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Sunday, February 5, 2006
 

No more telegrams full of bad news... Western Union has ended its telegram message service, which began in 1856 -- competing with the postal service, railroad, pony express and, eventually, e-mail. According to an Associated Press report I'd missed last week:

...the last 10 telegrams included birthday wishes, condolences on the death of a loved one, notification of an emergency, and several people trying to be the last to send a telegram.

Bloomberg News noted a final bit of irony: Western Union's posted the Jan. 27 closing notice on its website, one of the newer technologies that have taken the place of pay-by-the-word telegraph messages. However, the company still does "wire" money.

If you're looking for newer ways to send a message, prepare your bookmark lists for Skype and FON, which are trying to link together a network of wireless (WiFi) hotspots from which people would be able to make Skype Internet telephone calls, among other things.

Meanwhile, AOL and Yahoo are talking about a program that would charge bulk-mailers for a virtual "certified" stamp to let their messages get past spam filters. At least that the best I can make out of this array of stories on the subject.

Footnote: The Victorian Internet in the headline is the title of a book about the telegraph, by Tom Standage.
6:24:08 PM    comment []


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