TREotM: The 21st Century Takes Off

This is a book in progress Go here to read the previous chaptersThe world survived Y2Kamp160 WhewEveryoneamp8217s personal and business computer survived the much ballyhooed prognostication of the apocalypseamp160 The new century debuted with TVHH penetration of the US at 982 756 of those HH had more than one TV set 851 had a VCR and 659 subscribed to cable TV or satellite amp160amp160Of the cable subscribers almost 11 also subscribed to high speed internet and almost 3 subscribed to cable VoiceoverInternetProtocol VoIP telephone serviceamp160The new century took off with a very big bang on January 10 2000 as AOL in effect purchased Time Warner for 164billionamp160 New media took over old mediaamp160 AOL boss Steve Case wore a suit to the announcement while Time Warneramp8217s Gerald amp8220Jerryamp8221 Levin skipped a tieamp160 Time Warner shareholders got 45 of the new stock even though it had real assets and significantly greater revenues and cash flow AOL though had a higher market capViacom turned down an offer to buy Netflix for 50millionATampampT straining with too much debt separated its wireline from its cellular businesses in order to issue more debtamp160 In 2001 it spun off ATampampT Cellular in what was then the largest IPO in historyamp160 Later that year it also spun off ATampampT Broadband and Liberty Media which eventually wound up back in Dr Maloneamp8217s handsamp160 ATampampT Wireless merged with Cingular using that name until 2007 when it became ATampampT MobilityComcast and ATampampT Broadband complete their 475 billion merger combining systems to serve almost 22 million video customers in 38 states and District of Columbia with 63 million digital video customers 33 million highspeed data customers and 13 million cable phone subscribersApple launched the Safari browser in 2003 Firefox followed the next yearamp160 Comcast which invested 380million in QVC sold the channel for 77billion to Liberty MediaViacom spun out Blockbuster in 2004amp160 The newly independent company launched Blockbustercom presaging overthetop services and began acquiring computer game assets and retail distributorsMark Zuckerberg a Harvard student launched a social media networking site at his school to help kids find datesamp160 Twinsamp160 What twins Instead he changed the world and now almost a fifth of worldamp8217s population uses FacebookYouTube cofounder Jawed Karim uploaded a video of his visit to the San Diego Zoo amp8230 the 18second clip was video 1amp160 Now BusinessWeek poses this inquiry amp8220 amp8230 about 80 of YouTubeamp8217s traffic comes from outside the USamp160 An analysis of the top 10 videos by country revealed a surprising degree of overlap suggesting a potential PhD dissertation topic Are countries that laugh at the same schlocky comedy skits less likely to wage war on one anotheramp8221So whatamp8217s happeningChchchchangesFafafaster and fafasteramp160amp160amp160amp160amp160Next week Chapter 11 Part 2 amp8211 The 21st CenturyThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecom management or associated bloggers In a 50year career writing and reporting on media Paul S Maxwell started andor ran some 45plus publications ranging from CATV Newsweekly to Colorado Magazine to CableVision to Multichannel News to CableFAX and The BRIDGE Suite of daily newsletters and research publications In between publishing stints Maxwell served as an advisor andor consultant to a number of major media companies and media startups including running a unit of MCI and managing a partnership of TCI and McGrawHill Send any and all criticisms suggestions rants threats corrections etc to him at cablemaxmaccom amp160

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TREotM: The 21st Century Takes Off

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