Home / News

IFTF Tribute to Paul Baran: Forecasted Online Shopping, News and Banking in 1971

Excerpt from the 1971 Paul Baran report, entitled “Brief descriptions of potential home information services.” (Source: IFTF)With the recent passing of Paul Baran, IFTF is releasing an excerpt of a 1971 report in tribute, entitled “Brief descriptions of potential home information services.” The excerpts are from the report titled, Toward a Study of Future Urban High-Capacity Telecommunications Systems, which included a handbook of forecasts for what was then called “broadband telecommunication and information services”—later known as the Internet.

From IFTF: “The fact that Paul forecasted online shopping, news and banking in 1971 is amazing in itself, but also the sophisticated ways these services could be used—many of which only came to fruition in the last decade. What he describes in ‘dedicated newspaper’ doesn’t look like the early New York Times website, as much as it looks like more recent news feed aggregators, like Google Reader, My Yahoo! or Feed Demon. The report contains not only a description of restaurant websites, but also Open Table-like reservation services. The report remains a true testament to Paul’s vision and foresight.”

By CircleID Reporter

CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.

Visit Page

Filed Under

Comments

Comment Title:

  Notify me of follow-up comments

We encourage you to post comments and engage in discussions that advance this post through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can report it using the link at the end of each comment. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of CircleID. For more information on our comment policy, see Codes of Conduct.

CircleID Newsletter The Weekly Wrap

More and more professionals are choosing to publish critical posts on CircleID from all corners of the Internet industry. If you find it hard to keep up daily, consider subscribing to our weekly digest. We will provide you a convenient summary report once a week sent directly to your inbox. It's a quick and easy read.

I make a point of reading CircleID. There is no getting around the utility of knowing what thoughtful people are thinking and saying about our industry.

VINTON CERF
Co-designer of the TCP/IP Protocols & the Architecture of the Internet

Related

Topics

IPv4 Markets

Sponsored byIPv4.Global

Brand Protection

Sponsored byCSC

Domain Names

Sponsored byVerisign

New TLDs

Sponsored byRadix

DNS

Sponsored byDNIB.com

Cybersecurity

Sponsored byVerisign

Threat Intelligence

Sponsored byWhoisXML API