The Race Towards Virtual World Domination

It all began with Sputnik. After the first artificial satellite was launched into space by the U.S.S.R. in 1957, not wanting to be left behind in the technological race, the U.S. counteracted with an aggressive development of its science and technology. U.S. President Eisenhower issued a directive for the creation of two agencies tasked to develop state-of-the-art space technology, communication networks and weaponry: the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). ARPA coordinated with some of the most brilliant minds in the military and academe for the development of an experimental network of time-sharing computers, which was later to be called ARPANET. Before the creation of the ARPANET, different computers could be connected to each other through a hub, or a central computer. The challenge was to connect all of these central computers to each other through the means of a host-to-host network. It was in 1969 when the first host-to-host connection was established between and among four universities in the U.S. ARPANET’s first international connection was made in 1973 to Norway and England. From then on, the ARPANET served as the packet switch prototype for TCP/IP or Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, the backbone of the internet as we know today.

ARPANET was originally conceptualized as a means to keep communications between key departments of the government open and free from interception in case of nuclear or space-based attacks. Through the years, internet technology gradually morphed from a purely text-based platform for the exchange of information and research sharing networks, into the World Wide Web utilizing Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) and ushering in the era of electronic commerce.

Seeking to exploit this brand-new, almost limitless territory called the internet and to milk the proverbial cash cow, companies were born and operated in the virtual sphere --- the dot-coms. Confident that they could capitalize on profits by focusing on brand awareness first and reaping the rewards later, these dot-coms expended huge sums of money in advertising. The dot-coms relied too heavily on a cash windfall through venture capitalism and initial public offerings. This marketing strategy proved to be fatal for many dot-coms as the expected profits from its customer base were not enough to salvage the huge losses incurred. The bursting of the dot-com bubble (or the dot-bomb) put a number of internet-based companies out of business. Pets.com, said to be the most popular of the dot-com bombs, launched a wide-scale advertising campaign, even shelling out $1.2 million for a thirty-second commercial during the 2000 Super Bowl. Although the pets.com puppet enjoyed a cult status, the company itself faced liquidation in the latter part of 2000.

However, not everything ends with tragedy, as the launching of Sputnik showed us. Around fifty percent of the dot-com bombs survived or were restructured and bought by more established companies operating on traditional business models: Paypal and Skype were bought by eBay; Geocities was bought by Yahoo, a fellow dot-com bomb survivor; and Network Solutions was acquired by VeriSign which further trimmed out the fat by outsourcing peripheral services to companies operating in low-cost areas such as India and the Philippines.

Eight years have passed since the 2000 dot-com bubble phenomena and internet businesses are still sprouting up like mushrooms. The top three players today, as cited by TIME Magazine’s Josh Quittner, are Google, Facebook and Apple. These three behemoths, unlike your stereotypical Starbucks-toting, Gen-Y dot-com executives, operate on different principles on how to corner their respective share of the market. Google focuses on the sharing of information and tweaks its ever-expanding services to cover everything that you will ever use the internet for; Facebook focuses on social networking and interaction by providing virtual replacements for things that you can do in the flesh --- like poking, hugging, kissing, gaming, watching videos or listening to music; and Apple markets its products to ensure that consumers will use its platform to access different applications on the internet..

The most aggressive of the three, Google seems to be plotting a full-scale domination of the internet, acquiring rivals of Facebook and encroaching on Apple’s domain by developing cellular phone-based platforms for internet services. With $ 16.5 billion in revenues, Google is a formidable opponent capable of pureeing its competitors into mushroom soup at a mouse click. With its awesome power, Google should step into the shoes of Jim Carrey as the erstwhile-God in Bruce Almighty and ask itself this question: How would you handle the most awesome responsibility in the universe?


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An exercise in SEO. Keywords: state-of-the-art, weaponry, hub, prototype, God, cow, Starbucks, Philippines, mushroom soup, Jim Carrey.

