The internet and the future of computers in society

Internet and Its Impact on Society

The adoption of the Internet as a means for communicating, collaborating and enabling commerce is leading to significant developments in the area of Web application development technologies and their use. Specifically focusing on how Web-based application development is leading to the development of more efficient and streamlined development languages including AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) (MacVittie, 2007) and their collective use to create Web Services (Juric, Sasa, Brumen, Rozman, 2009) is the focus of this analysis. Each of these technologies is briefly defined, their implications for businesses, and for society then discussed. Throughout this analysis the role of Web 2.0 technologies (O'Reilly, 2006) are analyzed as is the impact of social networking (Bernoff, Li, 2008). For a map of the Web 2.0 design objectives as originally defined by Tim O'Reilly please see Appendix A, and for a table comparing social networking applications, please see Appendix B.

The Era of Rapid Web-Based Application Development Has Arrived

The limitations of traditional Web application development based on the Hypertext Markup Protocol (HTTP) have significantly slowed down application performance and adoption despite the Internet growing exponentially in terms of users every year. Of the emerging standards that seek to increase Web-based application performance, AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) (MacVittie, 2007) has become established as a leader in application performance due to its algorithms only updating the areas of an application where information has changed (Mesbah, van Deursen, 2008). HTML on the other hand refreshes an entire application every time a change is made, which significantly slows down performance. This is made all the more evident when users are accustomed to exceptionally fast performance on TCP/IP optimized networks that are running XML integration points (Yang, Liao, Fang, 2007). Users have come to expect faster response times from applications and it is becoming increasingly evident when a large-scale website or application for banking or travel has been designed with AJAX. Even on relatively slow connections the performance of AJAX-based applications is noticeably faster than HTML-based applications. When larger data sets are included the speed is significantly impacted and AJAX performance can actually scale orders of magnitudes faster than HTML given tests completed (Yang, Liao, Fang, 2007).

What's also driving the adoption of AJAX as a programming standard for rapid application development is that the Internet is changing many peoples' perception of how responsive applications should be online. No longer willing to wait for entire page refreshes that are for the most part being constrained by HTML-based applications, users today want near-instance response to Web applications, regardless if they are being used on their laptops connected to WiFi networks or on a cell phone. This expectation on the part of users is leading to the Internet itself becoming more defined by its performance and XML integration and less on just its availability (Yang, Liao, Fang, 2007). Rapid application development platforms including AJAX also have security to the data element level, a major shortcoming of HTML-based programming platforms as well (Serrano, Aroztegi, 2007). AJAX as a programming platform can also analyze and manage large data sets more efficiently than HTML, which makes the platform ideal for search engine updates and development (Wusteman, O'hlceadha, 2006). Google has standardized on AJAX, customizing the programming language specifically fur use in search engine design and development. Their edition is called Python, and both it and an application development environment called Ruby on Rails are the most in use by developers today (Bachle, Kirchberg, 2007).

As Internet users' expectations have continued to increase over time with regard to application performance, those companies and universities building AJAX application development environments have begun to include Web Services as well. A Web Service in essence turns the application into its own application server, complete with its own data servers layer and ability to integrate to many additional information sources than had been possible in the past (Choi, Wong, 2009). This aspect of AJAX as a programming standard has now opened up an entirely new series of applications that can be created. The areas were data sets were too difficult to analyze and use with HTML applications are now accessible for AJAX-based Web programs. This is translating into the combining of large geographic data sets with sales data, and the development of an entirely new area of applications called mash-ups (O'Reilly, 2006). A mash-up takes two data sets, often with both having a large amount of data, and correlates them together to show their relationship, and for the benefit of Internet users. One of the best examples of a mash-up being made possible by the AJAX programming language is the work of Dr. Hans Rosling and his GapMinder program at Gapminder.org (Phelps, Cseh, 2009). Dr. Rosling has taken the data set from the United Nations and added in analytics to determine the correlation of income to health. He is a regular speaker at TED (Technology, Entertainment & Design) Conferences and is considered one of the top 20 presenters of all time at this distinguished and prestigious global conference. His insights into the correlation of income and health have been widely used by governments globally and he is a frequent lecturer at the U.S. State Department. Dr. Rosling's insights are well worth listening to on the TED site and also working with his Gapminder.org application as well. If JAX had not been invented and the rapid gains in programming performance not achieved, it is doubtful Dr. Rosling would have been able to gain such signikficant insights into the terabytes of data the U.N. And other agencies now share with him. Yet this is just one of thousands of examples of how thought leaders are reorienting what society knows and understands by being able to analyze data more accurately and efficiently with technologies the Internet is literally rushing into existence based on the unmet needs of its users. The implications of rapid Web application development platforms including AJAX are discussed next from the standpoint of its impact on businesses and society in greater depth.

Impact of Web-based Application Development and AJAX on Business

Given AJAX programming languages;' many benefits over HTML and previous generation approaches to development, it is understandable why it is beginning to dominate Web-based application development. Not only do AJAX-based applications provide significant speed increases over previous-generation applications based on page-based technologies they are also designed for prototyping an entire application prior to writing it as well (MacVittie, 2007). With many of the Fortune 1000 companied adopting AJAX as the development platform of choice for their enterprise-wide systems, XML as the integration technology is also getting much greater focus as well (Serrano, Aroztegi, 2007). This is leading to forward-thinking companies including General Electric (GE), Hewlett-Packard (HP) and WalMart all working to standardize on a high performance version of AJAX for supporting secured transactions over XML-based Internet connections and networks (MacVittie, 2007). As a result of these advantages and the advances made in security AJAX is being used today for the online ordering, product configuration and customer service systems on websites as well (MacVittie, 2007).