ethics
10-15-2005, 06:59 PM
At first, I had no interest in any book that's going to be giving me a sermon on the topic. I've read many and most of them fell flat in even trying to understand what Internet means.
But this review (http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/fivebest/?id=110007408&mod=RSS_Opinion_Journal&ojrss=frontpage) gave me a nice glimpse in to some books (even the dated ones) in to something really interesting. I may even try one or two.
Like these:
1. "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage (Walker, 1998).
With every new technology, we overestimate how quickly people change their behavior. This dot-com cult classic compares Web fever to the awe of the telegraph. When Queen Victoria sent the first transatlantic cable to President Buchanan in 1858, the London Times said that the invention "has half undone the Revolution of 1776," and torch-bearing revelers, celebrating the cable's completion, nearly burned down New York's City Hall. Publisher James Gordon Bennett rued: "Mere newspapers must submit to destiny and go out of existence." What was the best way to profit? Faster communications created our Information Age, but the telegraph industry was a short-lived wonder. By 1880, Western Union carried 80% of the traffic. Then came the phone.
3. "There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere" by Kara Swisher" (Crown, 2003).
Technological change creates booms and busts, so try not to be the executive caught in the middle when the pendulum shifts. Kara Swisher (a Wall Street Journal colleague) details in painful and sometimes hilarious detail how Time Warner's shareholders got sold out to AOL in 2000 on the promise of quick digital riches. The old guard is now gone, "AOL" was dumped from the company name in 2003, and AOL has an uncertain future. The title refers to Ronald Reagan's joke about the optimistic boy in a stable shoveling through manure. Time Warner executives are still shoveling.
But this review (http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/fivebest/?id=110007408&mod=RSS_Opinion_Journal&ojrss=frontpage) gave me a nice glimpse in to some books (even the dated ones) in to something really interesting. I may even try one or two.
Like these:
1. "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage (Walker, 1998).
With every new technology, we overestimate how quickly people change their behavior. This dot-com cult classic compares Web fever to the awe of the telegraph. When Queen Victoria sent the first transatlantic cable to President Buchanan in 1858, the London Times said that the invention "has half undone the Revolution of 1776," and torch-bearing revelers, celebrating the cable's completion, nearly burned down New York's City Hall. Publisher James Gordon Bennett rued: "Mere newspapers must submit to destiny and go out of existence." What was the best way to profit? Faster communications created our Information Age, but the telegraph industry was a short-lived wonder. By 1880, Western Union carried 80% of the traffic. Then came the phone.
3. "There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere" by Kara Swisher" (Crown, 2003).
Technological change creates booms and busts, so try not to be the executive caught in the middle when the pendulum shifts. Kara Swisher (a Wall Street Journal colleague) details in painful and sometimes hilarious detail how Time Warner's shareholders got sold out to AOL in 2000 on the promise of quick digital riches. The old guard is now gone, "AOL" was dumped from the company name in 2003, and AOL has an uncertain future. The title refers to Ronald Reagan's joke about the optimistic boy in a stable shoveling through manure. Time Warner executives are still shoveling.