The main gauge of change in information delivery is the boom in sales of modems, which are expected to grow at an average rate of 17.2% worldwide (22.4% in Europe alone) between 1994 and 1998, and the expanding reach of the Internet and such commercial operators as CompuServe. “Sales of CD-ROM drives are doubling and tripling this year,” says Deborah Monas, an analyst at London’s Kagan World Media.
The New York Times, December 1995:
At present, the market for enhanced disks is limited by the relatively small proportion of households with computers equipped with CD-ROMs, said Deborah Monas, an analyst with Kagan World Media. In Britain, for instance, only 7 percent of homes have CD-ROMs, about the same percentage as in Germany. In other European countries, the figures are lower. It will be another five years before there is a widespread market for enhanced CDs, Ms. Monas said.
Deborah Monas, former analyst at Kagan World Media, is my mom. She’s a sixth grade physics teacher now, a job she completely enjoys, and I’m writing this while she grades her students’ work across from me on her kitchen table. Between us is my iPad, a paper-sized device that stores many, many CD-ROMs worth of information. Right now, there are three of us in the house, we have seven Internet-connected devices switched on, and the world of CD-ROMs and modems seems like a long time ago.
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