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ONO sells for $9.5 billion and nobody cares

english.martinvarsavsky.net

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Re: ONO sells for $9.5 billion and nobody cares

#3
If you primarily rely on sources of information in English (of which I'm guilty, too) then obviously you will be mostly getting information from the Anglosphere dominated by the US because it's, oh you know, richest and most powerful country in the history of the world.

This is not some "Americans cover their successes" thing. It's that they matter more. There is an underlying economic reality in which we are lagging far behind them. Not Africa-far but still far.

In a picture http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecac... from http://www.economist.com/node/21559618

Re: ONO sells for $9.5 billion and nobody cares

#4
post #2

That is really true. Facebook buys Instagram for 1B$ and everyone know. Google buys Nest and everyone start to discuss about "Internet of things", but no one cares about ONO.

Facebook, Instagram, Google, and Nest are all well-known in communities focused around Internet technology companies. I suspect that this acquisition is well-known and well-discussed in communities focused around telecommunication companies.

Re: ONO sells for $9.5 billion and nobody cares

#6
A couple of weeks ago Actavis bought Forest Labs for $25b. A few days earlier Comcast bought Time Warner Cable for $42.5b. And before that Beam offered $16b for Suntory.

Huge deals that affect entire markets (and industries) happen all the time, but unless you follow that specific market you don't get to hear about them. The fact is ONO is a mobile operator in a small local market (from a global industry reference frame), and wholly outside of the tech-news-but-really-only-"startups"-and-only-SaaS-startups-at-that microscope that most of the tech press spend time looking through.

Re: ONO sells for $9.5 billion and nobody cares

#7
post #2

That is really true. Facebook buys Instagram for 1B$ and everyone know. Google buys Nest and everyone start to discuss about "Internet of things", but no one cares about ONO.

Facebook's purchase of Instagram was big news because a lot of people thought of Instagram as an app that lets people post cheesy filtered selfies, and it seemed surprising that that was worth a billion dollars. Google buying Nest has a somewhat similar hook, in the sense that you can tell a story around "WTF is this company doing and why do Google think it's worth so much." Vodafone buying ONO is one telecommunications company buying another telecommunications company; it's not obvious why it would be interesting to anyone outside of the telecommunications industry.

Re: ONO sells for $9.5 billion and nobody cares

#8

If you primarily rely on sources of information in English (of which I'm guilty, too) then obviously you will be mostly getting information from the Anglosphere dominated by the US because it's, oh you know, richest and most powerful country in the history of the world. This is not some "Americans cover their successes" thing. It's that they matter more. There is an underlying economic reality in which we are lagging…

This effect even gets reinforced by the European journalists: a German speaking journalist will read German and English sources. A Spanish journalist will read Spanish and English sources, etc. Having the "lingua franca" is a huge asset for the Anglosphere. It not only affects the flow of news, it also leads to cultural dominance (everyone watches Hollywood movies, but European movies are primarily shown in their home countries, same goes for music). I would say that average Jean in many European countries knows more about the Anglosaxon legal system than their own one - just because they get exposed to TV shows about US lawyers all the time. The French try to fight that influence - but I think resistance is futile. Instead, the Europeans should try to find angles to inject their own views into the English news & culture stream. This leads to one large globalized, multi-cultural soup of values - but that's better than an Anglosaxon dominated soup of values. The times where each country could have their own soup are over.

Re: ONO sells for $9.5 billion and nobody cares

#10

If you primarily rely on sources of information in English (of which I'm guilty, too) then obviously you will be mostly getting information from the Anglosphere dominated by the US because it's, oh you know, richest and most powerful country in the history of the world. This is not some "Americans cover their successes" thing. It's that they matter more. There is an underlying economic reality in which we are lagging…

" richest and most powerful country in the history of the world..."

not even close

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pre-modern_great_powers

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