We're moving on from yesterday's "What" to today's "Is."  But we will also have to think about Obama/MySpace, and there's a tie-in ahead.

What is broadband good for?

Is

After a few earnest paragraphs [see yesterday's very serious "What" discussion], it is always a good idea to take a break.  “That depends on the meaning of ‘is,’” we can all say at this point.  This is also a good tie-in to the Casanova theme with which I shamelessly tried to grab your attention at the beginning. 

There is something serious to say about “is,” though.  To think that what we are doing online now is somehow predictive of what we will be doing is another example of the human wish to categorize and clump.  It implies that we can measure and assess online activity in some helpful way now that should drive telecommunications policy for the future. 

With just ten years of experience with a user-friendly graphics-rendering browser behind us, and just ten years of the commercial internet under our belts, it seems naive to think that we have any idea what will happen next.  Many online eruptions are entirely unanticipated.  Who knew that classified ads would be destroyed, that we would all stop using phone books, that online presence-detection would become a nuanced, informational thing, that tens of millions of people would start publishing details about their lives online, and that IBM would be trying to make a business model out of Second Life?  Maybe all of you did.  If so, congratulations.  It’s safe to say, though, that a few other people didn’t.

=====and speaking of online eruptions, many thanks to Micah Sifry for carefully reporting on the Obama/MySpace volunteer story.  What a story!  Here's more from Micah.

Who would have thought that campaigns would feel the need to take over MySpace sub-areas?  I agree with Micah that the Obama campaign fumbled this one.  Anthony worked on this fan site for 2.5 years and the work got to be overwhelming.  He was asked to name his price and he did.  But the campaign decided that control was the better way to go. 

"Is" is changing daily, and our candidates aren't quite as dynamic as they should be - in all senses of that word.  I hope they get there.