The Web is Dead Long Live the Internet

1. Why does the author say the web is dead?

During the 2000’s the web was at its peak and it a countered for more than 50% of all Internet traffic, but with the explosion of peer-to-peer communication and online video sharing that number has been reduced to 23% of total internet use. The decline is blamed on two things: one factor is our own predilections and the inevitable course of capitalism for narrowing our Internet use to things we can get easily through the world of apps. The other factor being blamed is the deep-pocketed businessmen seeking to control the web.

The web can be described as a browser looking at it through a set of protocols or a construct. The Internet is a pipe that moves things or the distribution mechanism of our day and the future. Does the web truly go away? No, it becomes extremely marginalized because of all the different apps and media created making the web just a part of the experience.

2. Summarize how the authors characterize the following three media companies: Facebook, Google, Apple

* Facebook: is also an alternative to Google. People tend to think of it as the web but in reality it is something separate from the web. Facebook is something that you reach over the web. One of its purposes is to keep people out of the web because they find themselves satisfied with what Facebook provides and so they never venture into the web.
* Google: controls the web. Nobody else can get into it, because of this Facebook, Apple and Netflix have come up with alternatives in order to compete with Google.
* Apple: besides providing leading technology it has come up with alternatives from other media companies so that it can compete and stay in the same market as Google, Facebook and arguable Netflix.

3. What are the key issues facing new media today

Technology is continuously changing in order to become better, cheaper, faster and more efficient. There is opportunity for anyone to participate (good thing) but the problem is that it is hard to make a business here, hard to make a buck since many of the forces in the business are not here because they want their voice to be heard but because they want their money. Media has to be the kind of structure that gives us information, entertains us, holds our interest, does what we want to do, and organizes our information lives. Media is good and it can be good/bad for culture. Good for democracy if there is media that can support itself.