Submerging the Structure of the Web
The structure of the world wide web is complex, yet a necessity. It is crucial that we have 24/7 access to data on webpages ranging from corporate financial data, to the latest viral cat video. However, Google and Facebook are attempting to rewire their structure in order to build a more efficient infrastructure between the social network moguls and their users. In 2018, a cable system known as the Pacific Light Cable Network will be created. This network is transpacific, ranging from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, and has twice the speed as Google’s own FASTER cable system. This merger and rewiring is not a novelty though, but rather apart of a trend known as “flattening the internet.” Google and Facebook enable content creation, and want a faster and more efficient way to reach their users, with faster upload and download speeds, thus they are restructuring the internet in order to achieve this.
As the internet grows more and more popular, with thousands of emerging webpages each day, traffic is beginning to slow down immensely. Video accounts for 70% of traffic on the internet, and typically has longer loading speeds. Content delivery networks (CDNs) are popular amongst social networks and Google in order to serve their customers. The issue of waiting for one’s video to buffer every five seconds was one of the onslaughts of this “flattening” of the internet. In class, we are learning about the structure of the web, which was once as simple as a page and a link to another page, and then more links and so forth. However, the textbook talks about how the internet’s structure has evolved from purely content to other actions such as links to buy a product, to search for other pages, to send an email to someone etc. It seems now with the advent of social media and content creation from ordinary users of the internet, that the structure is evolving yet again with networks that are crucial just to carry traffic of uploads and downloads. In addition, the structure of the web is evolving to match the economic structure and trends of the world. Hong Kong and the US need faster connectivity to conduct business, so the addition of a submarine cable will aid in this.
This blog post is inspired by these two articles:
http://qz.com/811032/google-goog-and-facebook-fb-are-building-a-new-transpacific-submarine-cable/
http://qz.com/742474/how-streaming-video-changed-the-shape-of-the-internet/