Grass Roots Go Electric: ‘Community’ is Getting Lost in the Shuffle
Put up a bulletin board and invite your mayor in on the side just to sit and observe, and he’ll know what his constituents want.
Archives: Expert Predictions
America, Online! America Online Has Been on a Rocket Ride, Now it Would Like to Morph Into an ‘Interactive Service Company’ Before Microsoft and the Web Eat its Lunch
AOL is working to incorporate CD-ROM technology into the online experience. The idea is that bandwidth-clogging graphics and other basic components will be contained on discs at home, with users getting updated information when they sign on.
Chapter Two: Postmodern Virtualities
If modern society may be said to foster an individual who is rational, autonomous, centered and stable … then perhaps a postmodern society is emerging which nurtures forms of identity different from, even opposite to those of modernity. And electronic communications technologies significantly enhance these postmodern possibilities.
Intellectual Property
Just as limited bandwidth was the excuse for applying censorship to broadcast media, it appears that the zealous protection of intellectual property presents the greatest threat to free digital expression.
America, Online! America Online Has Been on a Rocket Ride, Now it Would Like to Morph Into an ‘Interactive Service Company’ Before Microsoft and the Web Eat its Lunch
The idea is to create “electronic marketplaces” that, by allowing buyers and sellers to exchange information, will inspire subscribers to investigate the site on their own.
America, Online! America Online Has Been on a Rocket Ride, Now it Would Like to Morph Into an ‘Interactive Service Company’ Before Microsoft and the Web Eat its Lunch
We think we can build a big franchise and get into tens of millions of homes as an interactive service company, as opposed to an online service provider. Content is no longer king. Rather, building communities around that content is the key.
America, Online! America Online Has Been on a Rocket Ride, Now it Would Like to Morph Into an ‘Interactive Service Company’ Before Microsoft and the Web Eat its Lunch
Whether AOL’s attempt to co-opt the Internet will pay off remains to be seen. In the meantime, the company is determined to make hay while its new competitors find their footing. The plan: diversify the revenue stream by bringing more commerce and advertising to the AOL community while luring millions of new users through investments in multimedia technology and innovative content.
Internet Must Go Commercial – and Do it Right
To go commercial, measured-usage billing is essential. Price is the time-tested coordinator or supply and demand. Internet carriers must be able to settle with one another for traffic carried on behalf of each other’s customers. And end-user billing, as offered by ISDN, is needed. A commercial Internet must be able to bill for usage by kilopackets and kilometers
America, Online! America Online Has Been on a Rocket Ride, Now it Would Like to Morph Into an ‘Interactive Service Company’ Before Microsoft and the Web Eat its Lunch
The companies that develop valuable products and know-how will find the Web a more congenial atmosphere, because they’ll have better technology and lower costs than they’ll be able to get in a deal with a proprietary online service.
CyberDemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere
If the term democracy refers to the sovereignty of embodied individuals and the system of determining office-holders by them, a new term will be required to indicate a relation of leaders and followers that is mediated by cyberspace and constituted in relation to the mobile identities found therein.