Chip Roberson feels social media is back to the future - Portfolio.com

It feels a lot like 1996 again. At that time, I was working for a telecommunications firm in Raleigh, North Carolina, and a French intern showed me how I could remotely explore his graduate school using a browser.

It was very engaging, but the significance of what he was showing me didn’t sink in right away. However, after a bit of investigation, I realized the way business could communicate with consumers was about to change. As is often the case, technology was the instigator of change...