Perhaps the Internet could be interactive?

It is the 10th aniversary of the death of Douglas Adams, author of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. .

One Thursday lunchtime the Earth is unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this seems already to be more than he can cope with. Sadly, however, the weekend has only just begun, and the galaxy is a very strange and startling place.

Just 10 years ago the Internet was still very strange and startling place for most of us. No Google, Facebook or Twitter. In 1999 Adams wrote a piece for the UK Sunday Times, 'How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet', which very much relates to Social Media (SoMe) today.

Adams predicted that ‘normal’ mainstream twentieth century media (Television, cinema, radio, recorded music) will be recorded as a historical aberration.

‘Please, miss, you mean they could only just sit there and watch? They couldn’t do anything? Didn’t everybody feel terribly isolated or alienated or ignored?’

‘Yes, child, that’s why they all went mad. Before the Restoration.’

‘What was the Restoration again, please, miss?’

‘The end of the twentieth century, child. When we started to get interactivity back.’

Well we are starting to get interactivity back, but to a large extent education, business and society is clinging to control, hiding behind the firewalls and not really seeking input or collaboration despite the proven 'wisdom of the crowd'.