Seeing in the dot.com decade
Updated on 17 March 2008
Benjamin Cohen goes back to his dot.com roots in a More4 News series marking 10 years since the dot.com boom.
Benjamin Cohen, technology correspondent at Channel 4 News is to front a season of special reports on More4 News, celebrating 10 years since the dot.com boom that for a short while made him (on paper) one of the richest teenagers in Britain.
In "Dot.com Decade," a week of special programming, Benjamin will look back at his own role in the 1990s dot.com boom as well as how the growth of the internet has impacted on society.
Watch the dot.com decade
Prior to joining Channel 4 News, Benjamin was an internet entrepreneur, founding JewishNet/soJewish whilst at school. Before sitting his a-levels, Cohen's company had received the backing of a major investment bank together with funding to merge the company with the offline publication The Jewish News.
The combined entity then reversed onto the London Stock Exchange Alternative Investment Market, making Cohen, for a day, the youngest ever director of a public company.
He later completed an overnight, oversubscribed institutional fund-raising for CyberBritain, a search and data marketing company.
Hit by the dot.com bust, he read religion, philosophy and ethics at King's College, London, later writing a column on e-commerce for the TimesOnline and editing PinkNews.co.uk.
1998
Cohen will look back at the events that led to the dot.com boom and how life in Britain has never been the same again.
Delving into the archives, he will look back at his own role within the dot.com boom and subsequent bust. The report will also include contributions from web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman and Professor Ian Angell of the London School of Economics.
1998 will be broadcast on 25 March 2008.
Gaydar
The gay community provides a striking example of how the internet has fundamentally changed society.
Cohen, founding editor of PinkNews.co.uk, explores how Gaydar and similar websites have revolutionised what it means to be gay in 2008's Britain.
From whether the growth of Gaydar has seen a shrinking of the gay scene to the social impact of "hooking up online" both in terms of the potential for the commoditisation of sexual relationships and an increase in sexually transmitted diseases.
The film will hear from former Gaydar user and Labour MP, Chris Bryant, Gaydar director David Muniz and the playwright Matthew Todd.
Gaydar will be broadcast 26th March 2008.
Ownership and Control
This programme will compare the development of the internet to the division of land into enclosed, private areas, controlled by the few to control the masses.
Analysing the future of the internet, Cohen is again joined by web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman and Professor Ian Angell of the London School of Economics.
Ownership and Control will be broadcast 27 March 2008.
