Wars rage in both the
wireless and the ebook realms. Platforms compete. Standards
clash. Gurus debate. But convergence is inevitable and with it
the e-book of the future.
8. The Archive Function
The Internet is also the world's biggest cemetery: tens of
thousands of deadbeat sites, still accessible - the "Ghost
Sites" of this electronic frontier.
This, in a way, is collective memory. One of the Internet's
main functions will be to preserve and transfer knowledge
through time. It is called "memory" in biology - and "archive"
in library science. The history of the Internet is being
documented by search engines (Google) and specialized services
(Alexa) alike.
The Internet as a Collective Brain
Drawing a comparison from the development of a human baby -
the human race has just commenced to develop its neural
system.
The Internet fulfils all the functions of the Nervous System
in the body and is, both functionally and structurally, pretty
similar. It is decentralized, redundant (each part can serve
as functional backup in case of malfunction).
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