Monday, October 25, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

THE ONLINE GUY: Shrinking office, widening universe

As the Internet continues to evolve and become part of everyday life, how we interact with technology and each other will continue to transform, one Net expert said.

The power of the network, connecting people and services, will eventually undo the Industrial Revolution, said Jakob Nielsen, Web design guru and partner in the Nielsen Norman Group (www.nngroup.com). "For the last 200 years, we have seen a movement toward mass manufacturing where people moved to the cities and had jobs," he said, calling the idea of having a job a "weird concept."

Nielsen said he believes that instead of traditional jobs, more people now have the ability to not go to the office every day as they use the Internet to "connect as required" and create more speciality products and services. He sees the trend of more people working from home or in smaller, specialized businesses continuing.

"That's the point of the network," he said. "It connects points."

He cited the example of putting on a Web design conference with more than 350 attendees in Las Vegas, where he connected with vendors and planned everything online.

"We bring together people who are experts -- the audio-visual people, the registration service and the programmers," he said. "All of it is enabled by the network."

Nielsen sees elements of the Internet evolving in various ways. He said e-mail continues to be the "killer app" because it goes directly to you, with the proliferation of e-newsletters playing an important role.

Nielsen said the spread of weblogging, or blogging, fulfills a unique purpose for Web users.

"It expresses you as an individual. Even if it has only five readers, that's OK," he said.

When it comes to mobile and wireless services, Nielsen pulls no punches.

"The U.S. is still behind in mobile technology. It's a disgrace how hard it is to get a signal here sometimes," he said. "In Europe, SMS (short message service, or text messaging) is very big. It's like e-mail on the phone and people are very much in the moment. People feel good about it."

Nielsen said he understands why people send photos and videos from their mobile phones to family and friends despite the relative low quality of the images. It's all about personalization and sharing a moment, even across thousands of miles.

He added that alert-type news services on mobile devices will have people getting the news the second it happens. One day, he predicted, people will have a button on their phone that lets them buy or sell a stock.

Sign me up.

Share your Internet story with me at: agibes@reviewjournal.com and be sure to visit The Online Guy Web site at: (www.reviewjournal.com/columnists/onlineguy)