During the last 20 years the old
"Digital divide" describes the fact that the world can be divided into people who
do and people who do not have access to (or the education to handle with) modern information technologies, e.g. cellular telephone, television, Internet. This digital divide is concerning people all over the world, but as usually most of all people in the formerly so called third world countries and in rural areas suffer; the poor and less-educated suffer from that divide.
More than 80% of all computers with access to the Internet are situated in larger cities.
"The cost of the information today consists not so much of the creation of content, which should be the real value, but of the storage and efficient delivery of information, that is in essence the cost of paper, printing, transporting, warehousing and other physical distribution means, plus the cost of the personnel manpower needed to run these `extra' services ....Realizing an autonomous distributed networked society, which is the real essence of the Internet, will be the most critical issue for the success of the information and communication revolution of the coming century of millennium."
(Izumi Aizi)
for more information see:
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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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The Net connections can be based on wire-line and wireless access technolgies.
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Usually several kinds of network connections are employed at once. Generally speaking, when an E-mail message is sent it travels from the user's computer via copper wires or coaxial cables
Satellite communication
Although facing competition from fiber-optic cables as cost-effective solutions for broadband data transmission services, the space industry is gaining increasing importance in global communications. As computing, telephony, and audiovisual technologies converge, new wireless technologies are rapidly deployed occupying an increasing market share and accelerating the construction of high-speed networks.
Privatization of satellite communication
Until recently transnational satellite communication was provided exclusively by intergovernmental organizations as
Scheduled privatization of intergovernmental satellite consortia:
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When Intelsat began to accumulate losses because of management failures and the increasing market share of fiber-optic cables, this organizational scheme came under attack. Lead by the USA, the Western industrialized countries successfully pressed for the privatization of all satellite consortia they are members of and for competition by private carriers.
As of February 2000, there are 2680 satellites in service. Within the next four years a few hundred will be added by the new private satellite systems. Most of these systems will be so-called Low Earth Orbit satellite systems, which are capable of providing global mobile data services on a high-speed level at low cost.
Because of such technological improvements and increasing competition, experts expect satellite-based broadband communication to be as common, cheap, and ubiquitous as satellite TV today within the next five or ten years.
Major satellite communication projects
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Source: Analysys Satellite Communications Database
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"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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"Stealth sites" account for a particular form of hidden advertisement. Stealth sites look like magazines, nicely designed and featuring articles on different topics, but in reality are set up for the sole purpose of featuring a certain companies products and services.
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Among the most striking development of the 1990s has been the emergence of a global commercial media market utilizing new technologies and the global trend toward deregulation.
This global commercial media market is a result of aggressive maneuvering by the dominant firms, new technologies that make global systems cost-efficient, and neoliberal economic policies encouraged by the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and the US government to break down regulatory barriers to a global commercial media and telecommunication market.
A global oligopolistic market that covers the spectrum of media is now crystallizing the very high barriers to entry."
(Robert McChesney, author of "Rich Media, Poor Democracy")
The network structure of information and communication technologies means that even deregulated markets are not "free". The functional logic of global networks only tolerates a small number of large players. Mergers, strategic alliances, partnerships and cooperations are therefore the daily routine of the ICT business. They bypass competition and create "virtual cartels".
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Addressed as one of the fathers of the Internet, Vinton Cerf together with Robert Kahn developed the
In 1992, he co-founded the
Today, Vinton Cerf is Senior Vice President for Internet Architecture and Technology at
Vinton Cerf's web site: http://www.wcom.com/about_the_company/cerfs_up/
Massive online retail bookstore housing more than a million titles. Includes a book recommendation "personalizer,", a comprehensive list of The New York Times bestsellers, a "live" community events calendar with a daily survey and several forums, "highlighted" books from 19 subject areas, browsable categories such as antiques, ethnic studies, and pop culture, Books in the News, and weekly features such as reviews, excerpts, recommendations, interviews, events, "roundups" of popular titles, and quizzes.
Caching is a mechanism that attempts to decrease the time it takes to retrieve data by storing a copy at a closer location.
Based at the University of California's San Diego Supercomputer Center, CAIDA supports cooperative efforts among the commercial, government and research communities aimed at promoting a scalable, robust Internet infrastructure. It is sponsored by the
Robot relates to any automatically operated machine that replaces human effort, though it may not resemble human beings in appearance or perform functions in a humanlike manner. The term is derived from the Czech word robota, meaning "forced labor." Modern use of the term stems from the play R.U.R., written in 1920 by the Czech author Karel Capek, which depicts society as having become dependent on mechanical workers called robots that are capable of doing any kind of mental or physical work. Modern robot devices descend through two distinct lines of development--the early