Trends underlying today's Internet include substantial personalization and the emergence of the business-to-business market. Regardless of the downturn in 2001, the networks will reemerge. Trends underlying the third-generation Internet will drive the growth of the new economy in upcoming years. Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. GPRS Introduction GPRS Introduction Demographic change Figure 2-2 Broadband The steps in 3rd Generation Internet Next generation portals developing the third- Multiple Device Appliance/Devices generation Internet. Mobile Internet Net-sourcing Brand strike back 2nd Generation Internet B2B takes off Today PC Centric Intentions networks Real personalization Standards 1st Generation Internet Narrowband PC Driven Business model experimentation New companies and brands First, as more people go online, in fact almost doubling, the online population will begin to normalize, or resemble the overall U.S. population. The average age of the online user will go up and his or her income will fall. This means that strong brand recognition increases in importance, greater service levels to support less savvy online users will be required, and convenience and ease of use will become vital. The good news is that these changes will drive a greater comfort level with online shopping for the average online user, more than doubling total spending online. Second, broadband will create a personalized, interactive experience. Think of the "Web on steroids." Today's interactive experience will be radically enhanced. Instead of instant text messaging, we will have easy access to instant audio and video messaging. Instead of today's chat rooms and discussion lists, we will have far more sophisticated real-time collaboration tools. Today's grainy-streamed audio and video will have broadcast quality tomorrow. The two-dimensional wil