The Road Ahead 06.2008

“In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down — my opinion. Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form. . . . Also in the world of 10 years from now, there are going to be far more producers of content than exist today. We’ve already started to see that certainly in the online world, but we’ve just scratched the surface.”
 Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Chief Executive quoted in a
 Washington Post interview by Peter Whoriskey June 5

 
 “We are going to be swamped with a tsunami of information soon and enabling people to navigate it is going to be one of the big problems of the next decade.”
 Martin Moore director of the UK’s Media Standard Trust,
 Media Digest
Issue 136

 
 “Aggregation, not as a sidelight but as more of a focus, is a mission change for media, and there’s a case for it, to be sure. Time and attention have limits, but the universe of content, it seems, does not. So finding a way to quickly and cleanly deliver relevant news is important. ”
 Matthew Creamer, Advertising Age April 15, 2008
 
 “The idea that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing machines is not only built into the workings of the Internet, it is the network’s reigning business model as well. The faster we surf across the Web—the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us  advertisements. Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.”
 “Is Google Making Us Stupid? “ Nicholas Carr, July/August Atlantic Monthly