I am often asked by friends of how I see the Internet business and what I think will be next. Well, here are some answers.

Our industry suffered a lot after the implosion of the Internet bubble. The problem makers were not only investment bankers and investment houses driving the hype and the courses so they can make a quick buck. No, it was simply a human one. Expectation. The public and especially Internet novice people simply expected to much from this new cool communication tool and the net was just not up to fulfill what was wanted and will be possible eventually one day.

A lot has happened already even though funding is rare these days. I remember the days of 97 when technology experts promised speeds higher than 56 KB would never be possible on regular copper phone lines. That would have been a natural limitation to the Internet and would pull the break on multi-media until every household would be wired with fiber optics cables. Now in 2004 we have DSL with speeds up to 7 Mbps on regular copper phone lines in the US, Germany, France, Russia and even on the little island Tenerife in the middle of the Atlantic just West of Africa. You bet I have been surprised. The usual and affordable speed is between 256 kbps and 768 kbps, and that’s still painful when downloading movies, but its enough for streaming video and radio or the download of MP3s. And of course way enough to do email and read websites. Even fancy flashy one’s, like my clients always request them.

By the way, for all of you who don’t know, the speed is always determined by the slowest part in the chain. So, if you are in Germany and you are downloading a movie from someone in the US it may take long, even so you have fast access. Even if the guy in the US has a line as fast as yours it may still get slow, because you may share his bandwidth with other downloader’s or your data goes down some congested lines that are also used by millions of people requesting files from web servers. Can you imagine the bandwidth necessary to support this on a larger, so called backbone level? We have come a loooong way already and DSL is just the beginning.

Well, here are the good news. Since years US Universities work on a project called Internet2 and they were joined by international teams in Europe and Israel and others will follow across the planet. The project was to built a new Internet, much faster and more secure, trying to eliminate all the flaws of the Internet as we know it.

In 2001 we had transfer speeds between Columbia University and UCLA of 7 GB per second in an experiment. That is 2 DVD’s in one second. I just say video on demand in high quality. Since 2001 a lot has happened again. Internet2 is now a none profit organization with support and membership of universities, commercial companies and the government. In November 2004 a new world record was set. Terrabytes (yes Terra) were sent over a distance of 10 000km between the US and CERN in Geneva. The result was a steady transfer rate averaging at 5 GB per second. Today the organization is not talking about replacing the Internet anymore, rather the old network should be enhanced and advanced. Europe is working on a similar network project called Geant connecting Universities of 30 countries with trasfer rates of about 2,5 GB per second, on a backbone level (only).

Of course there is much more work to do. How do we get the speeds into a regular household? I assume we’ll find some wireless solution like UMTS, but maybe its going to be something different. And the whole thing will start all over again like in 1994. First a few people will get access, mostly Universities (that’s what we have today), than it will be opened for commercial use (as in early 94/95) and than households need to explore the use and benefits of high speed Internet and make the necessary investments into hard- and software. This time it will deliver what was promised and the sky is the limit. Communicating refriguators, interactive TV’s with video on demand, voice over IP (telephony) are just some buzzwords.

To see it in a philosophical way I’d say we get closer to visions of William Gibsons cyberspace with virtual meeting rooms, avatars and virtual reality. To see it in a marketing perspective it is just a natural development. New technologies need the cycle of one generation in order to become mainstream. For example the CD replaced the LP or DVD replaced VHS in one generation. A generation is counted with about 12 years nowadays, so you make the math. It seems we are a bit behind though, but the questions is if we count from the beginning of the commercial Internet or we start counting from the start of Internet2 until it replaces the Internet as we know it now.

Anyways, there are exciting times ahead and the new media business is not as bad and dead as many people may think. We just have to get through these hard times of low economies and world wide terror which is putting pressure on the markets. With the next upturn we will get Internet2 and we will get lots of work and production again. On top of it the “users” (yes I mean you) are ready and know how to use this new exciting media. No need to learn about navigating websites or writing emails anymore.

What scares me though, is that the whole thing is developed, controlled and funded by large corporations such as AT&T or AOL and the government. That will probably mean they will gain control over what they have lost: Copyright laws (MP3 and DIVX) and control over the networks and servers. So the net may loose its anarchic and free character. Also production of websites will get so much more expensive due to the integration of media such as video. Mostly, only large companies will be able to afford this, such is TV production and broadcasting today. So you can guess who the big players and benefits of this new technology will be. Lets hope for the better.

Links:
Official Internet2 Website
World Record
Europe’s Geant Network
About Abilene - Advanced Network
Internet2 in Israel

Tims Burtons (Edward Scissorhands/Mars Attacks) recent movie starts slow and a bit boring. Maybe its just because I am not into fantasy movies and I can’t really appreciate the beautiful pictures he draws on the screen. Maybe its because I don’t like the Southern US and especially the slang they talk down there (sorry, but I gotta be honest).

After sitting through the first 45 minutes I finally get the story and it pulls me into the movie. All over sudden I find myself in a world of fairytales that is constantly colliding with the real world. What bothered me at first was the simplicity and stupidity of the stories the father tells his son. It crashed with my (sometimes, smile) very realistic view of things. But what the story wants to tell us is that we all need more fantasy, that our lives are too much driven by reality, by the daily unspectacular and cold. That life can be so much more beautiful if we take time for our dreams and have others participate in them, telling the stories.

