Interview with Internet Guru John Patrick

I recently had the fortune of sitting down to discuss the current state, and the future of the Internet in the network age with John Patrick. Patrick is President of Attitude LLC and former vice president of Internet technology at IBM, where he worked for thirty-eight years. During his IBM career John helped start IBM’s leasing business at IBM Credit Corporation, and was senior marketing executive for the launch of the IBM ThinkPad brand. Starting in the early 1990s, John dedicated his time to fostering Internet technologies.

John is considered one of the real visionaries of the Internet age, and we discussed how what is popular today always seems to be likely to replace what’s gone before – but yet often we just end up with capabilities layered on. We discuss ad models,  and how Facebook looks hugely popular now, just like another closed network, AOL, seemed like it was riding a speeding train back in the 90s and got derailed.

What did you think of John’s ideas? Let us know in the comments.