10. All change is pattern of online life

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Fiachra Ó'Marcaigh, Director, AMAS

The expression that change is the only constant may go back to Heraclitus of Ephesus (who stopped noticing change back in 475 BC) but it is truer than ever today, and nowhere more clearly so than online.

This issue of State of the Net contains some striking statistics illustrating and confirming major change.

One is the evidence that the telephone is now definitely mobile. Substantially more people now own a mobile phone than have a fixed line phone in their homes. The upward curve of mobile and the downward curve of the POTS (plain old telephone system) crossed back in 2004 and continued to diverge.

Another is that Firefox has captured a very substantial share of the browser business in Europe. It has overcome the near-total dominance of Internet Explorer a few years ago and is now heading for one-third market share.

But none of this should surprise us. The position that Internet Explorer is defending was once held by Netscape’s web browser. Netscape – a name that was as familiar to Web users in the late 1990s as Google is today – has shrunk to a minuscule market share.

In fact, Netscape may disappear completely, apart from a handful of enthusiasts who keep a copy in working order like a 1940s car and bring it for a spin every now and again.

These trends – mobile and Firefox – are well established and the statistics are the stamp of confirmation on what we already know.

What is much more interesting is the implication for other technologies covered in State of the Net. The rapid rise of social networking and user-generated content as the pastimes of choice for a generation of Irish young people surprised many people and shocked some over the past three years.

However, even as it happened, it was clear that this dominance would not last forever. There are so many possibilities inherent in the online world that it is inevitable another communications phenomenon will come forward to challenge, and quite possibly replace, the online social networks. Or as a child of the future will almost definitely put it: “Bebo, what was that Dad?”

Back to contents of State of the Net issue 8