So this post is not very exciting. I just wanted to start blogging again.
It's a new year (2008)... Yes, I know, it's been 2008 for a while. "Where was I" you say? Busy busy busy, would be my reply.
Ok, so here's a fun idea. One of my favorite recent ideas is that of an overlay network in terms of historical development of businesses. So I've been doing some business history archaelogy (what!?). And these are some of the more fun network overlays:
- Fax which grew by overlaying on PSTN
- The internet, which grew by overlaying on PSTN (remember those 56k dialup modems?)
- The web which grew on top of the internet (TCP/IP runs everything!)
- Hotmail on top of the web (remember when you could only access email via Eudora and Outlook?)
- Youtube (which grew on top of Flash and the web; and of course, on top of MySpace)
Interesting isn't it. You look and find that many networks were built on top of other ones.
Sometimes the underlying network disappears and is replaced by a more robust technology to support the top network. For example, the internet grew on top of PSTN dial-up, but it is now sitting on top of broadband while dial-up has largely disappeared in many places.
(I had to use a dialup modem a few months ago while they were changing broadband providers in my new home; gosh, painful)
That's it. Short blogs I will try now. None of this book-chapter-like blogging.
