Internet 3.0 (A plain-English guide to what all the fuss is about with blockchains).

Blockchain technology will see a complete reboot of one of the greatest inventions of all time and take it beyond what has so far been imagined.

Does anyone here remember the internet stock bubble of the late 1990s? The one which burst in 2001?

I know this is a big call, but for the sake of argument let's call that moment of implosion The End of Internet 1.0.

[REBOOT] Internet 2.0. We're living in it, and it's great. We're so immersed in the technology that even grandma doesn't care anymore when asked to process a form online or pay a bill (or whatever).

But for those of us who remember, the internet used to be scary. It used to be all, They want my address? Warning Bells! and Red. Flashing. Lights! and What's a hacker!?!

Now? it's just the way things are. It's life.

Internet Megacorporations have been born (Amazon and eBay anyone - or Facebook? Boom!). They now rival the world's biggest companies, their market-capitalisation demonstrating that they are amongst the most successful corporations in the world today.

They are great innovators.

But any expert in innovation will tell you, creative disruption never ends. Sure, in the middle-ages it was a long time between new ideas - or at least for those ideas to gain traction in the face of the medieval church. But now, and with one very obvious exception (green energy solutions anyone? Beware the powers that be shutting down cultural and technological advances), the sum of the world's knowledge is growing exponentially and technology is changing as we speak.

[REBOOT] Internet 3.0: Blockchains

This technology is already revolutionising the internet. All early adopters know what's happening, for example:

• Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitshares and BitcoinCash are enabling secure and very fast business and transactions. Bitshares at a much faster rate than the other coins (as many transactions/second as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin + Visa combined - see https://steemit.com/bitshares/@kimchi-king/which-cryptocoin-could-overthrow-bitcoin)
• Steem, through steemit (your looking at it!), is paying content providers on social media (don't believe me? The $ figure below is what I will be paid (7 days after posting) in SBD (Steem-Based-Dollars) - a blockchain currency closely pegged to the $US). Seriously cool. I don't know why everyone's not doing it. And Steem has just introduced SMTs (Smart Media Tokens) - a token built on Steam which anyone anywhere can use to do the same things that steemit does. Check it out: https://steemit.com/steem/@ned/announcing-smart-media-tokens-smts)
• EOS. Seriously, when this shit takes off it is going to change the game. EOS is from the same guy who made Bitshares and Steem. It is an entire blockchain operating system. The whole kit and caboodle. https://steemit.com/eos/@trogdor/introduction-to-eos-the-epic-blockchain-operating-system
• Ethereum is a tech that allows blockchain contracts. A lot of the other blockchains do as well now. Ether is increasingly used by others to build their own tokens on as well (see power ledger for example: https://medium.com/power-ledger)

What does this mean for early adoption investors? That is, us?

Nobody know where this will lead. But there is always a lag time in the adoption of new innovation. It goes something like this (Source wikipedia citing Rogers, E. (1962) Diffusion of innovations. Free Press, London, NY, USA - public domain):

Adoption of Innovation

We are now in the early adoption phase of blockchain technologies. As the graph indicates, adoption of new technology is a gradual process and it can take years. By the time the 'laggards' will be benefiting from blockchain tech, they probably won't even realise it. Because while blockchain will be disruptive (disruptive means changing the way things are done, and making old business models redundant) to existing internet businesses, many people will only see the dramatic improvements in the web generally: new companies doing new and exiting things. Old companies adapting or dying.

In terms of investing in crypto, I'm backing those tokens with rubber on the road - that have already produced something worth using (steem for example).

But if you want to invest, make sure you do your own research.

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@drwom footer by the awesome @ryivhnn !!