As people notice what’s really behind things like “Web 2.0″, “Blogs”, “Wikinomics”, and “Facebook”, a new awareness is emerging.

In the digital vastness geographically distributed across millions of computers, saving and sharing of data in parallel  at an incomprehensible speed¹ is happening right now. Massive amounts of data that include pictures of your kids or you and friends partying at a beach house.

So many ways to connect and places to visit, it’s easier these days to make connecting and visiting part of your daily routine. How much time you have may vary, but we’re connecting when we can. And it’s often. Maybe you’re checking if a friend is back from Florida or how that one event went that you couldn’t attend. Maybe what your friends are doing right now.

For those not sleeping on the streets of the Internet, putting oneself out there is scary. You want to feel confident that bits specific to you aren’t free to anybody. Maybe you feel secure using a mail client that downloads mail from server to your local computer.

Portals are a significant next step. Web applications requiring you to identify yourself are suddenly available and offer access to information and resources unheard of. Many of them give you control of a private, personal, secure, warm and crackling bit of digital fireplace coziness; your online living room or office. A digital presence. Accessible from anywhere and through anything that can talk to the tubes.

read more »

1. This is what brains do, by the way. How consciousness emerges, well…that’s another thing entirely. I have no idea. [↩]