:: Douglas Rushkoff - Weblog ::

What I wrote was that AOL's purchase of Time/Warner heralded the end of the dot.com bubble. AOL was cashing in its casino chips. And just like the gambler who trades in his colored plastic disks for real cash, AOL's Steve Case understood that his run was over and that it was time to trade in his stock certificates for those of a company that had genuine assets.



The New York Times refused to run the piece. (I did get the "kill" fee.) They told me I was misreading the landscape to such an extent that for them to publish such a view would be irresponsible. See, all the experts - at least all the experts who the Times was listening to - believed that the AOL purchase of Time/Warner indicated "new" media's domination of of "old" media. Interactivity would take over. Time/Warner's only hope of getting in the game was to be absorbed by a new media company.