Filtered for Purity

The week, in one page or less…

Owen Thomas wrote an excellent analysis of the ICE (Information Content and Exchange) standard this week on Red Herring. The key idea: ICE can help ‘unstick’ content, and make it easier for publishers and e-commerce providers to network information, whether that’s in the form of a news story, a snippet of smart-ass commentary, or product catalog information.

Lots of consumer connectivity news this week. AOL raised its prices by $2.00 per month; expect your everyday ISPs to follow suit. Sprint makes a $56 million investment in Earthlink. And, according to News.com, the modem standard victory (that finally ends the 56k war) isn’t such a victory after all. I followed these stories with interest this week, as my local ISP continued to have problems providing reliable connections at even 28.8. Consumer connectivity is key to the success of the medium. If all those households with all those $999 PCs can’t get a connection, the CDNows of the world will have problems selling Wall Street their IPOs.

Miscellany…

And finally, chalk another one up for Matt Drudge: a new study shows that journalists rank Internet as second most important resource.

Originally published on Stating the Obvious.