At the invitation of Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Elon University associate professor Janna Quitney Anderson began a research initiative in the spring semester of 2003 to search for comments and predictions about the future impact of the Internet during the time when the World Wide Web and browsers emerged, between 1990 and 1995. The idea was to replicate the fascinating work of Ithiel de Sola Pool in his 1983 book Forecasting the Telephone: A Retrospective Technology Assessment. Elon students, faculty, and staff studied government documents, technology newsletters, conference proceedings, trade newsletters, and the business press and gathered predictions about the future of the Internet. Eventually, more than 4,000 early '90s predictions from about 1,000 people were amassed.

The early 1990s predictions are available in a searchable database online at the site Imagining the Internet: A History and Forecast and they are also the basis for a book by Anderson titled Imagining the Internet: Personalities, Predictions, Perspectives (2005, Rowman & Littlefield).

The fruits of that work inspired additional research into the past and future of the Internet, and the Imagining the Internet Web site (www.imaginingtheInternet.org/) )—now numbering about 6,200 pages—includes results from the entire series of Future of the Internet surveys, video and audio interviews showcasing experts' predictions about the next 10 to 50 years, a children's section, tips for teachers, a “Voices of the People” section on which anyone can post his or her prediction, and information about the recent history of communications technology. 

We expect the site will continue to serve as a valuable resource for researchers, policy makers, students, and the general public for decades to come. Further, we encourage readers of this report to enter their own predictions at the site.

The series of Future of the Internet surveys is also published in book form by Cambria Press.