Osnos provides a concise history of the unfolding and folding of online and other technology titans. In the old days a DoJ monopoly lawsuit (ATT, IBM, MICROSOFT) was the leveler. Considering the outcomes and subsequent revamping, various M&A activity, etc., gave us better companies and far more innovation....all driven by technology's unrelenting pressure.
Today's print media and advertising industry is under similar siege, but not by government. "Do no evil" Google is the culprit du jour, painted gray, if not black, by newspapers and the news business for taking away their revenue. The last thing Eric Schmidt wants to wade through is an antitrust morass triggered by his growing dominance in search. No wonder he has played so nicely for a long time with now-President Obama.
Curious by omission, Amazon is a huge content distribution player and will become even more important. I'm surprised the newspapers have not attempted to get in bed with them for distribution (Kindle, billing systems, customer base, etc.) Amazon and the newspapers together could mount a credible challenge to Google for advertising dollars.
Of interest, way back when I was at NYNEX in the InfoLook days, a local newspaper publisher was frightened to death that the telephone company was about to eat his newspapers' lunch. We had many vibrant discussions. He was so worried about this camel's nose in the 'information services' tent that he became active with Vermont regulators to restrict the fledgling experimental pre-internet InfoLook online service.
Now, 15 years later, Google, originating in a Stanford dorm room from bright students then in their early teens in InfoLook days, has become one of the most powerful arbiters of internet content activity nearly 100% funded from the advertising revenue that so worried our local publisher.
It's all about the metadata!
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