"We're approaching the second decade of (the) digital age. The Internet has been operating now for 10 years," said Bill Gates. "The second 10 years will be very different."

The date of this statement? May 6, 2008.

Can someone explain this to me?

(For a more realistic timeline of the Internet, check out the Computer History Museum.)

I have been traveling in Spain, Italy and Germany for a couple of weeks now, and offer this perspective. As always, looking for analogs in the built world makes it easier for me to write pieces like this, so here goes.

1. There are still "undeveloped countries." After a week in Tuscany, on the move between Pisa, Montereggioni and Venice, I can tell you that Italy is an undeveloped country. I'm not saying this to be patronizing or name-calling; I am reporting on my anecdotal experiment on getting internet access in a small light-industrial city called Colle Val di'Este. Before I talk about this town, let me say that no hotel we stayed in (let's face it, we're in the midprice market) had Internet access or could even point me to it. It took me about an hour to find the Internet parlor by showing my computer to people and saying "Internet Café?”  A very friendly Italian gentleman took me for what he predicted would be a “5 minute walk” but was actually a stop by the town square to meet his friends, a stop by the gelato parlor and several other detours.  An hour later, I discovered that for $1.35 per hour, you can get Internet, but you're more than likely to wait a turn. Most of the Italians in this town were renting the time to use Skype, so they were on one of the 5 machines for a while. I did the same exercise in suburban Madrid, with less luck. I believe urban Madrid would have yielded more success.
2. Language continues to be a huge issue. As I typed to someone this morning from Leipzig in East Germany, I found the keyboard entirely confounding. After 3 days of adjustment, here’s a message about it.

German kezboards are entirelz different than those we use in the <united States, especiallz when it comes to the back slash ß and the apostrophe in donät or wonät.  >if zou examine the kezboard, zouäll see that it actuallz is one kez wider than <us versions.

I now have a better understanding of how important it is to localize websites if a company intends to be successful worldwide. I also now have an understanding of the frustrations and little problems that make being a geek in any of these countries difficult. You have to find little utilities to translate file formats to and from certain devices, cell phones are omnipresent, unlike computers, and nobody I met seems to understand either technology very well.

1. East Germany seems to be an "emerging market". I spent the afternoon in the equivalent of Best Buy today, just observing and buying a few adapters. This place was *on fire*. And this was a Monday. Long lines at checkout in a 3-story store, plenty of choice in consumer electronics. The home we are staying in is wired like mad, and the train station has wifi hotspots.

Ciao for now!

I picked up a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday to read over lunch. When I read David Lazarus’s column "Pay-to-play is one way to help save newspapers" I had to check that the date was 2007, not 1997. The column lamented the lack of a good business model: “how newspapers can survive in an age of free online content.” His solution was for newspapers to start charging for online content.

I remember in 1997 when Slate decided to start charging $20/month to access its online magazine. I sent them email saying how much I enjoyed Slate, and would put it near the top of the list of sites I would pay for, once I had read all the free content on the Internet. It took them a year to succumb to my sarcasm, but reality forced them away from that model.

Reality is biting even harder now, and newspapers struggle to establish their true value. There was obviously 50 cents worth of value to me in exchange for a paper newspaper I could read over lunch. Will I pay $5 to download a single article from the New York Times? I don’t think I ever have.

What is the value? Maybe I am willing to pay in exchange for a system that itself pays for a level of journalistic excellence and quality. If so, what is the price point at which I consider that a fair exchange? That price point, that value exchange, is shifting for several reasons:

1. Enabling technologies that give voice to millions, along with reputation mechanisms and editing systems to filter and promote the content
2. Population hysteresis applied to institutions and models created centuries ago, disrupted by millions of voices with no vested interest in the legacy
3. The natural evolution of skills that enable these millions to more readily learn and build on the best practices of the past.

A thought experiment: how would you assemble an online version of today’s New York Times, substituting each story or column with the best user-contributed content you could find. How would it compare?

The conversation that I'd like to memorialize here is the one in which we were trying to characterize this opportunity so we could do business planning. "It's like the Internet in 1995!" I exclaimed. And, I do believe that this is one of those wonderful times akin to the first commercial availability of the Internet in which many smart people are beginning to participate, create, and dream. Steve characterized one future of the metaverse as "The 3D Internet."

The more I am talking about this practice with clients and employees, the more I'm coming to see that particular future. Call me crazy, but I am thrilled to be on the cusp of incredible advances that are happening now. Ideas are flying at Clear Ink--and we're having a blast!