Step into the time machine! This video was made the year before I was born, so it’s hard for not to laugh at the “cutting edge” technology it shows. But I bet at the time it was really impressive. 1984 was the first year that the US Census added questions on computer ownership and back then only 7.9% of households had a computer. And I have no idea how many were connected to whatever sort of early modem system they showed in the video. This video gives a whole new meaning to the term early adopter.
Think about it this way: the Baltimore Sun didn’t launch their website until 1996 (sunspot.net). So we’re talking 15 years before that.
I totally would have been one of those people though, calling some computer in Ohio every day just to read a few glowing green lines about the Orioles. So check out this video and pay your respects to the people who paved the way for the news addicted, citizen journalism, always connected, RSS fed, podcasting, Crackberry culture that we have today.
Concluding a experiment destined for failure, Google recently announced that they are pulling out of the newspaper business. Back in 2006 it seemed like a good idea to let Google’s Adsense customers bid auction style on remnant print ad space. They were kind of like the Priceline.com of the newspaper biz minus the awesome William Shatner commercials. In the end, this failed to add any value to anyone involved. Google had trouble selling print (shocker!), advertisers didn’t like the rigid system, and newspapers weren’t gaining any additional revenue.
I’m not sure what the long term ramifications of this will be. I would like to think that this validates the need for local sales reps who know their products and their clients. On the other hand, if Google can’t succeed selling newspaper advertising, who can?
BTW, I do plan on tagging William Shatner and for funnier failures, check out fail blog
