Distance : Death or Tyranny

I went to a conference "The Internet's gold age is over ?" last night hosted by the Economist and RSA. One speaker, Danny Meadows-Klue, in his overly marketised speach was referring to tyranny of distance, at least a dozne times (whether he knows it or not, sentence comes from George Blainey's 1966 book on Australian history).

The issue the conference didn't raise was whether the internet has contributed to the death of distance or whether it circumvates its tyranny.