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Contest
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One week left (probably) in the contest to come up with the most creative
solution on what to do with Microsoft. Some good entries so far (some
were even serious!). Entering (by sending your suggestion to ms@techdirt.com)
represents your agreement that I can use your name, and (possibly edited)
response in a future issue.
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Say that again...
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"MSN gives consumers the ability to do multiple, everyday tasks from
one location -- manage their finances, book travel, find a restaurant and
then make a reservation, purchase books, CDs or cars, and keep in touch
with friends and family."
- Dennis Tevlin, MSN marketing General Manager, on the summary of MSN's
new multimillion dollar ad campaign. Hey, Dennis, the web does all
that already. What have you added?
"The real danger for Oracle is they've got this hammer. It's the
biggest one, and they're seeing the whole world like a nail and suddenly
everyone wants a screwdriver."
- Mike Gilpin, analyst for Giga Information Group, on the appearance
and disappearance of Oracle App Server, in favor of Oracle 8i.
"When users don't see themselves as having privacy, they'll just lie
and give totally false data, so a lot of the data that marketers get today
is useless."
- Ian Goldberg, chief scientist at Zero Knowledge, a company that appears
to have created software that makes it easier to give false data.
"The deal means that Lycos shareholders will go from owning 100% of
a company with $75 million in revenue to owning 30% of a company with $1.5
billion in 1998 sales. Which is better? If this were a 4th-grade
math problem, the right answer would be that having a smaller piece of
a much bigger pie is clearly superior."
- Saul Hansell, industry analyst
"My guess is that [Net stocks] will continue to pull back for a while.
But maybe not."
- Henry "Amazon going to $400" Blodget, stock analyst for Oppenheimer
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Earnings Reports, IPOs and the like
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Marimba really really (no, really) is going to IPO (finally), though
it doesn't look like they filed yet... MarketWatch is gaining a lot more
traffic and that translates to *bigger* losses (gotta throw away a ton
of money to make money!)... CBS increases its stake in SportsLine... Onsale
still losing money, at the expected rate... Prodigy, Healtheon, and VerticalNet,
all went public on the same day, and all did well. Let's see where
they are a few months from now... The largest shareholder in AOL is Fidelity...
MCI Worldcom beats estimates by a bit... Network Solutions secondary offer
falls flat (or lower, actually)... CNet absolutely destroys earnings estimates
and announces a stock split...
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Rumors, Conspiracies etc. of the week...
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DoubleClick and NetGravity?... Adobe looking to buy out Corel, though
everyone denies it with a little too much energy... There was another good
rumor that was supposed to be in the space, but the provider of the info
got cold feet at the last minute. While I enjoy getting tidbits from
you all, please don't jeopardize your jobs by doing so. You certainly
can't sue me for damages afterward...
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News you should have read elsewhere
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Lycos and USA Networks, and the fact that just about *everyone* hates
it (I mean, really really hates it). Hell, even CMGI is having "seller's
remorse" and threatening the whole deal (what next, putting pieces of Lycos
up for sale on the Home Shopping Network? Beats eBay)... As Lycos
sorts out that whole mess, the SEC is taking a look at their accounting
practices over recent acquisitions of theirs... British Telecom and Microsoft
in a deal to develop wireless Internet and data services... In the meantime,
Cisco and Motorola made a deal to work together in wireless deal worth
$1 billion...
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News you could do without
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Disney and AOL invest in Oxygen Media in an attempt to make Candice
Carpenter quiet down (just once) about how great iVillage is, despite losing
over $60 million... Not to be left out, Microsoft announced their WomenCentral
site as part of MSN. Of course, much of it is OEMed (verbing acronyms)
by Women.com... Lycos adds online calendaring (from Anyday.com)... Amazon.com
gets in trouble for taking publishers' money for preferred placement (which,
of course, happens in every bookstore you ever go into)... Grateful Dead
releasing MP3s (this *just* happened now?)... IBM tries a different downloadable
music scheme (been there, done that)... CNet shells out lots of cash to
provide content to AOL (if CNet, wants to pay me millions, I'll let them
put content here as well)... AOL also made a deal with Columbia House so
now two of the most annoying direct marketers in the world are working
together (I know, we can all feel the excitement)... Oh wait, now Delta
*is* giving special fares if you buy online (first they announce it, then
they take it back, now they announce it again)... Spinner.com to add international
music, as it receives a ton of financing... Excite finally adds movie info...
E*Trade customers file a class action lawsuit for the week o' crashes...
