splinternet

n.

The internet splintered into multiple segments, streams, or classes based on factors such as cost, speed, platform, or political motivations.

Example Citations:

Each new device has its own ad networks, format, and technology. Each new social site has its login and many hide content from search engines. We call this new world the Splinternet (with a nod to Doc Searls and Rich Tehrani, who used the term before us with a somewhat different meaning). It will splinter the Web as a unified system.

—Josh Bernoff, " The Splinternet means the end of the Web's golden age: http://forrester.typepad.com/groundswell/2010/01/the-splinternet-means-the-end-of-the-webs-golden-age.html," Empowered, January 26, 2010

Today's internet is actually a splinternet. The day of an e-commerce team being able to focus on building just a website are over and with the increasing complexity of consumer touch-points comes a real burden on e-commerce executives to support the underlying systems and platforms necessary to sustain them efficiently and at scale. While e-business executives once worried about optimising sites for various web browsers, today they must consider mobile browsers, mobile applications, location-based marketing, rich internet applications, as well as integrations with marketplaces and social networks.

—Brian Walker, " Buyer's Guide to retail: The changing face of eCommerce: http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/12/09/244351/Buyer39s-Guide-to-retail-The-changing-face-of-eCommerce.htm," Computer Weekly, December 8, 2010

Earliest Citation:

Just wait'll Internet becomes splinternet with a pricey high end stream and one for ordinary joes.

—Jeff Beckstrom, " PCBoard Going Out of Business: https://groups.google.com/group/alt.bbs.pcboard/browse_thread/thread/e9279dc6b146dbb4/7899b2e1e3ee7bb?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22splinternet%22&pli=1," alt.bbs.pcboard, June 27, 1997

Notes:

Here's an even earlier citation that uses splinternet somewhat ambiguously, so it doesn't qualify for "official" earliest citation status:

Are these files very big? If not, then perhaps they could be posted

periodically, as sort of a FAQ, for those of us unfortunate enough to

not have access to splinternet.

—Rex Joliff, " Montreal Area BBS list wanted: https://groups.google.com/group/mcgill.general/browse_thread/thread/9448a7e7dd71fd86/f992d9b781b54012?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22splinternet%22," mcgill.general, May 5, 1992

Related Words:

cyberbalkanization

cyberflaneur

darknet

Evernet

filter bubble

Googleverse

invisible Web

Outernet

Twitterverse

walled garden

Category:

Internet