Bad news for TV moguls — kids rather like the Net!

Bad news for TV moguls — kids rather like the Net!

A new study from Statistical Research indicates that one third of children in the US would choose the Internet over other media, if they were restricted to one choice. This would worry me if I owned a TV network. Interesting also that, overall, boys preferred Internet and television, while girls preferred the telephone and radio.

More AOL Time Warner woes

More AOL Time Warner woes
NYT story.

“Investors took Mr. Pittman’s return as confirmation of their worst fears about the America Online division, and AOL Time Warner’s shares fell last week to a low of $19.60 on Thursday, before rebounding slightly on Friday, with unusually high trading volume. Reports surfaced that the Janus fund group, which specializes in rapidly growing companies and AOL Time Warner’s largest shareholder, was selling tens of millions of shares, presumably because it had lost confidence in the company’s growth prospects.

Investors are most worried that technology and the market are passing AOL by. It remains the undisputed king of dial-up Internet access over phone-line modems, called narrowband. But it does not seem to have yet mastered the next generation of high-speed, or broadband, service, which has been dominated by cable systems and phone companies.

Broadband services were supposed to be one of the biggest benefits from the combination with Time Warner, which owns the nation’s second-largest cable company. Lots of Time Warner’s data and entertainment could be offered up over fast digital pipes, according to the deal’s rationale. But there is little to show for this supposed synergy so far. ”

The new imperialism

The new imperialism

For most of us, the notion of a sovereign state free to do whatever it likes within its own borders has become a ‘given’. It’s what paralyses the international community when faced with humanitarian crises. But, post September 11, influential voices in the UK and US administrations are beginning to think the unthinkable. In Britain, Robert Cooper is a senior diplomat who has helped to shape Tony Blair’s calls for a new internationalism and a new doctrine of humanitarian intervention which would place limits on state sovereignty. This article contains the full text of Cooper’s essay on “the postmodern state”, which seems to be the clearest articulation of this emerging geopolitical philosophy. Its significance derives from the fact that Cooper’s is the brain behind Blair’s policy. This is what Blair and Dubya would think if they were smart enough.