When Newspapers Began to Slit Their Throats, and the Difference Between Product Placement and Whoring.

When they began to put them online.

The clip didn't say, but the service was probably the Compuserve Information Service, as they were located in Columbus, OH. The newspapers were probably happy to do that, as Compuserve often kicked back ten percent of the connection fees generated by some services. Some of the owners of large-traffic discussion forums made a shitload of money in the late `80s and early-mid `90s, when Compuserve's consumer-grade users paid an hourly connection fee. By the time the Web came along, getting the news for free was ingrained, with predictable results.

On another topic, I've been watching some episodes of the new version of Hawaii Five-0 (cable on-demand, functionally monitored by the NSA/FBI, no doubt). They take product placement overboard.

Product placement, as you likely know, is when a show highlights the use of certain products. This goes at least as far back as the `60s FBI series, where the use of Fords was so prominent in the show that that when Mad Magazine satirized it, they had the FBI logo reading "Ford Better Idea".

Five-0's big product placement is Microsoft's Windows 8 and other Microsoft products. Each show features an extended look at the tile-screen for Win 8, the shots are long enough to qualify as computer porn. Which is pretty icky, as anyone who would be that aroused by Windows 8 belongs in a rubber room at the bottom of a disused coal mine.

The shots (and the references to Windows products by the actors) are beyond product placement. It's whoring. Bill Gates can at least buy dinner for Steve McGarrett.