Here’s where I used to spend my time online in 1997:

1. mIRC

2. Hotmail

3. Bolt (Wikipedia page)

4. Yahoo (Games, especially)

5. Geocities

What are yours?

Margharita: “Why does the American team look like aliens?”

Hammoudeh:  “I really hope the US doesn’t win, if only to avoid spending the next 15 years watching melodramatic we-won-the-World-Cup movies.”

M:  “And this is how it happened. He used to play in Texas and he used to play with Mexican boys in his neighborhood. His name… Dempsy.”

Margharita: “Oh, if they win, I won’t talk to Rochelle for two weeks.”

Hammoudeh:  “Eish had? That’s not Beckham, that’s a statue of Beckham. Why does he look like that serious?”

Ibra: “Maybe he’s sponsored by some hair gel company.”

And this one’s for Omar, and Lina, and all other losers in the world who can actually SOLVE Rubik’s cubes.

Here is how your day starts: You read your morning newspaper on a sleek tablet computer while eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast, moving between the websites of Al-Jazeera and the New York Times. You google hot stories for real-time updates from social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. This tablet, a slate-shaped mobile computer the same size as a thin hard-cover book, helps you decide what to wear by choosing an appropriate outfit from your wardrobe (while it keeps weather and scheduled outings in mind). It also acts as a navigator, helpfully picking the least congested route to the office, while syncing with your daughter’s tablets to let you know how much homework she finished the day before.

Less than 10 years ago, this wired, portable life would have seemed straight out of Minority Report. Today, it comes in a gorgeous $500 contraption dubbed the iPad, no keyboards or mice required.

According to Apple, the iPad is the best way to experience the web, e-mail, photos, and video. Using the 9.7 inch touchscreen, you can check your mail, listen to your entire collection of MP3s, read books, take notes, manage your calendar, play games, and purchase up to 150,000 applications. In a nutshell. the iPad is the latest addition to Apple’s world changing iProducts.

World changing, you say?

Yes.

Afterall, this is the company that single-handedly threw off the entire music industry with its iPod/iTunes combo (can you even remember a life of carrying CDs that only fit 20 songs apiece?) A few years later, the iPhone dethroned mobile manufacturers like Nokia and Sony Ericsson by unlocking a host of benefits for consumers and developers, thanks to a multi-touch interface and iPhone’s App Store (there was actually a time not too long ago when mobiles only did what they were already doing the day they left their factories!)

Released only in April, the iPad has more than one industry sweating. The print industry, waiting for the last few nails in the coffin, will be hit hard, and not just when it comes to leisure; some universities have already decided to pass out iPads to their students in lieu of having them lug around heavy text books. The gadget, which weighs a mere 680 grams, is changing Web standards (and seriously angering Adobe) by not supporting Adobe’s Flash technology, prompting developers to launch iPad-compatible websites sans Flash. The Internet is starting to look different as big names like the New York Times, NPR, and the Wall Street Journal launch sites with designs and technologies that are optimized for reading on the iPad. And as an iPhone owner knows, there’s an app for practically everything you’ll ever need and won’t need, alienating products and services that do not have an App Store icon.

The iPad will not fill an already existing niche, but will create a new one.

Technology history in the making? Definitely. Within one month of its release, Apple announced the sale of its one millionth iPad. One million iPads in 28 days–that’s less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone, said Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a press release. Plus, iPad users have downloaded over 12 million apps from the App Store and over 1.5 million e-books from the new iBookstore.

With all that said, don’t go rushing off to the nearest Apple store just yet. The cost of innovation is usually a clunky first model, and Apple is infamous for using early adopters of their first-generation products as guinea pigs. The second or third generation of the iPad will probably be the real game changer. Heck, you can even wait for Google’s Android tablet, which is likely to be released later this year.

(Originally published in Venture. Written by Roba Al-Assi, June 2010)

More Hyperlink articles:
It’s Time to Learn How to Surf
It’s Real Time
Start a Blog is NOT a Social Media Strategy
Advertising on the Information Highway
Social is the Word
The iPad Will Change the World

I post a lot of infographics to my Twitter account, so I thought I’d share with you guys my favorites from those postings. Which is your favorite? Enjoy! :)

Soccer: The Best World Cup 2010 Infographic

Facebook: Facebook Growth Accelerates During Privacy Flap

(This one is where I say: I told you so! Online Privacy is… Overrated)

HTML: WTF is HTML5

Generations: Characterizations of Generations

Business Women: Woman in the Boardroom

Culture: East Meets West

Design: Mapping Time Through the Ages