"Globalization is to no small extent based upon the rise of rapid global communication networks. Some even go so far as to argue that "information has replaced manufacturing as the foundation of the economy". Indeed, global media and communication are in some respects the advancing armies of global capitalism."
(Robert McChesney, author of "Rich Media, Poor Democracy")
"Information flow is your lifeblood."
(Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft)
The usefulness of information and communication technologies increases with the number of people who use them. The more people form part of communication networks, the greater the amount of information that is produced. Microsoft founder Bill Gates dreams of "friction free capitalism", a new stage of capitalism in which perfect information becomes the basis for the perfection of the markets.
But exploitative practices have not disappeared. Instead, they have colonised the digital arena where effective protective regulation is still largely absent.
Following the dynamics of informatised economies, the consumption habits and lifestyles if customers are of great interest. New technologies make it possible to store and combine collected data of an enormous amount of people.
User profiling helps companies understand what potential customers might want. Often enough, such data collecting takes place without the customer's knowledge and amounts to spying.
"Much of the information collection that occurs on the Internet is invisible to the consumer, which raises serious questions of fairness and informed consent."
(David Sobel, Electronic Privacy Information Center)
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1801
Invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard, an engineer and architect in Lyon, France, punch cards laid the ground for automatic information processing. For the first time information was stored in binary format on perforated cardboard cards. In 1890 Hermann Hollerith used Joseph-Marie Jacquard's punch card technology to process statistical data collected during the US census in 1890, thus speeding up US census data analysis from eight to three years. Hollerith's application of Jacquard's invention was used for programming computers and data processing until electronic data processing was introduced in the 1960's. - As with
Paper tapes are a medium similar to Jacquard's punch cards. In 1857 Sir Charles Wheatstone used them for the preparation, storage, and transmission of data for the first time. Through paper tapes telegraph messages could be stored, prepared off-line and sent ten times quicker (up to 400 words per minute). Later similar paper tapes were used for programming computers.
1809
With Samuel Thomas Soemmering's invention of the electrical telegraph the telegraphic transmission of messages was no longer tied to visibility, as it was the case with smoke and light signals networks. Economical and reliable, the electric telegraph became the state-of-the-art communication system for fast data transmissions, even over long distances.
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1861
The telephone was not invented by Alexander Graham Bell, as is widely held, but by Philipp Reiss, a German teacher. When he demonstrated his invention to important German professors in 1861, it was not enthusiastically greeted. Because of this dismissal, he was not given any financial support for further development.
And here Bell comes in: In 1876 he successfully filed a patent for the telephone. Soon afterwards he established the first telephone company.
1866
First functional underwater telegraph cable is laid across the Atlantic
1895
Invention of the wireless telegraph
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With the rapid growth of the Internet and its audience advertisers now have a new medium at their disposal. The placement of the first banner ads in 1994 marks the birth of Internet advertising. Although the advertising industry at first hesitated to adopt the new medium, two facts brushed away their doubts:
Migrating Television Audiences: The increased use of the Internet led people to redistribute their time budget. Whereas some cut down on eating and sleeping, more than a third reduced watching television and instead uses the WWW.
Interesting Internet Demographics: While methodologies and approaches of research organizations studying the demographic composition of the Internet vary, the findings are relatively consistent: Internet users are young, well educated and earn high incomes.
Considering those findings, the Internet in the first place seems to become inevitable to be included in media planning, as part of the audience shifts from TV to the WWW, and secondly, because demographics of the Internet user population are irresistible for marketers.
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KMI is the leading source for information on fiber-optics markets. It offers market research, strategic analysis and product planning services to the opto-electronics and communications industries. KMI tracks the worldwide fiber-optic cable system and sells the findings to the industry. KMI says that every fiber-optics corporation with a need for strategic market planning is a subscriber to their services.
American corporation formed in 1970 in the merger of United Fruit Company and AMK Corporation. United Fruit Company, the main company, was founded in 1899 producing and marketing bananas grown in the Caribbean islands, Central America, and Colombia. The principal founder was Minor C. Keith, who had begun to acquire banana plantations and to build a railroad in Costa Rica as early as 1872. In 1884 he contracted with the Costa Rican government to fund the national debt and to lay about 50 more miles of track. In return he received, for 99 years, full rights to these rail lines and 800,000 acres of virgin land, tax exempt for 20 years. By 1930 it had absorbed 20 rival firms and became the largest employer in Central America. As a foreign corporation of conspicuous size, United Fruit sometimes became the target of popular attacks. The Latin-American press often referred to it as el pulpo ("the octopus"), accusing it of exploiting labourers, bribing officials, and influencing governments during the period of Yankee "dollar diplomacy" in the first decades of the 20th century.
American automotive company first incorporated in 1925 and reorganized and newly incorporated in 1986. It has long been the third largest automaker in the United States (after General Motors and the Ford Motor Company). Founded by Walter P. Chrysler, it took over the business and properties of Maxwell Motor Company, Inc. (first formed in 1913). Today its major subsidiaries include Chrysler Automotive Operations, Inc., which manufactures Plymouth, Dodge, and Chrysler passenger cars, Dodge trucks, and auto parts and accessories; and the Chrysler Financial Corporation. Headquarters are in Highland Park, Mich., U.S.