Net needs to heighten hype – Cisco

If you already thought the Internet had been blown out of all proportion -- think again. Apparently, there's not enough hoop-la and hyperbole spoken about the Internet. That's just one of the conclusions from a new report by Cisco Systems which claims that the Net is set to be as influential as the Industrial Revolution in the 18th Century. The Impact of the Internet Economy in Europe claims that the Internet Revolution mirrors the changes that ripped through society during the Industrial Revolution. The difference at the end of the 20th Century is that the seismic socio-economic changes are taking just a third of the time as they did two hundred years ago. "If you thought the technology bubble was about to burst, think again," said James Richardson, President of Cisco EMEA. "Everything you ever thought possible through Internetworking technologies will pale into insignificance compared with what is about to come in the next few years," he said. On the basis of this evidence, the Internet is actually being under-hyped, rather than over-hyped, in terms of the impact it will have on people's lives, said Richardson (no relation). Part of the blame could be that there simply aren't enough quality rooftops available to allow people to really shout out about the Net. Or maybe not. The report was written by the Henley Centre and Commissioned by Cisco. ®