cyberspace, italian-style
italy: bernardo parrella

italy: bernardo parrella

After almost three years of cultural exile in the Bay Area, I am heading "back home" to Italy where I will meet up with some old friends, and with some new ones whom so far I've only met electronically.

In Roma, charming and chaotic as ever, I re-connect with one of my first byte-pals, Enrico Caioli. His two-lines Aladin BBS is still located in a damp basement, "like in the good old times", circa 1990. He fills me in on what has happened in the intervening time. "We are facing a clear paradox here: people with good technical skills and a great passion cannot afford the prohibitive costs of a full Internet connection. At the same time those with neither competence nor enthusiam but who can put a couple hundred million lira on the table, get quick attention, and become Internet providers overnight."

No wonder. In the last 12-18 months the Internet has been boosted here as elsewhere, as a golden goose, a huge would-be market. With such ambitions, last fall Nichi Grauso headed the assault and launched Video Online, an investment of US $50 million, 20% of which went into an aggressive promotion including various full-color pages in US magazines and toll-free numbers throughout the world. In spite of some avant-garde ideas, the operation was far too heavy-weight for a still unborn market. In less than a year VOL failed and offered its remains (and tons of debts) to Telecom Italia, anxious for a chance to reinstate its one-time monopoly. And all around, small and big sharks alike, keep circling in the waters of misinformation, looking for an opportunity to jump deep into a (supposedly) fast money sea.

Reality check

Jumping elsewhere, here is Agorà Telematica. Called the "Italian equivalent to The WELL" by Wired magazine Agorà is a fairly well-managed conferencing system on its feet since 1989. It's there that I located most local "digerati" and cyber-entrepeneurs. Among them, Roberto Cicciomessere, Agorà's CEO, tells me how recently, due to money shortage, they have been forced to slow down the public discussion areas and instead target small businesses. In spite of this change in focus, Agorà is still one of the best places to hang out, and a top ISP, too. The so-called "social telematics" area is also growing, with low-cost networks such as CyberNet, Strano, and Peacelink, and the Cittè Invisibile association, to name a few.

windwalker said:

I am once again a very small child exploring the paths through the Montana woods and find a place of total enchantment where there lived a very wise old man who taught me to talk to the fairies on their huge sunflower telephones and walk down a magic path to where the trout filled pond lay glistening in the sun. An old dead tree stump, carved with nitches here and there and a crow's nest sat atop it waiting for its owner to come cawing back, while I, in awe and wonder, saw a Fairy Post Office which held from time to time, a pack of Wrigleys Juicy Fruit gum, a string of pearls or a nail set to fix my nails. How I loved that gentle soul and often wished his tale be told. His name was Hawkins and the place was Absarokee, Montana

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