You may have noticed that the base URL of the site has changed from xcentric.com to strangeandhappy.com. Hey, why not? What is eccentricity, after all, other than being strange and happy? And, given my battle cry for more positively-oriented science fiction
(and, before the naysayers jump in here, I’m not talking about happy-sappy lighthearted stuff, but work in which yeah, there may be big and scary changes, but there is still humanity, there is still hope)
the site name change makes sense.
It’s kinda funny to look back on the xcentric.com domain–the first domain I ever registered, way back in 1995. The irony is that my company name, Centric, had already been registered by a small engineering firm in 1990, so I had to pick an alternate name: xcentric.com. And this is a time when domain names like mcdonalds.com and chevrolet.com were not yet registered . . .
In fact, it might be interesting to take a look back at that time. In 1995, if you said you were an internet user, you were a bit strange, right out of the gate. After all, there were only about 10 million internet users in the world at the time I registered xcentric.com–less total accounts than there are in Second Life today.
And, in 1995, if you said, “The internet will change everything we know, it will eat every medium we have, it will grow and eat newspapers and radio and television,” you were a bit of a nutter.
But that is exactly what I said. In fact, I have documents from 1995 saying, “It will eat television in 10 years.” Well, YouTube was a year late, but fact is, YouTube now has greater reach and engagement than all the television networks put together.
Since 1995, I’ve built a decent-sized business helping companies take advantage of these ongoing changes in the online space. From websites to social network marketing to metaverse development, this is what I do on a daily basis. And I have to tell you: the changes you’ve seen to date are only a tiny, tiny fraction of what is to come.
The mobile revolution will dwarf the computing revolution, the internet revolution, and the social media revolution put together. Augmented reality will be the de facto standard for business in well under 10 years, despite how Bruce Sterling makes fun of his spex these days. And virtual realities are awaiting only a simple, in-browser experience to become mainstream–which we have today, at Maid Marian.
It’s gonna be a neat ride, a fun ride, and its going to change everything, all over again. And the opportunities will be simply stunning. If we can look forward–truly look forward–the future is as bright as it has ever been.
June 15th, 2008 / Comments Off