Sixty Years of Memex

CubicStar writes "Sixty years ago, Vannnevar Bush published on 'Atlantic Monthly' his seminal article on the Memex, that computer-like device which would provide access to a huge amount of interlinked information. At the time computers were experimental and secret but a visionary (with a shadowy edge) proposed something which even today looks at least influential."

Comments

As far as I know

[MerlinTheWizard]

He was also responsible for the Hiroshima bombing.

Don't blame Internet for your attempt to Censor

[sinewalker]

I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market. My store specialised in family music - stuff that the whole family could listen to. I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of.

...

People flocked to my store, knowing that they (and their children) could safely purchase records without profanity or violent lyrics.

...

Every day, fewer and fewer customers enter my store to buy fewer and fewer CDs. Why is no one buying CDs? Are people not interested in music? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame.

Rubbish.

What is to blame is that you won't sell what "today's young hoodlims" want to buy. In fact, most new CD's today are Crap, so it's a wonder you have anything left to stock your shelves after you filter it out.

I have not bought a new CD with a Produced date after about 1991, because it's all crap. I occasionally order older, hard-to-find CD's like Peter Schickele (P.D.Q Bach), or Andreas Volenveider - from the artists' own Internet sites - because speciallist stores like yours won't stock them, and main-stream stores only sell Britney Spears et cetera.

I would buy from a store like yours if it sold stuff for me to buy.

Perhaps instead of blaming the Internet for your woes, you should re-address your demographics, or cater for the long tail-end of the curve. Because the biggest issue affecting CD sales today is not the Internet, or Pirates (though they are a small factor in S.E Asia): it is really that today's mainstream artists are all mass-producing rubish that appeals to people who like to get their music pushed through their horrible tinny-sounding, mass-produced iPods.

Alternatively instead of blaming the Internet, you could harness it. Close your store-front and sell to your chosen demographic over the Internet. A web site is a lot cheaper to run, you know...

Don't make a Devil of the technology, find ways to make it work for you.