Pew Surveys Tackle Internet's Future, Online Politics' Present

摘要

Two reports from the Pew Internet & American Life Project provide insights about consumers' online usage: The first report sketches out a vision of the internet's future, and the other examines online voter engagement after the 2008 presidential election.rn"The Future of the Internet III," written by Janna Quitney Anderson and Lee Rainie, features predictions from internet experts and other stakeholders about technological, social, and legal progress by the year 2020. Meanwhile, the "Post-Election Voter Engagement" report, by Aaron Smith, found that most Obama supporters remain engaged and expect the president to continue reaching out to the public during the start of his term.rnAccording to the internet report, 77% of the internet experts surveyed say mobile phones will become "the primary Internet communications platform for a majority of people across the world." They say these devices will have significantly more computing power by 2020 and will be offered worldwide under a set of universal standards.rn"By 2020, the network providers of 'telephony' will have been disinterme-diated," according to Susan Crawford, founder of OneWebDay and a board member at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. In the report, Crawford says, "We'll have standard network connections around the world. ... Billions of people will have joined the Internet who don't speak English. They won't think of these things as 'phones' either-these devices will be simply lenses on the online world."