Internet time
Encyclopedia
Internet time was a common catchphrase that originated during the late-1990s Internet
boom. In this period, people who worked with the Internet had come to believe that "everything moved faster on the 'net", because the Internet made the dissemination of information far easier and cheaper. In layman’s terms, “Internet Time” involves efficiencies inherent to digital transactions that are produced by the virtual reality of one product, one product type, or one service provided to consumers from one virtual cash register residing on one server. The amount of time required to conduct simultaneous transactions is reduced to irrelevance, as everything is occurring at one compressed—albeit virtual—location.
Fast-moving developments were therefore said to run "on Internet time." For example:
The meaning (and historical origin) of the phrase "Internet time" strongly parallels that of "New York minute".
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
boom. In this period, people who worked with the Internet had come to believe that "everything moved faster on the 'net", because the Internet made the dissemination of information far easier and cheaper. In layman’s terms, “Internet Time” involves efficiencies inherent to digital transactions that are produced by the virtual reality of one product, one product type, or one service provided to consumers from one virtual cash register residing on one server. The amount of time required to conduct simultaneous transactions is reduced to irrelevance, as everything is occurring at one compressed—albeit virtual—location.
Fast-moving developments were therefore said to run "on Internet time." For example:
- Companies released new (usually unstable and buggy) revisions of their software as free downloads, counting on feedback from customers to provide quality assuranceQuality AssuranceQuality assurance, or QA for short, is the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project, service or facility to maximize the probability that minimum standards of quality are being attained by the production process...
. This development strategy, called "release early, release oftenRelease early, release oftenRelease early, release often is a software development philosophy that emphasizes the importance of early and frequent releases in creating a tight feedback loop between developers and testers or users...
", was perhaps epitomized in the development of the Netscape NavigatorNetscape NavigatorNetscape Navigator was a proprietary web browser that was popular in the 1990s. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corporation and the dominant web browser in terms of usage share, although by 2002 its usage had almost disappeared...
Web browserWeb browserA web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
. The resulting pressure to release new features quickly and grab "mindshareMind shareMind share, or the development of consumer awareness or popularity, is one of the main objectives of advertising and promotion. When people think of examples of a product type or category, they usually think of a limited number of brand names. For example, a prospective buyer of a college education...
" before one's competitors had disastrous effects on software quality, but resulted in an unprecedented rapid pace of innovation. - A memeMemeA meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena...
could travel the world, in the form of forwarded emailEmailElectronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, in a week or frequently less. Early instances of such memes included the infamous make money fastMake Money Fast"MAKE.MONEY.FAST" is a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter which became so infamous that the term is now used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet, by e-mail spam or Usenet newsgroups...
spam. - WormComputer wormA computer worm is a self-replicating malware computer program, which uses a computer network to send copies of itself to other nodes and it may do so without any user intervention. This is due to security shortcomings on the target computer. Unlike a computer virus, it does not need to attach...
s, virusComputer virusA computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...
es, and other malwareMalwareMalware, short for malicious software, consists of programming that is designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, or gain unauthorized access to system resources, or that otherwise exhibits abusive behavior...
could infect large portions of the Internet in a matter of days or hours, crippling systems worldwide with speed that was shocking to system administrators accustomed to a less networkComputer networkA computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
ed era.
The meaning (and historical origin) of the phrase "Internet time" strongly parallels that of "New York minute".
See also
- Accelerating changeAccelerating changeIn futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is a perceived increase in the rate of technological progress throughout history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in the future...
- Moore's lawMoore's LawMoore's law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware: the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years....
- Network time protocolNetwork Time ProtocolThe Network Time Protocol is a protocol and software implementation for synchronizing the clocks of computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data networks. Originally designed by David L...
- Warhol wormWarhol wormA Warhol worm is an extremely rapidly propagating computer worm that spreads as fast as physically possible, infecting all vulnerable machines on the entire Internet in 15 minutes or less. The term is based on Andy Warhol's remark that "In the future, everyone will have 15 minutes of fame". The...