This is Robert Krulwich on FRONTLINE's "CYBERSPACE" website. I'm going to
be
asking myself some of the questions that have been asked by reporters since
I did
this story. Maybe they are some of your questions.
First question I've been asked is, "What's the point of this whole
documentary
anyway?" Well, our notion was that we would go to a place that was
completely
virgin territory as far as business is concerned. Our
question was, "Once the sales people, and the advertising people, and the
business people arrive in a big, empty space, what do they do?" And we
discovered
first and foremost, what they do when they get there, they say, "Now what
do we
do?".
People ask me: "Your show talks about a bargain that people are going to
be
making when they deal with new-fangled machines, be they computers, or
boxes on
top of television sets. What's the nature of the bargain?" Well, the view
of
our show is that more and more you are going to have new choices, you could
order
books, order clothing, do banking, watch a movie, on demand, whenever you
want
to, watch a tv show on demand whenever you want to, watch news or receive
particular news items to one of these new machines. You'll be willing to pay
some
of the cost, but you probably won't want to pay the whole cost, which at
least in
the beginning will be kind of expensive. Advertisers, as they have always
done,
will be happy to help you out by paying part of the cost so that you can get
what
you want relatively cheaply. But what do the advertisers want from you?
That's
where the bargain comes in, you will have to decide whether telling about
yourself, information about yourself, sometimes not so intimate, sometimes
maybe
very intimate, whether you want to exchange information in return for the
bargain, the discount, or the show that you seek. Much of the time the
bargain
will be worth it to you. But over time, you may discover that the amount of
information the companies know about you is getting just a little too
thick.
People ask me about the scene in our documentary where I'm up in the
Jumbotron
in Times Square. And it was kinda neat. I mean I looked up at myself...
Here's what I did. I went into somebody's house, and I pretended to be in the
Jumbotron in Times Square, and I pretended to look down at certain
billboards and
over at certain other billboards, and tried to get my eyes going in the right
direction, and then the tape that I made was taken down and put on that
giant
screen for two and a half minute intervals, and there I was, way up there in
the
sky, overlooking Times Square. I was kinda excited by this, and I brought my
kids, and my niece and my nephew, and my sister and her friend, all the way
down
to Times Square to watch. The only problem was-- (A)-- my teeth were not
as
nice-looking as I thought they were, my pores were much bigger than I ever
imagined that they were, and no one, and I mean absolutely no one, but me,
my
sister, and for a little while my kids and my nephew looked up at me.
Otherwise
it was an absolute non-event. That a strangely gesticulating man with
odd-looking
teeth could be up on the Jumbotron for two and a half minute intervals, and
then
back again two and a half minutes later, and then back again, and then back
again, and have no one even notice is both a wonderfully private experience
and,
well, a little disappointing.
People ask "How many of these new shopping services, or banking
services,
or information services, or movies on demand, how many of them are going
to
succeed?" One way to answer that question is to think about the
form that
they come in. Some companies will sell you a service, and they'll say here's
what
we've got, you sign up with us and on your television set or on your
computer, or
somewhere through your phone, you'll be able to receive these movies, these
shows, this news, these recipes, these books, these dresses, and there will
be a
series of fixed things that you can choose from. Other companies--and the
Washington Post is a good example right now with their on-line
newspaper--they
say well, we've got a newspaper, but we're going to leave you a playspace,
and
you can invent, right here, and if you want to cook-up something, cook it up
with
the other people that use this system.
So if moms
want to have a sign-up sheet so that people can get to JV junior- varsity
soccer
games in Maryland, we'll give you space, and you can have the sign-up sheet
so
people can arrange transportation. Moms would think of that, not the
newspaper.
But moms did think of that and now it's on the newspaper. Creating a space
for
people to use and letting them invent in that space may turn out to be the
better
model than creating a space where all the architecture is in place. The
question
is, will it work top-down or will it work bottom- up? We shall see.
WGBH Educational Foundation /
www.wgbh.org
web site copyright WGBH educational foundation
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