But in this case, these were all predictions, often by well-known individuals, about the future of the web. We all know Bill Gates (who is on this list) have made several boo-boos in his tenure as Microsoft CEO. But this Clifford Stoll guy! He made so many predictions that were so way off, no one should put any more credibility on what this guy has to say! I mean, really!
Fifteen years before plunging ad revenues forced its owners to sell Newsweek for $1, the magazine published an anti-Web screed from cybersecurity expert, astronomer and author Clifford Stoll. He called the Web "a wasteland of unfiltered data", and complained that reliable voices were being drowned out by the rabble.But there's more!
"The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper," he wrote.
"Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Internet," Stoll added. "Uh, sure."
We return to Stoll for this last one. He managed to get a staggering amount wrong in just a few hundred words. He also scoffed at the idea of "virtual communities", doubted the Web could have practical applications for government, and wondered how anyone could get any research done in the maze of online information.The only thing missing from this article is a followup interview of all the characters involved. I'd like to ask Bill Gates what he thinks of the SPAM activity now and why he got it so wrong. And definitely, I'd like to hear from this Stoll fella on how he could have been THAT wrong THAT many times?
But with regards to retail, he thought the lack of human contact would doom the Web as a sales medium. The evidence? His local mall "does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month."
Zz.
