[Dean's World] Ron Coleman: The real singularity

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Ron Coleman:
The real singularity 
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1144331554.shtml


   It's the singularity of commerce. Check out[1] these opening
   paragraphs from Reuters (I've added links to all the different
   companies):

     Online payment company [2]PayPal on Thursday said [3]MTV and the
     [4]National Basketball Association (NBA) and others will accept
     payments from a new service allowing purchases by mobile phone text
     message.

     The move by PayPal, a unit of online auctioneer [5]eBay Inc., marks
     a big step in bridging the worlds of electronic commerce and
     brick-and-mortar stores, by giving consumers a pay option via
     telephone.

     PayPal Mobile lets consumers instantly buy goods and services, such
     as compact discs, DVDs and apparel, by sending product codes via
     text message.

     PayPal signed up [6]News Corp.'s 2[7]0th Century Fox Home
     Entertainment, [8]NBC Universal's [9]Bravo, [10]Viacom Inc.'s MTV,
     and the [11]NBA Store for its Text to Buy service.

   If you want a scorecard, start [12]here, where the Columbia Journalism
   Review tries to keep tabs of who owns what. Except, of course,[13] who
   "owns" CJR.

   Keeping track of brands... interests... territory... is getting mighty
   complicated. Do you or I have any interest in any of this? Who knows?
   Is there any chance we don't? And how much chance is there that we
   know what it is?

References

   1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060406/wr_nm/paypal_mobile_dc_1
   2. http://www.paypal.com/
   3. http://www.mtv.com/
   4. http://www.nba.com/
   5. http://www.ebay.com/
   6. http://www.newscorp.com/index2.html
   7. http://www.foxhome.com/foxhome_main.html
   8. http://www.nbcuni.com/
   9. http://www.bravotv.com/
  10. http://www.viacom.com/
  11. http://store.nba.com/gp/node/n/14129791/102-8939516-1520164?%5Fencoding=UTF8&league=core
  12. http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/
  13. http://www.rathergate.com/?p=831