Netbook

Netbooks, MID's, and the future of the mobile internet

Not too long ago, the mobile internet was a poorly rendered WAP version of the real deal. This didn't bother me too much, as I still remember AOL on a 386. But for those who don't remember the mid 90's and the glory of being able to click a link then go make a sandwich and pour yourself a glass of iced tea before making your way back to the computer to find your new page still loading, this was a major problem. Laptops are fine and dandy, but really that's still a fairly sizable machine you're hauling around, not ideal for web surfing/portable email/applications. With the move to smartphones came a move to a proper internet, or at least a scaled version of the internet. Now, we finally have real browsers that allow for a decent internet viewing on BlackBerry, iPhone, HTC and other cell phones. But all, and I mean all, of those solutions don't really give you the full internet. Pages are rendered properly of course, but most are scaled down to a smaller resolution to fit on the smaller screen. Netbooks and MID's solve that problem. Both are portable (obviously MID's are more portable than netbooks) and both allow for a full resolution webpage to be viewed. This becomes important in the world of social networking as it allows us to become entrenched in the process of managing our online personas. What exactly do I mean by that? As we get to the point that technology allows for a universal internet, with things looing the same and with the user experience, the more fluid our actions on social networking sites will become. This will result in the experience becoming more finely ingrained in our daily life. After all, it wasn't too long ago that you couldn't check your email on the beach at all.