Date:    Mon, 23 Feb 1998 16:54:52 EST
<br>From:    "Barry A. Popik"  Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM 
<br>Subject: L. A., the Digital Coast?
<br>
<br>     This is from the New York Times, 23 February 1998, pg. D4, cols. 3-6:
<br>
<br>In the Shadow of Silicon Valley, "Digital Coast" Emerges
<br>(highlighted box)  Los Angeles has been a city in search of a cybermoniker
<br>By Amy Harmon
<br>     LOS ANGELES--No true booster of Silicon Valley or its New York wannabe,
<br>Silicon Alley, would dispute the benefits of a catchy moniker for raising a
<br>region's high-technology profile and attracting coveted talent and venture
<br>capital.
<br>     But Los Angeles Mayor Richard J. Riordan's announcement last week that
<br>this city would henceforth be known as "Digital Coast" elicited little more
<br>than snickers and derision from its geographic rivals.
<br>     "Already people are talking about 'Digital Toast,'" sniffed Mark Stahlman
<br>(His nose sniffs in perfect English?--ed.), a co-founder of the New York New
<br>Media Association and the man who coined the derivative Silicon Alley label to
<br>describe the cluster of Internet companies in lower Manhattan.
<br>     A spokesman for Joint Venture Silicon Valley, an economic development
<br>group in San Jose, Calif., was more magnanimous, noting, "At least they stayed
<br>away from 'silicon,' since there is only one Silicon Valley, and everyone has
<br>already tried to do a takeoff."
<br>     (...)  If this self-baptism seems a bit forced, it is far from the first
<br>time a locale has draped itself in techn-chic associations.  One Web site
<br>(http://www.tbtf.com/siliconia.html) lists 45 instances of "siliconia"
<br>associated with 55 locations, including North Carolina's Silicon Triangle, the
<br>Silicon Fen in Cambridge, England, and even the Silicon Swamp of Perry, Fla.,
<br>on the Gulf of Mexico.
<br>     (...)  So far, the original Valley has far outstripped its rivals.  But
<br>Los Angeles reasons that as bandwidth expands and on-line entertainment
<br>becomes more feasible, it will come into its own--though only time will tell
<br>whether its bid to become "the new-media capital of the world" is simply
<br>California dreaming.
<br>     "Multimedia is our ticket for success into the next century," Mayor
<br>Riordan said at the ceremony last Wednesday as slides of the Southern
<br>California coast at sunset, night and midday flashed on a screen behind him.
<br>"The future is in our hands, and we're going to win."
<br>
<br>     This is a very familiar naming scenario.  Sometimes it works and
<br>sometimes it doesn't.
<br>      I object to the name "digital," though.  Digital is a company's name.
<br>(Have they merged with Compaq computers?)  Also, it sounds like "Gidget-al
<br>Coast."  And, in the movie BOOGIE NIGHTS, one reviewer mentioned the main
<br>character's "digit."
<br>      On the obvious level, though, doesn't "Digital Coast" mean that the
<br>place is filled with "ones" and "zeros"?
<br>