January 31 - February 6, 2000
from the Up-To-Date dept
Amazon's earnings stuff, lots of questions about privacy violations, more lawsuits (of course), more mergers (of course), more IPOs (of course), more earnings made up mainly of losses (of course). Plus, lots of other fun stuff. It's the latest issue of the Up-To-Date Newsletter. Click "Read More" below for the full newsletter...********************************************************************* UP-TO-DATE ********************************************************************* The not always serious, not always weekly update on the High-Tech Industry January 31 - February 6, 2000 ********************************************************************* Telling folks exactly what they want to hear -------------------------------- Random Notes -------------------------------- Yes, once again here's the boring section that most of you skip over anyway. If you're interested, Techdirt has continued to jump up in traffic over the past couple of weeks. Most recently we were mentioned in Canada's Globe and Mail which, my Canadian friends inform me, is a pretty damn big paper up there. Random traffic jumps have me thinking that we've also been mentioned elsewhere (beyond Geekboys and Inter@ctive Week, which both happened two weeks ago) so if you happened to discover Techdirt recently and it wasn't from one of these sources, feel free to let me know where you came from. Thanks. --------------------- Techdirt on the Web --------------------- Techdirt Poll: Just what is your opinion on internet privacy anyway? Curious, prying, intrusive minds want to know: https://www.techdirt.com/pollBooth.pl?qid=privacy It seems like there are thousands of so-called "expert sites" out there. Do you trust the experts you speak to? https://www.techdirt.com/articles/000203/1227252_F.shtml Have you ever tried to prevent friends from using AOL? https://www.techdirt.com/articles/000202/0223203_F.shtml Are micropayments the next big thing? Seems to be a lot of talk about them (again): https://www.techdirt.com/articles/000202/1235250_F.shtml And, as always, there's plenty more stuff at https://www.techdirt.com/ updated most every weekday. -------------------- Say that again... -------------------- "A few years ago the field was lush. Now there are hundreds of cows scrambling for five blades of grass." - Henry Blodget, Merrill Lynch's internet analsyt, discussing e-commerce companies. And, who could (I might add) be accused of adding to the original hype creating all those damn cows. "In a few years the e will fall out of e-commerce and go back to its role as the fifth letter in the alphabet." - Unidentified business professor at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "Assign a totally different CEO and tell them to go kill this sister company." - Masayoshi Son, CEO of Softbank, on how brick-and-mortar companies should structure their internet subsidiaries. "My only hope is that the millions of dollars that the company spent on that silly and oblique Super Bowl ad will empty the company's coffers and put them out of business." - Janelle Brown, Salon.com columnist on the horrible business model (spam your friends!!) of epidemic.com "Most would have been better off putting their names and Web addresses on for 30 seconds, rather than being cute." - David Stewart, University of Southern California marketing professor discussing the Super Bowl ads ------------------------------------------ Earnings Reports, IPOs and the like ------------------------------------------ Amazon laid off approximately 150 employees this week (not normal for a "growth" company), which was quickly ignored because their earnings came out. While they were losing a hell of a lot more than ever before (and well more than expected), it's based on higher revenues *and* the book selling part was profitable - so all is forgiven. Of course, if you look at the numbers carefully (and only a very few did) you could make the argument that even the book business isn't profitable. Bezos, however, claims they're "turning the corner" and everyone jumps for joy and pushes the stock up because that's what they want to hear... AT&T and Bellsouth are both laying off plenty of folks... Listen.com raises lots o' cash from all the major record labels and Madonna's record label (does she get a seat on the Board?)... Some good IPOs this week: Turnstone and IMPSAT both had nice first day jumps... Expedia not losing as much as expected... Earthweb still losing lots of money, but not as bad as expected... E-Stamp, however, is losing a lot more than expected... Two big e-commerce sites should go out this week. Buy.com and Pets.com's debuts should tell us whether the market is still eager to slurp up B2C e-commerce offerings... ------------------------------------------------ Rumors, Conspiracies etc. of the week... ------------------------------------------------ An interesting report from CNet concerning the odd provision that Time Warner has concerning a takeover. It seems that their execs have their options vest at the point a takeover is announced, rather than closed. This means that many of the top execs are now fully vested and can take off before the deal closes - which in turn, could potentially jeopardize the deal... Well, not much came over the wire in terms of rumors and conspiracies this week, so I'll just have to use this section to congratulate The Register for the best headline I saw this week: "Sad Geezer Auctions Himself on eBay". Valentines Day depression and computers shouldn't be mixed... ---------------------------------------- News you should have read elsewhere ---------------------------------------- Vivendi and Vodaphone make a deal to create a web portal, but only if Vodaphone and Mannesmann merge (if not, then Vivendi will just work with Mannesmann), which means this deal means nothing unless: Oh, that's right, later in the week Mannesmann and Vodaphone announce a happy merger doing away with all that hostile stuff... Bill Gates has assured everyone that they're not looking to do any more mergers following on AOL-Time Warner... Yahoo's Tim Koogle has assured everyone that they're not looking to do any more mergers following on AOL-Time Warner (though lots of folks have approached them)... How about a Yahoo-Microsoft merger to really make people happy?... The Justice Department is looking into eBay's blocking of other sites listing eBay's auctions. (can't you hear the folks over at AuctionWatch throwing a party right about now?)