Home of the Internet™

This has been the claim of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority for years, a sexy marketing slogan that, like many marketing slogans, holds little water under close examination. Most of the advertisements, banner ads, and radio spots do not mention why Fairfax County is the "Home of the Internet", just that it is the home, and then go on to mention other nice, sexy statistics, like the number of IT companies located in the county, the quality of the schools, and the high standard of living. But they do not say why Fairfax County is the internet's home.

The truth is revealed at http://www.fairfaxcountyeda.org/. Fairfax County is the Home of the Internet with more than 50 percent of Internet traffic worldwide passing through northern Virginia every day. Um. Ok. It seems that they said in the ads "Fairfax County, Virginia, Home of the Internet", not "Northern Virginia, Home of the Internet". Oops.

Um, it is "Home of the Internet" because half of the traffic passes through there? And that is all? Nothing about the traffic stopping, being related to any of the business, or anything like that. Important information, for sure, if you are bandwidth whore, this matters, or for server hosting, but otherwise?

I've got a better idea - how about "Fairfax County, Virginia, sprawling suburbia with lots of IT companies".. ok, maybe not. "Silicon... Marshland"? No. Perhaps they should just stick with the sexy slogan.