ustxtxb_obs_2001_03_30_50_00013-00000_000.pdf

The follow up to her Grammy’ Award-Winning album Don t miss Shawn Calvin performing the new single Whole New You on: Later with Craig Kilbom Rosie 0 Donnell Prodtrcer.11.19 John Levontrial Mixed C9 ACkI ClearinsNnt u in www.shawncofvin.com www.columbiarecords.com Alsa on sale: “Steady “Fat City”, tam Gilt’, and “A Few Small Repairs” Per , & Trn. illocager/strarl 2001Son41.11 ,riic Finely/inn -1w 4, C. jk.f, sate: “i rain” www.trainline.com “Drops Of Jupiter” The new album from the band that brought you Meet lit7i t t.Lnia, featuring the new hit single Wcittra .,md T’,.i,f -rattii .o; pr.dus.,..,.1 and mixtti Pralniars Etiriot Editorial, continued from page 3 Battelle ‘ seemed to reflect the mainstream view at the conference: The dot-corn bubble may have burst, but fear not, business is still king of the Internet. “These new ideas being backed by venture capital are now being tilled back into the soil of large companies,” said Heilemann, who also noted that “places like GE, Nike, and the U.S. Post Office really are where the innovation is now” Don’t mistake the failure of online pet retailers for the demise of the web-as-business-tool concept. The information superhighway may have lost a few strip malls, but the office towers remain. Of course, many non-commercial ventures also continue to exist; the good thing about the Internet is that, unlike radio or television or publishing, the monied entities don’t necessarily eliminate the independent, smaller interests and voices.These two online presences seem reasonably secure: on the one hand, large companies that use the Internet for communications, branding, customer relations, and other transactions; on the other hand, the grade school class or the artist or the emu oil manufacturer that uses the Internet to publicize its work or business, without the expectation of direct profit. The great uncertainty lies in the intermediate area of “content,” as online news, music, and other forms of information/entertainment have collectively come to be known. The problem is the same for the recording industry as it is for Salon.com: Is there any money to be made in distributing creative output online? There is much skepticism on this point, since lately it’s started to seem that unless nudity is involved, clicks simply don’t turn magically into dollars. What consmilers” and advertisers and sponsors pay for in an offline magazine or a CD is not just the “content” but the gatekeepers who control its availability, performing quality checks on one end and copyright protection on the other. The web, many have concluded, is simply too diffuse, and gatekeeping breaks down. In the final morning’s keynote speech \(preceded by mul editor Michael Hirschorn predicted that given the difficulties of controlling what goes out over the Internet, companies are going to distribute copy-protected material via other, more restricted devices. “While the web will never go away, it seems likely to return to being a communitarian outpost, kind of the Montana of the information age,” he said. The part of Montana owned by Ted Turner, perhaps. Music may become harder to download, but it’s hard to conceive of any sector of the public sphere not dominated by advertising and corporate sponsorship. ‘As the Internet slims down, it will probably start looking the way so much of the landscape looks these days: the corporate behemoths, and then the rest of us, coexisting in .this best of all possible worlds. KO 3/30/01 THE TEXAS HEAVEN 13