SoaP Opera

“But it turned out when they said this movie was ‘shitty,’ they didn’t mean it ironically. They just thought it would be a piece of shit.”
-New Line marketing president Russell Swartz (from Dateline Hollywood)

Snakes on a Plane was marketed to be a crappy B movie, so crappy that it creates a following, so notorious that people would want to go to a movie theater, shell out some $s and see for themselves how crappy it could be. The very concept of the whole movie, from the crappy title to the crappy marketing strategy (or marketing strategy based on the crappiness of it all) ultimately did not spell out success in terms of revenues. If we were talking about fodder for sarcasm, then perhaps, the movie could be said to be a huge success.

Maybe the producers relied so much on the internet as a revolutionary form of media. The film itself created a strong following in terms of web content. Googling up “Snakes on a Plane” yielded 65,300,000 hits. Did the avant garde marketing successfully relegate “Snakes on a Plane” within the happy bounds of pop-culture? I guess so. But does that mean the New Line Cinema Executives can retire early and buy an island or two off the coast of Fiji? Hehe. I don't think so.

If you think about it, based on the premise of their marketing strategy, the ploy worked well, So well in fact, that maybe people started thinking that the movie was so crappy it wasn't worth spending $10 on. Looking at it another way, maybe it wouldn't have done so well were it not for the online publicity. In the end, what the producers achieved was just another topic for discussion. But then again, is it JUST another topic for discussion? Incorporating bloggers into their marketing strategy created an online macarena/ketchup song monster.

Look again at the figure above. 65 million hits!!! Try typing “Nacho Libre” in the search field and you'll get only 11 million results. Nacho Libre is a seriously funny movie, although it probably didn't gross as well as its producers hoped. What about “Austin Powers?” (who doesn't like Austin Powers?) Only 7.3 million hits.

Wow. That is brilliant marketing strategy. Perhaps if they venture into merchandise, they'd make a killing in sales.

asl?

'The internet is a vast and confusing place, where is a little girl to go?"- Major Motoko Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell

The internet is a virtual world which transcends boundaries of culture, religion, countries and thought. It is a parallel universe where each transaction, each reality has its virtual counterpart. In this virtual sphere of existence, rules and and norms applicable to the material world may not necessarily be efficiently operationalized in online transactions or inter-relations.

Electronic commerce laws try to establish rules and norms to govern online transactions, but despite the attempt to create a virtual government, the long arm of the law cannot reach every nook and cranny in this infinite universe of 1s and 0s. The concept of government and its functions cannot easily be constituted in a realm where everything is virtual. Who will be governed, how will they be governed and most importantly, who will govern them? Personas over the internet are represented by a mere succession of numbers (IP addresses). These IP addresses can easily be masked and merely point to a general location. Any attempt to discover the identities behind IP addresses tread dangerously on the right to privacy. Existing as it does in the virtual sphere, there are no clear cut territorial lines delineating jurisdiction.

Take one of the 3 inherent powers of any sovereign --- taxation. In ordinary transactions, especially transactions involving services, the situs of the transaction is paramount. The tax situs is the place where the service is rendered. What is the "place" where service is rendered in purely internet-based transactions? Sections 23 of the e-commerce act and Section 33 of its implementing rules try to address this virtual dilemma by pointing to the originator/addressee's "place of business" or usual/habitual residence. But this again begs the question, "Which address?" "Places" in the internet are merely represented by numbers. These numbers are easily masked. Not all businesses have brick and mortar offices and a lot merely exist unregistered in virtual space. Another issue would be the source principle of taxation. How does one tax a resident German national who sells webpage templates through a website whose domain name is registered in Tanzania? If the BIR cannot even efficiently collect taxes in the real world, the possibility of taxing online transactions proves to be a herculean task.

conVIRGINS: taste the possibilities

Convergence is the brainchild of innovation. Or sheer boredom.

Don't you just enjoy watching the home tv shopping network? Here's a food processor that slices, dices, peels, crisscuts and mashes. But wait!There's more! You can use it make your favorite egg salad without the hassle of peeling off the shell! All THAT for the low low LOW price of $4.99! The Japanese are an even more amusing lot. Which people in their right mind can think of inventing an umbrella that extends down to the ankles? A person with that same frame of mind also invented the internet.

