The keywords’ brilliant career started with the advent of the HTML standard. First they helped in arranging the global storage of information, but soon their e-marketing potential was discovered. Now they act as a propeller of the great marketing machine of the internet business: the SEM and SEO activities have been of key interest of specialised agencies for some years now. Keywords are valuable and this value is perfectly measurable. They’ve become a sellable product. But according to what rules? The models are varied, but the general principle remains simple: popular words are more expensive than the less common ones. At first sight, this widely accepted model may seem a correct and obvious choice. Or is it?

Many claim that it all started in spring 2008 with the rumours of a deteriorating condition of the Bear Stearns, one of American investment giants. The hearsay quickly turn out to be nothing but the truth – the bank’s current liquidity was badly harmed, its shares tumbled down, the Federal Reserve didn’t come to the rescue, and the nearly-bankrupt titan was finally taken over by the JP Morgan Chase holding for a symbolic dollar. The fall down of Bear Stearns is of course just one of the many events that are now collectively seen as the emblematic onset of the credit crunch. There is hardly anything about the crisis that hasn’t been said. Yet … It turns out that there still are many interesting issues laid bare by the economic domino effect.

As a follow-up to the last week’s topic, let me tell you a short tale of two American operating systems and their adventures in Europe. This will be a tale with a moral. An account of sweet success and bitter failure, and above all – a story about computer users and consumption choices they make. A story of the present-day IT market, where the monarchy is being deposed by democracy.

When enquired in an interview about the true nature of the operating system, Linus Benedict Torvalds, the father of the Linux nucleus, replied slyly that this is a large and advanced programme that nobody uses. This seemingly absurd statement becomes a perfectly prudent one when you think about the role that every OS is supposed to play. It is a role of a silent overseer, supervising the work of other programmes without interfering with the computer user’s business (that is, of course, within the rules in place). We all know too well this model is now practically obsolete. The creators of today’s operating systems decide not only about the way the information is processed on our computers, but also what applications we should be using. At least in theory. But let’s take a closer look at the facts.