Shortly after FOWD last year, I was inspired to revamp my site, and start a blog (yes - this one, almost a year later!) Around this time, I caught a documentary presented by the inimitable Mr Stephen Fry about the printing press inventor Johannes Gutenberg.
It’s an excellent bit of presenting, and a great insight into the practicalities and motivation involved in the creation of a system which changed the world. The invention of his press allowed greater dissemination of knowledge by giving people easier access to shared knowledge through books which could now be more cheaply produced, and with consistency. It put knowledge into the hands of more ordinary people, and out of the control of just churches and highly educated scholars.
As you might have guessed, by the title of this piece – the circumstances and effects of Gutenberg’s invention on 15th Century Europe struck a very loud chord with the changes we have seen in recent years following the invention of the Internet. The increased access to, and faster distribution of information that Gutenberg catalysed 500 years ago is obviously analogous to the information revolution we see today.
Both Berners-Lee and Gutenberg laid the seeds of a new framework for the sharing of information. Interestingly enough, neither have benefitted financially as they might – though while Gutenberg’s lack of success is attributed to poor business sense; the non-commercialisation of the web, and formation of the W3C is seen generally as a philanthropic decision.
I wonder whether in 500 years the internet, and some old classic websites will have the same staying power, and sentimental attachment that books have today, and how the early pioneers of the web will be remembered. Will there be statues of Tim Berners-Lee and Jimmy Wales, portraits of Jeff Bezos and Sergey Brin?
However scary the future may be, I recommend checking out the documentary if and while you can. Having been re-shown recently, it’s available on BBC iPlayer until 11pm on 17th Feb (for those in the UK). Also, if you fancy some further reading – while googling around this subject I found a couple of interesting articles alluding to the same connection between the two men: