Collective power and the Internet

For any generation that has come about during or after Y, the internet has become theirs, ours, yours and my marketplace for all things imaginable. This imagination extends far beyond browsing the internet for books, clothing or the occasional Ferrari 250 TR. We don’t simply apply the reach of the internet to purchase things more conveniently, or communicate with distant family members, we leverage the power of this marketplace to display and sell ourselves. Look no further than Ebay.com to see the breadth of this phenomenon (for inanimate objects) or Facebook.com (for animate objects).

Imagine trying to explain to your parents that an entire world (or at least those with access to the internet) would be willing to conduct business, sight unseen, buyer and seller never even speaking to one another, let alone seeing one another, and honestly being able to tell them that you believe that everyone involved in the interaction will make out just fine. Your parents will chuckle and then sit you down for a stern lecture on the narrow balance of what can really be trusted in this cynical world. And speaking of making out, how about the growing boom in online dating? Blind dates arranged by friends is nerve racking enough, but a date arranged among two perfect strangers using the website match.com, and knowing that they know nothing more about the other than what is found in their short profiles, will willingly take the plunge to experience something new, is a profound revelation that could only be possible in this internet age.

Going one step further, Craigslist.org, a wonderful, free of charge, mega-message board was started by Craig Newmark, who envisioned a world in which collective efforts would be given a place to congregate. He understood that people, if given the opportunity, would use his site to fully engage the power of millions in ways that were once only possible within small, isolated networks, usually among friends or friends of friends or in some cases, colleagues. But that was about as far any one individual could reach when seeking help from the surrounding society. Now, people from coast to coast, arrange to live with each other, help each other out by exchanging services, make sure their unwanted stuff finds a loving home and in some instances, help people to recapture a moment they missed by enabling them to post a comment or request on the “missed connections” board in an attempt to catalyze the natural phenomenon of serendipity. All this and much more is made possible by the engineers, designers, and creators of the internet and above all, you, the users.

We live in a world that is changing rapidly, mainly due to the fact that information is shared and digested at an ever increasing speed. Old ideas of how commerce is conducted or power is wielded or what passes for influence are shifting, measurably. Our sense of what is possible is running right in step with this shift and the internet is the pace setter in this race. We now have access to the internet anywhere we go. Right in our pockets, we contain the ability to leverage not only information the World Wide Web has to offer, but the opportunity to enhance its effectiveness. Cabcorner.com sees the cities of today using the internet to help them leverage the collective power of its populations. In particular, we see the sharing of transportation vehicles as a natural progression in the growing integration of society that the internet is helping to foment. We see that most people will use this platform to create synergies in terms of transportation possibilities and do it so efficiently that we will all benefit monetarily as well as environmentally. As individuals, with the help of a truly mobile internet, we will reshape a whole industry so that it reflects the age we live in, an age that has moved from X to Y.