machine-envy

This week’s column in the New Statesman is all about bubble 2.0:

“It is unlikely that when Prince penned the immortal line “Tonight we’re going to party like it’s 1999″, what he had in mind was a bunch of old media professionals hunkered in a central London hotel basement earnestly discussing ways to “monetise content”. Yet at a Guardian new media conference in March, representatives from first Microsoft, then Virgin Radio, then the Daily Mirror, took to the stage to unveil their thoughts on profit in the information economy. It was reminiscent of the years before the dotcom bubble burst.

Spurred on not least by the rise of Google, the money people are back…”

Read the rest here.