Keeping it all together.


If the main topic of this month's column is the quest for a tool that aggregates all of our online activities, that perhaps creates an ongoing portfolio of our web-based lives, then perhaps it's fitting that its date tie-in did much the same thing - over 75 years ago. It was on this day, in 1930, that the 3M company began marketing Scotch Tape.

I'll readily admit that there's something more than a bit forced in finding a connection between a material that holds a number of tangible items together (and if we're dealing with paper, staples can, and do, perform that job quite well, but I don't have a starting date for them) and my quest for an online tool that gives me access to all my online activities, but perhaps the inventors of scotch tape had a vision that's actually being realized today in the digital world.

Numerous histories of Scotch tape are available on the web. One that's not particularly scientific, but that pleasantly highlights some of the cultural aspects of the invention and traces its place in popular culture was posted by the 3m company itself.



Go to: One tool to rule them all?