Future of the Bottom-Up Internet

Welcome

Group Members

• Jim Harders
  
• Andrew Li
  
• Robert Sparenaaij
  

Research Questions

To research the bottom up internet we had to set up some research questions, the questions have been split up to show who gave the greatest contribution in answering them.

Jim

1. What is bottom up internet?
• The “bottom up internet” is a descriptive term meaning a collection of techniques / services / products that make it possible to transform normal internet users into content providers. This can be with the purpose of providing leisure but also with the purpose of sharing and creating knowledge.
2. What techniques are used for the bottom up internet?
   • A combination of standards that are available to the public but combined to provide a better user experience, for example: AJAX (Javascript, (X)HTML, XML, DOM, XMLHttpRequest), RSS, CGI.
   • Additional technologies that can also be used are the Server based scripting languages, JAVA and databases.
   • In short everything that can be used to provide internet content.
3. What services are used for the bottom up internet?
• Offerings of: Blogspaces, Webspaces, Forums, Wikispaces, Podcasts, Open source participation and support for all the previously mentioned development techniques.
• Also additional services related to improving the surfing quality of the individual users like identification services and content generation based on the user profile.
4. What products are used for the bottom up internet?
• There are a lot of products relating to the bottom up internet, they are provided by different companies but all are related to the techniques and services offered: BitTorrent, Wikipedia, Napster, CU2, SNARFER, SharpReader, NetNewsWire, Straw, Bloglines, www.blogger.com, www.podcast.com, www.ipodder.org,
5. How many blogs are there?
• More than 80 million blogs created online in 2005 (http://www.blogherald.com)
• Currently http://www.technorati.com/ tracks more than 30.8 million active Latin/American blogs.
6. How many users are blogging?
• Around 30% of internet users read blogs
7. Is there an increase in blogs / users?
• The amount of blogs to track doubles every 5 months.
• The amount of bloggers increases a little less fast than the blogs.
8. How big are blogs?
• The total number of messages on tracked blogs is 2.1 billion.
• The number of blogs tracked is 30.8 million.
• 2.1 billion divided by 30.8 million is around 70 messages per blog. However there are blogs which are for personal use only and others that have more than 100 posts a day.
9. How big is the bittorrent community?
• 1/3 of the internet traffic now a days is due to bittorrent usage.
• At any time there are more than 2.5 million transfers going around.

Driving Forces

We have identified the following driving forces:

Jim

• Mass customization: People are becoming accustomed to the fact that products are specialised for their needs. In areas in which the customization doesn't fit their needs they try to find solutions of their own. The internet is a very good place to share those customizations.
• Improved user friendliness of web based publishing services: Because it has become easier to publish content online most of the borders preventing publishing have fanished and thus more users publish.
• Improved integration of IT into the current society: More and more people are growing up with computers or know how they work because of having to work with them at a company. This makes the group of internet and thus also bottom up internet users bigger and better.