... -------------------------- News you could do without -------------------------- CNet and the Associated Press entered into an agreement whereby AP will distribute about five News.com articles a day... DoubleClick is being sued following last weeks revelation (like this was a big surprise?) that, oh yeah, now that they owned Abacus Direct they could, would (and already do) track individuals as they surf around the web. The lawsuit contends that DoubleClick is doing this without the users' consent... Also this week DoubleClick announced plans to serve lower volume sites than their standard customers. This ought to put pressure on smaller advertising networks (oh, wait, CMGI has already bought all of those guys up)... The consumer edition of Microsoft's latest OS will be called Windows Millenium Edition: shortened to the sickeningly cute Windows ME... Class action lawsuit against AOL for crippling other ISPs with their new AOL 5.0 installer... Also, AOL now has 21 million users, many of whom have happily crippled other ISPs... FCC is all for wireless internet (aren't we all?)... Kodak and HP launch digital film service (I actually think this is pretty interesting - watching Kodak deal with digital photography has always been an interest of mine - now, let's see the execution)... Microsoft has "adopted" a town in Texas to try to convince them to file all their taxes electronically... iCraveTV shut down by lawsuits from just about everyone concerning their "rebroadcasting" of television content (however, apparently an agreement is likely soon)... ------------ Surprises: ------------ Amazon is investing in every company around these days. This week they picked up pieces of Audible, Living.com, and Greg Manning Auctions... The FTC is reviewing some online brokerage ads for suggesting that it's easy to become rich trading online (well, isn't it?)... Go.com more or less admitted that their broad internet portal strategy wasn't working and have decided to focus... They also have been forced to ditch their logo due to the GoTo.com lawsuit (I like the new logo better, but people tell me I have the graphical taste of a blind orangutan)... VA Linux buys Andover.net for around a billion? Wow. That means Techdirt must be worth at least a few dollars to some moron (morons welcome to make offers)... A Virginia winery is suing over a New York law that forbids shipping wines directly to consumers in the state... The estate of P.G. Wodehouse wants a bit of that dot com magic and thus are "discussing" the rights to his character Jeeves, which AskJeeves.com neglected to license... The NSA's computer system was down for 72 hours (how is this possible? And will they start snooping through my computer for mentioning this?)... ------------------------------- (Mis)Uses of Technology: ------------------------------- You can now buy Kmart stock at Kmart's online site (can we make jokes about bluelight specials on their stock?)... Posting porn on an Australian server will get you in trouble, but gambling online in Australia is the next big thing (apparently those two vices don't go together, after all)... A lawsuit is being filed against Sony for putting links on music CDs they sell that drive traffic to the online Sony stores. It seems the retail establishments that sell those CDs in the first place aren't happy that these customers aren't being told to go back to the original point of purchase. Welcome to internet channel conflict... That stupid Pets.com sock puppet selling for many thousands of dollars on Amazon Auctions (note to idiot buyer: it's a *sock puppet*)... ---------- Studies: ---------- According to the California HealthCare Foundation online medical sites are not at all careful about their privacy policies. While many have privacy policies, few follow them, and lots of personal data is not protected... Greenfield Online tells us that about one-half of online shoppers believe the internet is a good place to look for cheap deals (imagine that!)... A study from Jupiter shows that while 45% of online users look up health information many are afraid to buy health care products online... ----------- Overhype ----------- The domain loans.com sells for $3 million (thankfully, not on eBay)... Giving away college scholarships online... Lego-based college admissions tests (no one cares for details any more as long as the headline looks cool)... Ford giving its workers free PCs and cheapo internet access... Delta doing pretty much the same thing... Contentville.com... -------------- Predictions: -------------- South Carolina is now trying to pass some legislation that would find libraries *criminally* negligent for not blocking access to online pornography on library computers. This seems extreme and stupid, and therefore will probably pass... ------------------------ Too much free time: ------------------------ I sense this very web page will cause a new entry on the page itself. This one is for anyone experienced in the wonderfully fun art of "arguing" with a significant other. In the spirit of the dreadfully quickly approaching Valentines Day: http://www.wlv.ac.uk/~in5185/things.html ********************************************************************* Up To Date is written by Mike Masnick from whatever news he hears from whatever sources they happen to come from. It is not intended for any uses other than as one of many possible ways to follow what's going on in the hi-tech industry. I certainly wouldn't rely on it as your only source of info. And, of course, my comments may not accurately reflect reality. Finally, an explicit warning about investing: I do not, under any circumstance, consider any piece of information in this newsletter "investment advice" and neither should you. If you would like to subscribe to the email version please send an email to utd-sub@techdirt.com with "Subscribe Up-To-Date" in the subject heading. Up To Date is also available on the web at https://www.techdirt.com/uptodate/ Unsubscribing is just as easy: unsub@techdirt.com with "Unsubscribe Up-To-Date" in the subject. If you want more in depth, daily up dates, along with your own commentary head over to https://www.techdirt.com/ Comments are always welcome! Email: feedback@techdirt.com *********************************************************************
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
