Current Internet trends are set to bring about the most generational changes and largest generational chasm in history over the next five years, predicts Canadian technology entrepreneur, venture partner and author Leonard Brody.
Brody, who has helped raise millions of dollars for start-up companies and was involved in one of the biggest Internet initial public offerings, will be visiting SA later this month. He will also be a speaker at ITWeb`s IT Confidence conference on 21 February.
He said from Toronto this morning that behavioural patterns in the realm of technology appeared to move in "chunks of five years".
"Everything that was promised in 1998 - the entrepreneurial hype, the grandeur of the Internet - has proved to be true today."
He predicts that over the next five years one of the dominant trends will be the growth of Web 2.0.
"Over the next five years blogging and citizen journalism will become enormously powerful at a level never seen before. That will be the real change.
New era
"Web 1.0 was about broadband and moving eyeballs onto the Internet, and that we`ve seen. Web 2.0 is about the two-way Web, where virtual communities will have more importance in the life of individuals than real communities."
This is because the Internet facilitates interaction between people with similar interests.
"We are entering an era which will see the most generational changes and biggest generation chasm in our history. It is an era of individuals who do not work or function socially the way we do."
Brody, who is a director of Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance, says Generation X has one foot in the old world and one foot in the new world.
"We still read newspapers, for example, but the younger generation lives with both feet in the new world. Generation Y-ers don`t read newspapers. They don`t even use phones. They instant message.
"We will see a huge impact from this on business and so business needs to be aware of this and be cautious."
Brody believes the phenomenon will not be restricted to the developed world, but will also be seen in the developing world, where adoption, on a pro rata basis, will be faster than in the developed world, particularly as online communities proliferate through mobile handsets.
Brody is a co-author of Innovation Nation: Canadian Leadership from Java to Jurassic Park and Everything I needed to know about business... I learned from a Canadian.
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