A Brief History of the Internet (Part 4)

Elliott King

23 Jan 2026 — 4 min read

The Vision to Connect the Dots

In 2007, the digital world shifted on its axis. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, he didn't just launch a product; he connected the dots. Touchscreens were not new. The internet was not new. Mobile phones were not new. Jobs' genius lay in combining these existing technologies to unleash a new era of ubiquitous portable connectedness.

This moment teaches us the theory of "Adjacency." The most influential change agents discern possibilities where conformists see only disconnected static. They forge unconventional connections between the familiar and the novel. The resulting products feel inevitable in retrospect, but they require ingenious imagination to conceive.

Modern smartphone technology representing the app economy

Elliott and Aleksandra King standing side by side representing leadership

The Playbook

4 Lessons for Today's Innovators

As I advise marketing teams on capitalizing on digital channels today, these hard-won insights from the history of the internet guide my approach:

1. Solve Problems Fast: Quickly identify customer friction points and provide solutions more effectively than anyone else.
2. Focus Then Diversify: Differentiate intelligently through focused strategies (like Google's search), then diversify judiciously for sustained growth.
3. Convenience is King: Never underestimate the power of ease. Trust acts as the adhesive, binding customers to brands that make their lives simpler (like Amazon).
4. Scan the Horizon: Continuously look for the next wave of innovation. A focus on meeting user needs *before* they realize them leads to industry-changing pre-eminence.

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A Brief History of the Internet (Part 3)

E-Commerce Comes of Age While Google was busy organizing the world's information, another titan was quietly organizing the world's logistics. Amazon didn't just sell books; they spearheaded a retail revolution built on a singular obsession: customer service. Jeff Bezos understood what many of his

A Brief History of the Internet (Part 2)

The Rise of Search When the dot-com bubble burst, the market was left in ashes. But as any agriculturalist knows, ash is fertile ground. It was in this post-apocalyptic landscape that the true architects of the digital age emerged. We stopped building "virtual storefronts" for vanity and started

A Brief History of the Internet (Part 1)

The Code and the Crash To understand the digital landscape of today, we must revisit the architecture of yesterday. My journey began not in a boardroom, but with an Amstrad CPC 1628 in the 1980s. In that era, "home computing" was a frontier concept. The lack of available