Stories by: Johna Till Johnson

I've seen the future of the Internet, and it's recursive -- in more ways than one.

Forget the Super Bowl. Ignore the presidential primaries. For network geeks, the really big news recently was the cable outages in the Mediterranean, which disrupted Internet connections to Europe and the Middle East. The outages have raised a host of questions about the vulnerability of the Internet and the action plans enterprises should have in place to protect themselves from the consequences. Here are some frequently asked questions -- and the answers.

Radiohead recently rocked the music industry by making its latest album downloadable for free, or more accurately, for "whatever fans wanted to pay." The band was lauded for ushering in a new business model that disintermediated record companies and created a closer, more authentic bond between artists and fans.

You've got to admit that when it comes to public relations, Google totally rocks. The company's goofy name has become the generic term for "search the Web" -- a branding coup your average Madison Avenue marketing wizard would kill his grandmother for. And the company's motto ("Don't be evil") and ostentatious eco-friendliness successfully promote the image of a wacky company that just wants to be your best buddy.

Unless you've pulled a Rip Van Winkle under the router racks, you've probably noticed that "virtualization" is one of the biggest buzzwords around these days. Seems like everything's gone virtual: servers, storage, security, communications, the workforce (not to mention reality).

It's official: The carriers are not making money operating Internet backbones.

There's a geek version of the question, "What is the meaning of life?" It's this: "Why do some technologies take off while others fail?"