CIW Community - Get caught in the Web!

I've often used the analogy that most people over 30 have experienced effectively the "Model T" era of the Internet. At this point, we might be somewhere around the '39 Chevy version of the Internet. Things have evolved a bit since Windows 95 and Netscape's 1.0 browser; in the same way that '39 Chevy owners didn't have to crank-start their cars and had an optional automatic shift, we have the beginnings of the browser as a relatively smart application that can deliver some pretty interesting applications.

Today, it was announced that Google has introduced the Chrome operating system. It'll be based on Linux, and will be ideal for Netbooks, which are "lightweight" notebook computers that rely almost solely on the Internet to obtain applications. They're thin clients, basically new-age dumb terminals that old timers probably remember.

So, we've got Windows and Chrome. What other tools are necessary to create the perfect Internet vehicle? Security applications to provide the best windshields, bumpers or brakes to protect us? Databases to provide a capacious, roomy place for our data to reside as we cruise on down the information superhighway (gee - there's a phrase I haven't heard in a while).

I'd say we need to take a giant leap forward and start thinking about how to replace the old internal combustion engine with something new. What is the Internet/Web equivalent of the internal combustion engine? Don't exactly know, but here are some candidates:

• The traditional Internet infrastructure, as dominated by traditional service providers (e.g., Comcast, Charter).
• Traditional search engines (and yes, this includes Google and Microsoft's Bing)
• Today's primitive social networking models.

What's your candidate for the missing element in the ideal Internet vehicle?

- Tangent