The Netscape IPO wasn’t really about dot-commerce. At its heart was a
new cultural force based on mass collaboration. Blogs, eBay, open
source, peer-to-peer behold the power of the people.

"…Three thousand years from now, when keen minds review the past, I
believe that our ancient time, here at the cusp of the third
millennium, will be seen as another such era.

In the years roughly
coincidental with the Netscape IPO, humans began animating inert
objects with tiny slivers of intelligence, connecting them into a
global field, and linking their own minds into a single thing. This
will be recognized as the largest, most complex, and most surprising
event on the planet.

Weaving nerves out of glass and radio waves, our
species began wiring up all regions, all processes, all facts and
notions into a grand network. From this embryonic neural net was born a
collaborative interface for our civilization, a sensing, cognitive
device with power that exceeded any previous invention. The Machine
provided a new way of thinking (perfect search, total recall) and a new
mind for an old species. It was the Beginning."

By Kevin Kelly

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