For any major portal-like entity to guarantee continued access to consumers' daily information consumption patterns, they'll have to worry about the potential to be blocked by various telecommunications and broadcast monopolies around the world. I've firmly believed this for some time.
Did you know, for example, that Microsoft has stakes in cable companies all around the world? That story has been mostly, er, buried for the past six years or so. Once in awhile, you hear about Microsoft and TV, but probably not nearly as often as warranted.
There are a lot of permutations to work out in any attempt to project who'll wind up gaining an unfair foothold in the future digital lifestyle. Regulatory issues, business partnerships, and the patterns of huge capital investments need to be examined.
Not real surprising, then, that a company like Google has calculated these permutations and realized that they'll need to become something akin to a telco if they want us to be still Googling happily along in 2010.
On a related note: maybe AOL and those proprietary BBS guys from the 1980's were onto something. Private subscription services (in a much more sophisticated form) seem likely to make a comeback in a few years, but again, determining the patterns (and whether to call it wireless media, television, Internet, satellite lifestyle management, or what) is best left to those who make their living building these systems. It certainly won't be the "Internet with training wheels." Quite the opposite.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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