I have been wondering who coined the term "the death of distance". My
initial though was that it might have been Gilder, but I'm not sure
whether he got into that topic specifically. After some further
reading and thinking about it the other options were the obvious
Francis Cairncross who entitled her book that, or perhaps Nicholas
Negroponte from Being Digital about 10 years before.

Frances Cairncross is generally credited as the creator of this term.

"Cairncross (1997) coined the phrase 'the death of distance,'
suggesting that distance may no longer be a limiting factor in
people's ability to communicate."

from "Human Factors": The effect of gesture on speech production and comprehension
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go2607/is_200309/ai_n6589748

"The Economist" published Cairncross's article "The Death of Distance" in 1995:

"'The Death of Distance,' The Economist 336, no. 7934 (30 September 1995)"

ClearWriter: Powerful Paragraphs
http://www.clearwriter.org/cleartips/powerfulparagraphs/citations.pdf

"'Death of distance' is a phrase coined by Frances Cairncross in The
Economist magazine and described fully in her book The Death of
Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997)"

Global Telematics: Telecommunications' Big Idea 
http://www.globaltelematics.com/big-idea.htm

"The death of distance is a phrase coined by Frances Cairncross, which
means that any activity which relies on electronic devices for
information or communication handling, can be carried out anywhere in
the world."

University College London:URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE INFORMATION AGE
http://www.aac.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/ve/Work9900/michiel/Urban.htm

Although the exact phrase "the death of distance" may be Cairncross's,
a similar concept was expressed in the early 1970s by Martin
Heidegger:

"It was probably the German philosopher Martin Heidegger who most
clearly anticipated contemporary debates about globalization.
Heidegger not only described the 'abolition of distance' as a
constitutive feature of our contemporary condition, but he linked
recent shifts in spatial experience to no less fundamental alterations
in the temporality of human activity: 'All distances in time and space
are shrinking. Man now reaches overnight, by places, places which
formerly took weeks and months of travel'... Heidegger, Martin (1971),
'The Thing,' in Poetry, Language, Thought (New York: Harper & Row)."

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Globalization
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/globalization/

The phrase "the annihilation of distance" is even older. An excerpt
from Niall Ferguson's "Sinking Globalization":

"Total emigration from Europe between 1880 and 1910 was in excess of
25 million. People spoke euphorically of 'the annihilation of
distance.' Then, between 1914 and 1918, a horrendous war stopped all
of this, sinking globalization."

Global Policy Forum: Sinking Globalization 
http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/econ/2005/03sinking.htm

My Google search strategy:

Google Web Search: "death of distance" coined OR term OR phrase
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22death+of+distance%22+coined+OR+term+OR+phrase

Google Web Search: "abolition OR annihilation of distance"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22abolition+OR+annihilation+of+distance%22

I hope this is helpful. If anything is unclear or incomplete, please
request clarification; I'll be glad to offer further assistance before
you rate my answer.

Best regards,
pinkfreud

Thanks! Found a few other things myself also. But this was good.