2019

This past week, Facebook celebrated it's 10th birthday. So much has changed in that ten years in the technology and media world. I literally went from playing Tetris and that stupid snake game on a black and blue screened nokia, to having almost anything I need at my fingertips with my iPhone. Likewise, Facebook went from an idea to a website that has a billion active users a month. 

I think in the next five years the media world will continue to grow exponentially. The technology we used to see in sci-fi movies honestly isn't out of reach. Okay, so we aren't riding around in spaceship cars yet... but my Mom's new laptop scans her fingerprint and a secret agent-ish cell phone watch was a big hit around Christmas.

In 2019, I think everything eventually will be based online. SmartTV's are already connecting people to the internet through their televisions. I think this will continue to grow and eventually leave cable and satellite extinct. I personally already do not have cable. The same is true with newspapers. You can now access just about any newspaper, including small hometown newspapers, straight from the internet. Eventually, and possibly in the next five years, I think that print newspapers will become extinct and all of the news will be read and streamed offline. As sad as it makes me to admit, I honestly think that books will become extinct as well. Textbooks are moving from physical to virtual and Kindles and iPads are slowly taking the place of physical books also. 

I think that Google and Facebook will continue to be important companies in the media world. I think that they, along with the other companies who are on top, will continue to grow and find different ways to store and interpret collected data.