This last decade was regaled with the tools that revolutionised telecoms over a matter of a few years.
The telecoms fever largely led to the most important developments of this last decade. Even the international sensation that dominated the start of the new millennium was caused by a technological concern. The millennium bug, a computer programming problem that on 1 January 2000 could have faulted cash points, security systems and computer networks was the talk of town in every corner of the civilized world, and Malta was no exception.
By the year 2000, Malta had been well geared up and eager to ride the technological tsunami that was about to hit every developed economy. By March 2000, mobile phone subscriptions in Malta numbered almost 45,000 – compared to 15,000 in 1997. Nowadays, the number stands at 418,341 – exceeding the total population.
67% of households and all enterprises employing 10 people or more are now connected to the internet – a rate that was unheard of at the start of the millennium. And yet, in the early noughties, the industry had already started capitalising on the power of the internet to implement highly effective and low-cost marketing strategies – giving birth to intranet and internet connections; internet cafes; corporate websites and the dreaded email spamming trend that jammed mailboxes.
The introduction of the Data Protection Act in 2001 and the development of junk filtering software have certainly curbed abuse in telecommunications, but they have in no way impeded commercial entities to legitimately exploit the full business potential of internet communication. Social network sites such as Facebook have in fact saved thousands of euros for many businesses who sought to advertise products, services or commercial events effectively and at low cost.
In stark contrast with our traditional civil service, government has been successful in running one of Europe’s most effective e-Government setups, with most public services being available online.
Although lagging behind when compared to other European countries, Maltese media companies have also recognised the internet as one of the most effective means of communication. The birth of news portal di-ve.com, which was one of Malta’s most viewed websites at one point, triggered other newsrooms to take full advantage of the web’s ease to inform by use of audio, video and literature quickly, simply and cost-effectively.
The youtube.com phenomenon has also been instrumental for both individuals and newsrooms to upload footage that may be accessed instantly by whomever around the world. A typical example of Youtube’s effect was a video clip uploaded by MaltaToday Midweek in 2007, where thousands of viewers could stream raw footage complimenting a news story written about a police officer assaulting an old lady in St Julian’s.
On the telephony front, dwindling landline subscriptions have been inversely proportional with the success of mobile telephony over the last decade – with smart phones now signalling a new era for telecommunications.
In the light of such technological advancement, political parties have also fully exploited the internet’s potential in their campaigns leading to the 2008 general elections. Described as Malta’s first ‘dotcom elections’, political campaigns in the first months of last year were dominated by revamped party websites, candidates’ personal web pages, delirium on blogs, Facebook canvassing, youtube uploads and mass email shots.
For a generation that required a license for a home computer in the 1980s; that was not allowed to present computer-typed assignments at school; and whose flirting with information technology was seen by parents as “playing with the computer” – the quantum leap made by telecommunications industry over the last years is not less than impressive.
Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below. Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.
Search:
MALTATODAY
BUSINESSTODAY
Download MaltaToday Sunday issue front page in pdf file format