Originally conceptualized as a defense network in the United States, the internet evolved into usenet groups for sharing information, and further evolved into the state where it is now: a global village, a world unto itself, cyberspace --- where you can do virtually what you do in real life. You can talk to people, order pizza, drive, watch your favorite show, own a pet and even... *gasp* fall in love!

Much like how cultures have a tendency to melt into each other (taglish, bollywood, latino rap, boondocks, michael jackson--he's black, he's white), convergence (in its techie sense) is an interlacing of technologies, --- a blurring of boundaries. New uses have been discovered for seemingly incompatible inventions. Take our favorite topic in class -- VoIP... calls made through phone lines from circuit switched to internet protocol. Revolutionary! Another case in point: p2p file sharing (napster, limewire, gnutella) from exchanging files to downloading bootleg music to a backdoor portal for hacking. Still revolutionary.

With the creation of a virtual world also came the infirmities of the real world--cybercrime. Despite that downside to the shiny concept of convergence, technology still evolves at a rapid pace (don't you just regret buying that laser disc player? Hehe), and its benefits outweigh its disadvantages. With the internet, we see technology imitating life imitating technology. Do you know that scientists say it may be possible for ODORS to be sent through the internet? Now THAT is convergence. Ü

In the immortal words of Madonna..."Like a virgin, touched for the very first time. Like a virgin... when your heart beats, next to mine..."What has that got to do with CONVERGENCE? Well, nothing really... at least to our knowledge. Who knows, perhaps somewhere, somehow, someone... out of sheer boredom or a flash of inspiration, may know all along.

Oops there goes another rubber tree plant

The UNCITRAL model law, a suggested "pattern" for electronic commerce laws of participating countries, emphasizes the need for wide application and media-neutrality in order to cover all factual situations--- present and future--- wherein the electronic commerce law can apply. This intent is understandable given the rapid rate of growth and obsolescence of technology. However, UNCITRAL's wide application policy may run risks of being vague and overbroad, and thus, may not always facilitate the ease of international transactions.

And experience only teaches us that an overbroad law may be distorted in such a way that its application may run counter to its objectives. Case in point: no one expected the United States to take unilateral action on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, without UN's approval. And yet, in declaring a first-strike policy and adopting preemptive hostile action, the US found loopholes in the law to justify its unprovoked aggression. If the UN Security Council, the body governing international relations regarding force and warfare barely addressed the US' "good faith" interference, then one can hardly blame us for being skeptical about the broad application of the Model Law.

Section 37 of the E-Commerce Act of the Philippines, perhaps in keeping with this wide-application policy, provides for an interpretation which gives due regard to the law's international origin and need to promote uniformity in its application. Given its all-encompassing language, this clause seems to share the same infirmities of vagueness and overbreadth of the Model Law. It is also potentially conflicting, since even though it encourages wide application --- thereby espousing uniformity among nations, --- it also acknowledges each country's prerogative in enacting its own laws according to State policy.

The provision regarding the application of general principles of international law is nothing new. Weeks from the start of the first day of class, any freshman law student can tell you that general principles of international law form part of the law of the land. Our fear, unfounded as it may seem, is that we might be sacrificing our own state objectives all in the name of uniformity of application . Perhaps in our haste to conform to international laws, much of our ideals and independence as a nation have been compromised. Moreover, one cannot entirely brush away the pessimism borne of experience, that other countries might not necessarily follow the Model Law, given due regard to locally enacted laws.

There is nothing wrong with the desire to be bridged with legal systems and societies of differing technologies seamlessly, but as a rule, the country's E-Commerce law must be tailor-made to the many peculiarities attendant to its circumstances, and with enough safeguards to be in keeping with international standards as well. The Model Law should therefore, at best, serve as a mere framework for any country.

Anyway, the Electronic Commerce law is relatively new. There is no established jurisprudence yet on the matter. As for now, we can only hope that we don't end up being steamrolled by the objectives of the Model Law.