AT&T Worldnet up to 1.5 million subscribers, and is still experiencing
growth pains... Network Solutions registers 621,000 new domains in the
fourth quarter of 1998 (but how many people actually paid for those?)...
Cendant decides to sell of RentNet, Bookstacks, and Match.com (what, no
NetMarket?)... More "trademarked search terms" lawsuits, this time courtesy
of Playboy... Yahoo! will "expedite" your listing in their directory for
a small fee (is this a sign of bad things to come?)... Hallmark accidentally
reveals the private info (and messages) of folks sending electronic greeting
cards (though they patched the bug in under 5 minutes, once informed)...
Slate discovers that subscription fees just weren't cutting it, and finally
returns to being free (um... okay, "we told you so!!! Nyah nyah nyah!")...
CMP, who has promised to stay independent (sounds like Lycos), has hired
on Lazard Freres to explore selling themselves... Nintendo 64 emulator
code thought to be released (turns out it's just a messy reverse engineering
job) as Nintendo decides to sue... Microsoft overwhelmed by requests for
free copies of Office 2000 in exchange for answering a lengthy survey...
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Surprises:
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Kodak is actually going to try Picture CD again... Yahoo! to get into
web hosting through its Viaweb backend (what strikes me as odd about this
is that it's a half-assed solution, which is something that Yahoo! usually
is not known for)... VCs invest in NetZero, giving yet another go at the
free ISP deal (despite what successes Dixons has with Freeserve across
the Atlantic, they certainly have been a dismal failure here)... British
Telecom has selected Inktomi for its searches (apparently, BT doesn't want
its customers to find anything useful)... EDS and MCIWorldcom exchange
employees and services... Dell makes $7 million in one sale to Norwest...
The owner of eFlowers.com sells the domain to Flowers Direct for $50,000,
free flowers sent to his wife each month for life, and $0.50 per transaction
done on the new site... Thomas Kurlak, who many considered the expert on
Intel's stock, despite some recent miscalls, leaves Merrill Lynch after
20 years to go to Tiger Management... When Infonet hired some expensive
design firm to create their ISP a nice web page, they were impressed with
how it looked, but not how it worked. There were lots of broken links
and such. Something just didn't seem right. Turns out the many
thousands of dollars they spent went into simply a copy of http://www.ibm.net/
. Infonet has since taken down their site, but the front page is
preserved here: https://www.techdirt.com/uptodate/infonet.jpg
for your view pleasure...
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(Mis)Uses of Technology:
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SmartFrog giving out rebates if you buy at any of its partner sites
(including Amazon.com, eToys, and Beyond.com)... Alexa Internet's system
of showing ads of competitors when you visit a particular site (lawsuit,
anyone?)... Refrigerators connected to the Internet...
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Studies:
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CBS News has revealed that web users are still younger and richer than
the average population. They also found that among those not hooked
in to the Internet, most see no reason to go online... The SEC believes
that corporate America is lying about how ready it is for Y2K... Over half
of people online are from the US according to the Computer Industry Almanac...
The Internet Advertising Bureau says that online ad sales in the first
nine months of 1998 hit $1.3 billion... The latest numbers from Dataquest
show that over one half of US homes have a PC... Oh really? NFO Interactive
actually did a study to prove that online investors are more active...
Small ISPs will have a difficult fight against the big folks, says Analysis
(it's a research firm, apparently)... ZD's ComputerShopper does a study
that shows that nearly 20% of PCs are now bought over the web, directly
from the manufacturer's web page...
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Overhype
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Free-PCs, Free iMacs, super cheap-o 19" monitors due to a buy.com screw-up.
Let's face it, none of these are what they were cracked up to be.
Signing up for the Free-PC permanently grants you a spot in the "gullible
suckers" department. Signing up for a "free" iMac puts you in the
"shoulda read the fine print" department. And, finally, complaining
about the fact that you are *not* going to get a kick-ass monitor for $165
puts you in the "shut up and get a life" department. And yet no one
seemed to notice the following typo at ClubComputer where they were giving
away free Dell Inspirons, even to non-members: https://www.techdirt.com/uptodate/freecomp.jpg
(If you see me selling Inspirons on eBay, now you know why)...
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Predictions:
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The Linux-ifying of everything: http://www.mpx.com.au/~gths/penguindance
(sorry Graham, though it certainly won't generate as much interest as every
time Slashdot links to one of your creations)... PeopleSoft says the ERP
era is ending (and let's just watch as all the ERP vendors try to redefine
themselves into Internet companies)...
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Too much free time:
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Who says nothing useful is posted to the web anymore: http://hcs.harvard.edu/~igp/glass.html
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