Sesame Street and Internet Turn 40 (and me too)

In the past few weeks we’ve celebrated two milestones of important institutions that have come to influence the lives of people – young and old. Google’s masthead mashups of Sesame Street characters and the Google logo pretty much say it all. Its here that the spirit of learning and the Internet collide in a very cool way.

When we have a question or want to learn about a topic, Google is one of the first places to look. Google has of course even morphed into verb that has replaced “search”, and has been part of my six year old daughter’s lexicon since day one… along with Ernie and Bert.

Google seems to also embody what we think of when we say “Internet”. (Wow. Did I just say that? That’s some serious branding right there.) In any case, the Internet today is nothing like what Internet grandfathers like Charley Kline (left), working at UCLA, sent the first transmission over ARPANET to Bill Duvall at the Stanford Research Institute. (From NPR.org)Bill Duval and Charlie Kline envisioned (btw- great NPR segment on the founders and history here). While it is certainly the communication tool they dreamt of, we grabbed it and morphed it into what we have today, and we’ll continue to push it to new directions tomorrow. Did that open-source philosophy even exist before?

The theme of evolution is the heart of this, in my mind, and Sesame Street has really embraced the Internet and built out an awesome array of web-based content, games and learning tools for kids. Just as the TV show has been a trusted go-to for parents and kids, now it’s taken on a whole new dimension of learning entertainment, and it’s all evolved in only the past 5 or so years. Pretty cool.

The crazy part is just how this next generation of digital natives (thanks @jonathanpb) surf this grand new world. Watching my daughter grab my new Droid and intuitively navigate is nuts.

Boy, when I turn 40… long long in the future… (Monday), I sure hope I will have evolved half as far.