what once was speculative visioneering closer to practical reality.

Brilliant, fascinating bloke and probably one of our most important living computer scientists. The only thing about the Forbes piece I'd take exception with is the suggestion that something is going to "replace" the Internet. AND logic should apply here, not OR or NOT.

Still, I'd sign up for a Worldbeam tomorrow if I could.

[sunhuanjun]

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