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.

Then along come awesome phones and technology boundary jumpers like Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Gmail, Wikis. These applications let you tap into the running dialogues that make up the online singularity. Low barrier of access and vast amounts of contextually appropriate information. Relevant and useful to you, when you want it. Huge potential to know a lot about a lot that’s going on.

But for many, this data isn’t the same as the data you keep in email or in files on your computer. Data having to do with finances, love letters, payroll reports for that little business on the side. That isn’t data you want to share with people so much. Well…not usually, but sometimes maybe.

A single point of failure is so last millennium. Like when it’s time to do taxes, or pay bills, or manage a soccer team or golf league. Or when the power goes out or a hard drive fails. Or when your USB drive takes a crippling EMP pulse from an advanced alien ship that passed you on the way to work.

Maybe having a small apartment closer to the city. Something simple, online, that gives me a key, running water, heat, and electricity. A secure and accessible area in the Cloud² where I can set up camp. Maybe build a city or an empire.

1. This is what brains do, by the way. How consciousness emerges, well…that’s another thing entirely. I have no idea.
2. FTR – The Cloud: another way to refer to the Internet. See here for a much better description or search on it.