Paul: Thanks for the context. But, I think it's an issue that is much wider than Telefonica. And it is what will happen in the near future... just because it can.

search twitter for #alierta and you can feel the heat of the disdain among spanish users towards Telefonica.

His comments were inflamatory because search engines "use our networks" and also because he expressed the sentiment that the company should claw back the losses of their failed social network venture last year.

If the telcos want to do this now, then what have they been waiting for all this time?

Tatyana: That's a good question. I don't know. It could be a cultural thing. Maybe we are still just getting used to this environment.

Tom,

Do you think we need to have a better platform to facilitate online conversations. Am I reading your comment about micro-blogging correctly - not a good choice for online conversations?
And I do agree with the previous points made regarding the role of some kind of moderator or community manager if you will...

Thanks!
@glfceo

Tom, this has come from a brilliant BBC series The Virtual Revolution, on how the internet is changing global politics and the world.

Thanks Chris. Let's just say 'we all' invented it, including Mr Gore :)

Tom:

British work on Packet Switching was done independently of American effort, led by Paul Baran at RAND (and predates it.

You Brits get the web and even the computer. The telephone, telephone netowrk, and the Internet are US Intellectual Property and Inventions.

Yes, I agree, the tools will reveal patterns. But that comes after, that's the analysis that comes after the fact. There is way too much importance being given to 'real-time' in the wrong places. Real-time technologies are important but in other ways than many people seem to be thinking about them today.

As a native American it is my firm belief that rocks do in fact go to Heaven.

Catholics and Presbyterians however do not !

"rather treating them as synaptic firings and looking for patterns"

you guys are very poetic. Totally agree, there are patterns in the noise, that's where the gold is. As they say "where there's muck there's brass"

"...with music.... With music you can have individuals all talking at the same time. And it's not noise. lt's a perfect harmony!""

Wow, I LOVE this line.

I agree with your premise Tom, but I disagree with your conclusion.

The value of real-time is not the individual responses necessarily, at least not on aggregate, but rather treating them as synaptic firings and looking for patterns.

Great post Tom and I totally agree. Real Time is noise when it comes to news because the closer it gets to 'real time' the less context, reflection, and thinking is involved, so not only is it noise, it's uninformed noise.

Are derivatives being created to short countries, states?
.......

it's far worse than you think.

I don't think there'd be DRM in this first edition of the chip, but I could be wrong. However, your thinking is another puzzle piece that makes this ultimately possible:

I ran into Shel Holtz and he said he once asked Richard Edelman what exactly was being measured, and he said it was 'confidence that organizations will do the right thing,' which I guess is a type of 'trust sentiment' rather than trust itself.

So if trust in all sources of information declines, doesn't that beg the question: what, if anything, DO people trust? There has to be something, right? Do they only trust what they see with their own eyes now?

As they say in advertising, no one ever got fired for buying a prime-time TV spot.