Editorial | Internet meets Coffee Houses? May 2007

The internet meets coffee houses? April '07
There is long standing debate about "who invented the
internet" Naturally, as one of the great inventions of our
times there are many who would relish the tag of inventor.

I used to believe that Stanford University Networks was
the original embryonic internet assisted by the
development of TCP/IP, Xerox PARCS' ethernet and the
birth of the 'small computer' - The IBM PC.

Well in fact the original original internet was the
conception of JCR Licklider of Massachusets Institute of
Technology. His series of memos in 1962 described the
possibility of a "Galactic Network"

The first network bourne out of his idea was part of a US
Military Research Facility called DARPA. DARPA was
created to enable the US to respond to a potential
nuclear attack. The "internet" would allow uninterrupted
inter-state control of technology systems in the event that
one particular city was hit by the bomb.

All a little confusing, certainly heavy stuff!

Today, the internet is the pervasive technology we know
and love. Next generation meeting places for people to
do anything from chat to conduct business on a 24 hour,
7 day a week basis.

The leading edge developments on the internet like
www.secondlife.com (now supported by the might of IBM)
go a step further, taking virtual reality gaming technology
(Sony Playstation 3, XBox, Wii etc) and using it to create
a new virtual world. Take a look!

So what on earth is the link between the internet and
coffee? Well slightly more than a tenuous one, once you
look at them in the correct historical context.

Rewind to the early to mid 1600s. The coffee house
culture developed out of the early imports of the drink to
Britain. As a beverage, the spread of the drink was
roughly equal across Europe.

The coffee house became the centre of urban culture .

These establishments were far more gritty and down to
earth than the Star bucks and Costa coffee of today. Hard as
it may be to imagine, they were also more ubiquitous than
their modern day counterparts.

Each coffee house attracted regulars associated with a
particular social theme - artists, intellectuals, businessmen
and so on. Indeed as social forums they proved to be
hotbeds, generating a significant sub-culture of creativity.

The common term ‘penny university’ became adopted as it
was said you could learn more in a day at a coffee shop
than in a month of reading. A penny was the price of a drink
and a newspaper.

The most important aspect was the gathering of a social
network. Many of these 'themed' houses went onto form an
array of now long established gentlemen’s clubs that have
survived to today and continued the tradition of matching the
theme of their predecessor.

Since Plato’s defining work on society - The Republic -
western civilisation has noted the need for censorship and
as such, coffee houses were frowned upon by aspects of
government as encouraging subversiveness and promoting
destabilising influences on the establishment.

Aside from the doomed students in Victor Hugo’s classic
Les Miserables, the over-riding historical account of these
meeting places is more than positive: Edward Lloyd’s
Coffee House on Lombard Street bore Lloyd’s of London
and likewise Jonathan’s lead to the Bank of England.

The internet is without question the modern day virtual
meeting place for exchange of knowledge, ideas, creativity
and generation of business. It too, is also worryingly
lacking structured censorship. Maybe this is a small price
to pay for the ‘penny university’ of today.

It is perhaps apt then that some years ago the original
public meeting place for those wishing to use the internet
was in cafes, serving coffee. A romantic coming together in
one house of creativity.