A few statements may serve to illustrate our use of the term.

Today people are able to, read, access, copy, edit, communicate, print, organize, index and store, Digital Information more efficiently and easily, than Printed Information. These facts provide reasons why the media is utilized.

The quantity of Digital Information held and communicated on Internet, significantly exceeds the quantity of Printed Information since printing began.

The NASA site, during a four day period when the Mars explorer landed, received 10 billion hits and transmitted data almost double the estimated size of the Library of Congress. The NASA site is one of millions of sites. A single search engine, Google indexes 3.3 billion web pages. There are 804,000 search engines. The amount of data estimated to exist on Internet is stated in petabytes - 17 zeros. It is so large it is difficult to comprehend.

This means that the vast majority of the contemporary knowledge of our species, is in digital form and much of that is accessible and communicated on Internet. We are well past the "tipping point" and the balance has shifted and accelerating toward digital, network accessible information.

The global community has decided that digital, networked communication and access devices, have sufficient value to own and connect to them in large numbers - an estimated 700 million world wide growing at 4% CAGR or 28 million "newbie's" a year.

The Networked Society today, is an open, point-to-point communication media that operates independent of mediation, borders, nationalities, religions, sexual orientation, physical characteristics or political affiliations. It is the largest and most Democratic institution on the planet.

The cost of participation is falling and as each new group of children start using it at an earlier age, it is seen as a necessity. The cost of a smart phone will drop the cost of access to around one-third that of a PC. This has a dramatic effect on those that can afford to be connected.

There are at least two major estimates when we talk about the size of the Networked Society. One is from the Computer Almanac that estimates Internet subscribers at 700 million. The CEO of Nokia, in a speech last December, used 1.2 billion when he sized the Networked Society.

If indeed there are 700 million Internet subscribers, then the Networked Society today is over 1/8th of the worlds population. Given the relentless cost reductions from more efficient chip manufacturing, and the increase in utility from application providers, how long will it be before the majority of the world's population have access?

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