the true age of the internet?

so lots of people have varying views on the age of the internet - people date it from the victorean steam telegram, or from the first IMP-IMP message, or the Queen sending the first email to the pope (oops, no, it was the US president) - and then they have X anniversary celebrations (latest one is the 25th anniversay of the DNS...).

But Internet time is not driven by the earth's orbital period around the sun, and the internet is not the same as it was - it goes through phases of life more like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly (replacing the command line with the browser) or like a snake (replacing the NSFNet with the multi-tiered relationship between ISPs), or like an ecosystem (punctated equilibrium - everyone's doin social networks now - what will the craze be in 2008)


So in my humble opinion, the internet doesn't have an age (and so it shouldn't get a capital letter either)...its a situation, not a thing or a process:)