The internet is a behemoth. You may have heard of it. You may have used it a few times. You almost certainly let it help control almost every part of your daily life. When talking about innovation, it doesn’t come much bigger.
As well as being privy to everything, its strength and breadth is starting to be found everywhere. The catalyst for what has become crucial to our everyday lives began as a series of computers across a network, ARPANET, at the US Department of Defence. This became a traditional network, as we know it, in 1983 before Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web in 1990. The development from this point onwards would have been almost unfathomable.
When considering all that has been built on the foundations of the internet, it is astonishing to think that it has only been around in its mainstream format for 30 years. Only now are we beginning to explore its full potential.
Influence everywhere
Quickly passing beyond its initial phase of simply accessing data, it is now at the forefront of almost all technological breakthroughs, standing as a building block for innovation. To ignore the power of this would be to ignore the potential still waiting to flourish in the 21st century.
For investments and the financial world alone, it has almost single-handedly revolutionised the approach for retail investors by enabling them to find financial literature, reports, stock information and more, the moment that it is updated online. Not only has it impacted society’s access to financial markets, but also the cost that they incur to do so. Trading has benefitted from the speed at which transactions can now be verified, while improving transparency in the industry.
Analysing and harnessing the performance of the internet in thematic investment funds over the last 10 years, First Trust truly belief that its full power is yet to be realised. We believe there is a bright future for investors in the transformative power of this extraordinary technological innovation.
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