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  • Ken McCarthy organized and sponsored the first conference ever held on the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web. His company Amacord Inc., formerly E-Media, was one of the first Internet-based businesses in the world.

    In addition to working with small and mid-sized business clients since 1993, McCarthy was a consultant to NEC's Biglobe, the largest online service in Japan, from 1996 to 2001. His book The Internet Business Manual was the first book on web entrepreneurship published in that country. He is also credited by Hotwired magazine with being one of the people responsible for the development and popularization of the banner ad, one of the key underpinnings of commercial Internet publishing.

    A graduate of Princeton University, McCarthy came to the Internet industry with a varied background which included technical consulting for two of New York's top investment banks, lecturing on educational psychology at MIT, Columbia, and NYU, and founding and operating a number of small businesses, including one that helped produce an Academy Award winning documentary.

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May 25, 2006

Don't break the Net

Should we let US telecom and cable companies turn the Internet into a two-tier network?

I say "no way."

Here's why:

The Internet is a medium. You don't penalize successful players by charging them more because they make better use of a given medium than others.

Do paper companies charge more to best selling authors? Does Dell charge advanced Internet marketers more for their PCs than beginners? Do paint manufacturers charge more to artists whose art works are in the Museum of Modern Art?

The very idea is completely daft, but currently US phone and cable companies are trying to ram the idea down regulators' throats with the help of an army of high paid lobbyists and venal Congressmen.

The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has come out squarely against the two-tier proposal. He's currently in Edinburgh, Scotland speaking at the annual World Wide Web Conference.  THE annual conference.

You can read his remarks as reported by the BBC here.

It's a serious issue.

May 25, 2006 in Internet insight |

Comments

Chris

Thanks for pointing this out- it's one of those important issues most big marketers won't bother writing about, since there's no affiliate link for reporting this. ;)

Posted by: Chris | June 02, 2006 at 02:42 PM

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