3 THE SHORT MARCH I first went to work in China in the late 1990s. I was still there at the turn of the millennium when I was much taken by a very curious statistic, which makes for one of the more recondite crossover charts in history. It was the time when the number of internet users in China surpassed for the first time the number of troglodytes, or cave dwellers. The latter were (and are) surprisingly numerous, around 30 million, but after 2001 the surging number of Chinese netizens soon left them behind. CAVE DWELLERS VS INTERNET USERS At the turn of the millennium in China, online citizens began to outnumber those who inhabit caves for the first time – now that’s progress. Internet usage has increased dramatically since. This very Short March in China is a neat symbol for the force with which the Digital Revolution captured the world. It would be tiresome to repeat the statistics. But from the point of view of advertising, there will also be a critical crossover – the point when digital spending exceeds non-digital. It’s coming soon. Fragmentation