I’m completely late to the party on this one, but the distance created by my tardiness gave me enhanced appreciation for Kevin Kelly‘s 2004 essay “We Are The Web.”
It was most famously published in Wired in August 2005. He’s conveyed it in a variety of ways since then, including edited and retitled versions. It’s also echoed significantly in his 2007 TED presentation, embedded below.
Rather than restate the essay’s key points, I’ll only advocate for your exposure to the essay and its points through your own efforts.
I copied, pasted then printed it on 9 pages. Contained therein are snapshots of the web and our relationship with it in 1995, 2005 and 2015. The history was useful. The forecast felt genius for the clarity and simplicity in its expression. The whole piece really came together for me toward the end; ironically, it was as he was slaying the once-popular vision of “convergence.”
I’d not read Kelly at all, so it was all fresh to me. I know neither how novel his concepts are, nor who else is writing on or adjacent to them.
Again, this video includes all the themes and many of the specific points made in “We Are The Web.” If this presentation is of any interest to you, I highly recommend giving the original essay a read.
