The United States is developing a multiple-mode, densely interconnected communications and information network that will be owned and operated by dozens or hundreds of companies, supplied by thousands of content providers and based on whatever affordable delivery mechanisms that make sense to content users.
Predictor: Hulley, Bill
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article he wrote for Computer-Mediated Communication titled “Digital Convergence is a Crock,” Bill Hulley, then a venture capitalist and general partner of Fostin Capital Partners, says: ”Buying the idea that a few huge monolithic conglomerates will converge to run a single wire to all the homes, build all the boxes and supply all the info-stuff is about as silly as sitting in a field and waiting for the earth to shake apart because the planets are aligned. On the other hand, you can make some neat bets on how ‘Things Will Be’ if you take the digital convergence for what it is – a handy dandy metaphor that the United States is developing a multiple-mode, densely interconnected communications and information network that will be owned and operated by dozens or hundreds of companies, supplied by thousands of content providers and based on whatever affordable delivery mechanisms that make sense to content users. My personal bet is that providing real products for real paying customers is going to make a whole bunch more money than putting two or three huge infrastructure providers together under one management team and declaring the result a one-stop shop for content and transport.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Open Access
Name of publication: Computer-Mediated Communication
Title, headline, chapter name: Digital Convergence is a Crock
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1994/aug/converge.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Stotler, Larry