One of my on-line habits is to read the news about computers and the internet. While browsing around, I found an article at EWEEK.COM entitled “Sun, Google Snuggle Up.” I read it and noted that the two companies appear to be posturing themselves for the marketplace. Pretty much business as usual for modern media and computer companies.
Later, I found another article at PCWORLD.COM entitled Will Google Kill News Media? In this second article, the author drew the picture of merging and posturing among the electronic media to eventually eliminate the New York Times and other print media. I also found a link to a flash video entitled “Epic 2015.” It was a graphics-driven projection of events yet to come in the electronic information market. Very interesting – almost scary. Everything is affected – including blogs, Ipods, and anything wireless. From the second article:
Matt Thompson, deputy editor for online content for startribune.com, the Web site for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Robin Sloan, who works for Current, a San Francisco-based cable and satellite TV network, have created “EPIC 2015.” In the short movie, the two peg the growing Google as the death knell for the slumbering Fourth Estate, which loses its gatekeeping and publishing role to the Internet.
The eight-minute piece–produced by the Museum for Media History, a fictitious construct of Thompson and Sloan–swerves between the plausible and the dramatic, tendering a prophecy that is both alarmist and maybe inevitable.
Whether you read the linked articles or not, I highly recommend that you watch the Epic 2015 flash video. Spooky!
One word of caution as you view the video: the authors of the video both seem to have liberal media connections.