• by Jeffrey Graham , June 21, 2002

The Internet allows me to get the information I want, when I want it. But one problem remains: I can’t get the information where I want it. Giving people access to information and entertainment wherever and however they want it is the main reason why the future of the Internet is not about convergence, it’s about divergence.

It’s all about bits. Great works of literature, Kung Fu films, Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite,” Tomb Raider III, the NBA finals—all can be broken down into ones and zeros and be distributed through copper, fiber and ether. Sure, they can all end up in one, all-purpose device. But who wants all their media in one place?

Different types of content make sense on different platforms. I might want to watch a movie in my living room, but surf the Internet on a hand-held device as I sit on my front porch. But you know what? Another day I might want it the other way around. Technologies that allow flexibility among different platforms, and adapt to fit the fickle desires of users, will win out in the long run.

Television was the perfect device for the age of broadcast mass media. People had to rendezvous with content that streamed out at specific times and was meant for a mass audience. But things have changed. The trend is toward uniquely personalized media, assembled from millions of sources, geared to an individual’s wants and needs. The user experience on multiple, ever-evolving hardware platforms will be customizable as well.

“Convergence” devices like WebTV are mere vestiges of an age gone by. Interchangeable bits, available on multiple, divergent platforms, are the future of the Internet. Companies like Microsoft know it. That’s why the company just announced a new strategy based in XML, a protocol that allows data to be exchanged intelligently among different devices, personalized to the user’s needs.

In the future, the “nexus” of information will shift from a PC-based browser to local, distributed, personalized platforms. Instead of using multiple websites to gather information, that information will be gathered and assembled for users by intelligent software agents, served to appropriate devices depending on the user’s needs (or whim).

The last great revolution in human communication was the printing press. But that revolution wasn’t about books, it was about words. The power of the printed word is in its adaptability to different media: the book, the billboard and the business card. The same is true for the Internet revolution; it’s not about any one device, it’s about flowing, exchangeable, device-neutral bits. Divergence, not convergence, will characterize the chaotic freedom of the information age.

Jeffrey Graham is Research Director for NOVO, a leading Internet professional services firm.