The Digital Cloud

What is a digital cloud? That is an interesting question and one that many people seem to ask themselves judging by the number of people who find this site from a google search for that phrase. 

When I first started this blog 4 years ago I could see that there was an increasing convergence of computing hardware and software fueled by the growing use of the Internet as a platform as well as WiFi and other wireless technologies.  The effects where being seen in the interactions driven by smart phones, online gaming and online productivity and collaboration tools. This was all happening around digital content in the cloud. Hence the name for the blog.

These days the term "Cloud Computing" is probably the most common term applied to providing the ability "to do stuff" on the Internet or in the digital cloud.  The "cloud" term essentially comes from a lack of knowledge of exactly where or how stuff is actually happening, so it is referred to as happening in the cloud. I don't know exactly where my blog is hosted for instance and I certainly don't know where my gmail account sits.  But that doesn't matter as its the service that counts, the fact that it works as advertised.   The computing infrastructure required is someone else's problem and can be accessed when required just like electricity is today.

The following video probably explains it better than I could:

There is also something similar from Common Craft called Cloud Computing in Plain English which is also worth a look.

What does a digital cloud mean to you?