The unflattened world

Over at LunchoverIP, Bruno Giussani cites John Casti on the subject of the end of globalisation. "The idea of "globalization" in which the world is seen as one gigantic marketplace is simply a passing phenomenon, which began around 1974 and is now moving offstage."

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the digital space that is still mis-described as "media" - the social networks that for all the hype have still yet to produce a genuinely cross-regional or cross-linguistic hit. MySpace for the US, Bebo (and increasingly Piczo) for the UK, Canada and Ireland,  Friendster for Singapore, SkyBlogs for France, CyWorld for South Korea, Orkut for Brazil. As people - especially young people, the digital natives - move from consuming news about world or national events to consuming news about the 150 people (Yelvington) that make up their immediate social circle, how can the world fail to be unflattened?