While reading yesterday€™s business section of the New York Times, I had the feeling I had somehow picked up a newspaper from 10 years ago. High Tech Isn€™t Just for the Big Guys was the headline in an article about small business.

According to research The Kelsey Group conducted last June, 78 percent of small business advertisers have Web access. Over 50 percent of SMEs have broadband and a Web site. With headlines like the one above, it is no wonder that newspapers are losing their readership.

Not only is the Times€™ story not news today, it wasn€™t even particularly news in 1988. That summer our family spent some time in Paris. One night we had dinner with a friend who owned a patisserie. Over dinner our friend told us how important his Minitel was to him. Minitel was introduced in 1983 by France Telecom as a way to save money on telephone directories. But it quickly became more than an online White and Yellow Pages as people discovered the benefits of e-mailing and shopping online.