Time machine: the year broadband arrived

Digging through some old files recently, I came across a column I wrote for the Baltimore Business Journal 22 years ago. It described how our cable TV and internet provider had installed fiber-optic cable in the neighborhood.

This new distribution channel transformed a clunky dialup internet service into a lightning fast information source. The hyperbole and enthusiasm expressed in the column are slightly embarrassing for someone who prides himself on skepticism. But some of it was right on target.

From PeakOptical.com

Versión en español

It began, "Public libraries could be in danger." I described how I used this new service to research an advertising client before going to a meeting with the CEO. I was the publisher of the newspaper and thus ultimately responsible for sales. The column went on to contrast the internet with a library:

Bezos purchase of Post has parallels in China

Versión en español aquí.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos isn't the only e-commerce billionaire making news with acquisitions. Jack Ma, chairman of China's e-commerce leader, Alibaba, has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a Twitter-like microblogging service and a mapping service.

Both of these giants have been bolting on companies that can help them gain synergies by combining content, social networks, internet retailing, mapping (location-based selling and services), mobile platforms, devices and operating systems. 

Their model and chief competitor is Google, the worldwide leader in online advertising. Google has been getting into all of these businesses. In order to compete globally, the big internet companies -- like Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter and, in China, Alibaba and TenCent -- are seeing the need to develop all parts of online business. 

Countries wary of Internet, despite economic benefits

Reed Hundt

A single digital marketplace where ideas and goods flow freely across borders offers great potential for economic growth. It also makes many national leaders worry about loss of control of their people and culture.

Whether and how to control the Internet is the biggest unanswered question facing countries today, said Reed Hundt, who helped develop many of the policies that govern the web when he was chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in the 1990s.

He made his comments Sept. 24 during a lively discussion at Tsinghua University School of Journalism and Communication. Students argued about whether to censor web material such as the video that insulted the prophet Muhammad and led to anti-U.S. demonstrations and violence in several Islamic countries.

When will mobile ad revenue reflect time spent?

Two years ago the buzz was that mobile was the next big thing, and now that consumers are moving to tablets and smartphones, the moment has arrived.

• Nielsen says that 50.4% of mobile users now have a smartphone.
• More than two-thirds of those in the 25-34 age group have a smartphone. The report is here.

This slide from Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley shows
the opportunity for mobile advertising. Although consumers spend
10% of their time with media on mobile platforms, mobile
is getting only 1% of the ad revenue, a $20 billion opportunity.

Internet excesses recall Shakespeare’s time

Along with the decline of youth morals, a favorite topic of people of a certain age is the decay of the language.

The idea that there was a Golden Age of morals and language, now corrupted in our decadent time, has been a literary topic for a couple of thousand years. It is part of the human condition that elders wax nostalgic about the past and criticize their juniors.

In any case, the Internet is the latest seed of decadence. Some see abominations everywhere in spelling, grammar, usage, slang and taste. They are right, but they are misinterpreting what it means.