Life isn’t a fairytale and with time getting less and less on our hands we even forget the old fairytales we were told when we were kids. A recent study in Germany showed that more than 60 % of the below 30 year olds cannot even tell one complete classic fairytale anymore. I remember how shocking this news line has been for me, but I soon forgot it and I went on with my life thinking of how to make money and how to manage with daily problems.

Back to the movie. I don’t want to tell you much about the story, which is based on a novel of Darrel Wallace, but I recommend this movie to you. Its more of a home flick on DVD, so don’t go to the cinema.

Sit through the beginning and try to understand the relationship between father and son and I’m sure you’ll enjoy this movie. Than again, people are different. Particularly this movie will not be understood by everyone and many of you may find it bad and boring. I guess that’s Tim Burton style. That just leaves me to confess that I have been crying as a dog at the end. Well done Mr. Burton. You have caught me after all.

Rating: 9 out of 10 (Drama/Fantasy)

Big Fish (2003) Movie Database
Official Site
Official Site in French

Aufwachen! - schreit einer. Im ersten Moment weiß ich nicht, wo ich bin. Liege ich in einer Kaserne, im Krankenbett oder im Knast. Das Leben schlägt wieder mal zu. Einfach so, denn es war ja die letzte Zeit viel zu einfach.
Aufwachen! Ich weigere mich, die Augen zu öffnen, es könnte ja wahr sein und ich liege im Knast. Eingesperrt, weil ich im Suff einen Drogendealer halb tot geschlagen habe. Es könnte ja sein, dass ich eingesperrt bin. Ich habe das Gefühl mich nicht frei bewegen zu können. Das Gefühl hinter kalten Stahlrohren zu sitzen. Ein Gitter, das gerade groß genug ist, um den Kopf hindurch zu stecken. Mittendrin ist eine Tür mit einem recht massiven Schloss. Es riecht kalt, feucht und nach Dreck.
Aufwachen! Mir kullert ein Träne aus den Augen. Mein Körper ist schwer und kraftlos. Es ist Zeit Abschied zu nehmen. Abschied von meinen Freunden, meiner Familie, denn ich muss gehen. Nein, mein Krebszerfressener Körper bleibt hier, auf diesem Planeten. Es ist Zeit zu gehen, dabei will ich doch noch gar nicht. Ich liebe meine Freunde, meine Familie und jetzt soll ich gehen. Ich muss weinen. Hoffentlich ist es nur ein Traum.
Aufwachen! Schreit es laut durch den Gang. Hundertschaft aufwachen! Wieder so ein beschissener Tag. Wieder in der Uniform. Wieder genauso aussehen, wie die anderen. Dabei bin ich doch anders, dabei bin ich doch ich. Ich will gar nicht so sein wie die anderen. Was zählen Ruhm, Ehre, der Beste zu sein. Nein, das bin ich nicht, das zählt nicht für mich. Es gibt doch wichtigeres im Leben, oder?
Aufwachen! Schreit jemand, ganz laut, ganz streng. Doch ich mach die Augen nicht auf. Ja, ich mach sie einfach nicht auf und dreh mich zur Seite, um noch eine Weile zu schlafen. Schreit ihr ruhig, ich schlaf noch ne Weile.

Just imagine, you have an accident and lay in coma. When you finally wake up 4 weeks later, everybody is gone and the world as you know it has completely changed. A freighting thought, right? But that’s not the only freighting thing about this movie from 2002 that just came out on DVD. Director Danny Boyle (of Trainspotting and The Beach) sends his main character Jim through a pretty tough journey with anarchy and zombies along the way trying to kill him. After all he finds his love. That’s a bit cheesy, but hey, if you find one of the last women on earth you mind as well take it, right?

The story is about a deadly virus being released by accident, which makes “The Infected” to somewhat like zombies. After all they CAN be killed. The movie isn’t visually disgusting, but Boyle plays with your imagination and that is what gives you cold showers and makes you wanna turn it off at some points. I know it sound kinda like Outbreak or other movies. Have been there. Seen it. But this one is slightly different. Check it out. Its just right for a Monday night at home infront of the TV.

The story is pretty predictable and not very realistic from my point of view. I wouldn’t do many things as they do them there, but than again its me and other people react differently. Also what would a movie be, if everything would run smooth. Well, I would probably get killed or infected trying to find a rifle or MP5 which I could use to shoot the zombies in video game manner.

I really have to say that I liked Irish Cillian Murphy and his performance in this movie. I am sure we will see him more often in the future and as I just read he is filming Batman (Another one, AGHHH. People buy the comic books. Please.) as we speak.

Rating: 7 out of 10 (Sci-Fi Thriller)

28 days later (2002) Movie Database
Official Site

Hm, es ist so schön. Ja, so schön. Gerade jetzt. In diesem Moment. Warum kann es nicht für immer dauern, einfach immer so sein? Der Moment zieht weiter und es kommt der Nächste. Nichts, aber auch gar nichts auf dieser Welt bringt ihn zurück. Er wurde vom nächsten Moment zur Seite geschoben. Nur in meinem Kopf, da gibt’s ihn noch. Er lebt weiter in meinen Gedanken und Ideen. Nur vergessen darf ich ihn nicht.