spiked is hosting a live debate in central London on 8 July about whether we’re heading for an ‘internet crunch’. It’s a free debate, but to secure a place book your ticket NOW! With the proliferation of YouTube video content and the popularity of BBC iPlayer, is the internet in danger of overloading? Recent research by Comm Corp says that four-fifths of British internet users are now watching video via the web. Each user watched an average of six hours of online content in February 2008 – that is a total of three billion clips, half of which were on YouTube. At the same time, BBC 1 is planning to air its content on iPlayer in real time, and soon a new joint venture between Channel 4, ITV and BBC Worldwide – known as ‘Kangaroo’ – will make TV content available online. These issues and more will be interrogated at the debate ‘Traffic jam: are we heading for an internet crunch?’ at the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in London at 7pm on 8 July. The debate will bring together representatives from ISPs, policymakers, academics, journalists and the interested public to discuss the future of the world wide web.

SPEAKERS
> David Crow, media and tech correspondent for City AM and writer for the Spectator
> Christopher Marsden, lecturer in law and specialist on telecommunications, University of Essex
> Rob Killick, CEO of digital agency cScape
Other speakers TBC

_CHAIR _
> Mick Hume – columnist, The Times