"The Internet may not be doing so great on Wall Street, but it's doing great on Main Street. As far as the people who are online, they're using it more and valuing it more."

For consumers, that may be a good thing. But for media companies looking to the Internet for profits, it remains a frustrating reality. The "digital revolution" that many traditional media executives were convinced would topple them or make them rich has not materialized.

In part, that is because the Internet has turned out to be more of a souped-up telephone than a delivery vehicle for media and entertainment.

The most far-reaching impact lies in the rhythms and habits formed by daily use of the Web's interactive features.

"This is an audience that wants to make their own schedules."

"The move from passive to a more active paradigm in consumer behavior is where the new media has had the greatest impact.

WorldCom, plagued by the rapid erosion of its profits and an accounting scandal that created billions in illusory earnings, last night submitted the largest bankruptcy filing in United States history.

The bankruptcy is expected to shake an already wobbling telecommunications industry, but is unlikely to have an immediate impact on customers, including the 20 million users of its MCI long-distance service.

The telecoms industry is in a mess. What went wrong, and how can it be fixed?

The dotcom crash was merely the warm-up. The telecoms crash is many times bigger. FCC chairman Michael Powell surprised nobody when he declared this week that the industry is facing "utter crisis". The situation is being likened to the Dark Ages.

Andrew Odlyzko, Warren Buffett, Bob Metcalfe, ...

The industry's hangover has two components: overcapacity and debt.

The bigger question is what will happen to America's struggling backbone operators.

The mobile industry faces the same challenge.

"Six Feet Under," the darkly comic series on HBO about a troubled family running a funeral business, earned a leading 23 Emmy nominations today, a signal once again of the creative strength of cable over the networks.

Alan Ball, on SFU: "Nobody ever suggested bringing people from a mall to get their opinion of the show."

The HBO drama mini-series, "Band of Brothers," about soldiers in World War II, earned 13 nominations. HBO's off-center series "Curb Your Enthusiasm," created by Larry David, received a nomination for best comedy series.

As networks struggle to retain viewers, the Emmys reflect the shifting tastes of audiences. HBO collected the most nominations, 93.

To the Editor:

Terrorists and torturers read the scientific literature in order to learn new ways of inflicting pain and avoiding prosecution. The scientists who created polio virus in their laboratory and published the results (front page, July 12) have played into the hands of state-sponsored perpetrators who have the intention of developing instruments of mass destruction.

The United States and the international community need a system of governance and public debate to monitor, curtail and punish those scientists who engage in this type of reckless behavior.

Mitchel Resnick, of the MIT Media Lab: "Access is not enough. Access is just a starting point."

"It's not about playing games, but about making your own games. It's not about surfing the Web, but it's about making your own Web pages. It's not just about downloading MP3 music files, but doing your own music composition."

"We want to see young people literally taking their own ideas and creating."

One of the biggest draws is the digital studio, a glass-enclosed back room equipped with a synthesizer, microphones and a CD-burning computer loaded with software to create and edit music. During recording sessions, the glass trembles with booming bass notes and synthesized percussion.

At first, anyone could drop in and use the studio, "but so many people were going back there that it got to the point where we had to put in some limits."

The HBO show "Sex and the City," the cable network's most popular comedy series, returns to the air tomorrow. The show has been described as raunchy and frank, but the truth is, "Sex and the City" is worth watching for anything but the sex.

Of the accomplishments that Jeff Bewkes brings to his new senior management duties at AOL Time Warner, none matter more than the results he produced at HBO, both in terms of profits and such intangibles as prestige, cultural influence and public awareness.

Unlike most other networks, HBO owns the creative rights to its shows.

In the fall, "The Simpsons" will begin its 14th season, and there has never been more merchandising to commemorate the family's animated antics.

CD collections of musical ditties from the series, VHS and DVD collections of past episodes, production cels ($500 each), and "The World of Springfield" interactive action figures and play sets.

"I hope you're not taking a car with a stick shift on vacation." ... "No, It's a new M3 convertible, and there's no clutch."

Technically, I was fibbing. The M3 SMG has a manual transmission and a clutch, although there is no clutch pedal.

This highly sophisticated gearbox should not be confused with the many variations on the Tiptronic theme.

No, BMW's SMG (for sequential manual gearbox) is similar to the Magneti Marelli system used in Ferraris, Maseratis and the Aston Martin Vanquish. But BMW's version has a twist: a Drivelogic button below the shifter lets you select how quick you want the shifts to be, from leisurely to rocket racer (as fast as eight one-hundredths of a second).

At first I found myself missing the clutch pedal, but after rolling up some miles and experimenting with the six available shift programs, I became a convert.