Summary: In this post, I elaborate on my thinking behind Level 1 of the Internet Hierarchy of Needs.

The story so far:

Around a month ago, I published the Internet Hierarchy of Needs, a framework not-so-subtly based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Two weeks ago, Communispace came out with a study using a similar framework, on which I commented here.

To make sure we’re all on the same page, here’s the diagram of the hierarchy in question:

Both posts got some great traffic and some great comments. David Tebbutt, for example, mentioned that he had well and truly beaten me to the punch last July with this post. Judging by his comment on The Elements in the Social Software Stack, he’s fleshing out the concepts further now—I’m looking forward to it!

I’m grateful for the feedback and the suggestions. What I’m going to do now is go into a bit more detail about my thinking on each of these levels, so that we can have a meaningful discussion about their appropriateness or accuracy. I’ll do one a day over this week.

Level 1: Existence Needs

Basic elements for the Internet to work: computers connecting to each other and volume of documents

The concept behind a hierarchy of needs is simple: each need must be filled before the next one becomes important, and each need loses its importance as it gets filled. With that in mind, the primary need in any system will be that of existence. Without existence, there is no point in worrying about hyperlinks, or semantics, or indexing, or metatagging.

Jon Lister at J by Jay Fresh raised an interesting point in his comment:

That?s an interesting idea, although I have a couple of suggestions. The first two levels seem to me to as if they could combine into one - the existence of Infrastructure. The second I would then refer to as Access, which would mean the seamless flow of data at speeds sufficient to serve needs, with open access to data.

Jon’s comment sparks an important question: what constitutes existence? At what point can we say that the Internet is, and move on to bigger issues? That’s a bigger question than you might think.

As an example, take a look at my post Great Moments in Internet History. When was the Internet invented? In 1965, when a computer in Massachusetts was connected with a computer in California? In 1990, when Tim Berners-Lee hooked up the first web server? In 1995, when the government defined the Internet? (If a phenomenon hasn’t been defined by the government, can it still be taxed out of existence?)

In my first attempt at this pyramid, I suggested that the basic elements were fulfilled back in 1965, with computers connecting to each other and documents existing to be shared. I’m thinking about it this way: first we’ll worry about getting the computers hooked up and having something to share. Once we’ve got that, we can figure out how to connect more deeply between websites and documents with hyperlinks, trackbacks, and the like.

The question at each level is always, “What problem do we have to solve before we can begin to worry about anything else?”

I also really like Jon’s point about access. The biggest flaw I see in the original pyramid was the disconnect between the first four levels, which only referred to computers and documents, and the fifth level, which refers to personal fulfilment and self-actualization. Als from Webcracy picked up on this and had this to say:

Unfortunately, I don?t think this model is able to demonstrate that the Internet allows for personal and therefore human growth, although I desperately believe it as well. I do think that the model shows how much the Internet is human, proof being that, well, we can maybe model it like Maslow modeled us.

As Jon and als point out, the purpose behind this Internet Hierarchy of Needs is to demonstrate that the Web is a system for the benefit of humans, and that it is always evolving to fulfill a higher purpose. In order for it to fulfill that purpose, first it must evolve technologically, and then it must evolve towards service to humanity.

What’s your take on it?

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 11:51 pm and is filed under People matter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.