A Question and a Note

A weekly collection of thought-provoking articles on tech, innovation, and long-term investing from Nightview Capital’s Eric Markowitz.

There has been much talk about facebook and twitter revolutions in the Middle East, but given the internet’s rather low infiltration rate in Yemen – I think roughly 200,000 lines* – this begs a question: can you have a revolution without the internet?

There is, as I said yesterday, still much to be decided in Yemen and I don’t think anyone knows, which way it will go at this point. But at some time in the next few weeks there will, I think, be a “big event,” one in which the protests either pass the point of no return or fade away. This hasn’t happened yet in Yemen. But one way or another – either for Salih or against him – it is coming. What the event is and which way it will go, will probably only be discernible in retrospect. But as I keep saying the next several weeks are critical

*Note: the 200,000 lines can be a bit misleading in determining how many people in Yemen actually have access to the internet, thanks to internet cafes and line sharing.