Did you feel that tremor this morning? Nothing earthquake related, rather the quake in which the ‘Net as a whole appeared to slow down greatly.

Between 6am and 8am PST this morning, it felt like things had come to a screeching halt. Pages loads were very slow and uploading content was almost impossible. Later today, I had thought about calling Comcast to find out what the heck is going on. Then I discovered from a number of people that I was not alone. Both dial-up and broadband users from across the country (totaling three people) mentioned to me that they too, had felt the slow down.

Why did it happen? Is there any news about it and just importantly - what was directly responsible? These questions are very important, however there is one that could potentially cripple productivity a few years down the road if we do not stop to consider it now is how we deal with reliance on Ajax based applications.

Think about it, what would happen if your company ran off of some sort of hybrid, networked, Ajax based ‘thing’ and your connectivity to the Internet decides to go south for the day? That’s right, you would be in a world of hurt. As much frustration as we pour forth with regard to the old fashion software programs that are to installing on our hard drives, the reality is that they will always be there - Internet or not.

Just something to consider before we get too excited about the Web 2.0 hoopla.