martinlittle.com:thinkThin

Trying to catch up on way too many Wired newsletters right now. This article brought back to mind some of the 'great' sites I used to frequent on a daily basis when 'dot-com' was the third word even luddites used. The Web and surrounding industries/activities/whatever is in an interesting flux just now. People are getting used to paying for services that used to be free (yes, they really are) and those companies that have kept their costs down and fresh ideas coming are reaping the rewards; the tricky part now seems hitting the pricing sweet-spot - generating enough cash to manage to keep going and developing, but not overpricing so that paying users feel they are getting a good deal on the service. Oh yeah ... just like the 'old world' economy.

Even Blogger is getting in on the deal, with the shiny new Blogger Pro. Speaking of blogging, the Bloggies have sparked a whole load of new interest in the area, with the BBC and Time informing readers how easy it is, and setting up Blogs on their respective sites. Mr Barclay from work has finally taken the plunge.

As an antidote to too much tech, the BBC has an article on how radio is bringing the Internet to a small community in central Sri Lanka. My first thoughts were on a tech level - 'how can it do that???' - but the article explains all! Sometimes it is too easy to forget that I am 'informationally rich', and that the digital divide is a real issue is many parts of the world.