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Back with a new batch
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Back after my holiday vacation. Only somewhat amazed at the number
of you who asked if I would ever write another issue. Do these come
out that fatigued? I told you that nothing happened at the end of
December, and I was going to spend my time ignoring anything having to
do with the high tech world and I did (yeah, sure). Special thanks
to Danny and crew over at ntk.net for making sure that everyone who didn't
subscribe to Up-To-Date in April did so on Christmas day. The list
is taking on so many subscribers from the British Isles, I might just have
to start reviewing BBC program(mes). I expect the mail bomb from
Danny to arrive shortly. On a more technical note, the influx of
subscribers has me questioning my current system of managing the mailing
list. Anyone with knowledge/suggestions on mailing list management
systems should feel free to contact me. Thanks. No matter what,
welcome to the large number of new subscribers, and a big *phbbbbbbbt*
to anyone who participated in the attempted hi-jacking of the Up-To-Date
mailing list. Okay. On with ranting buzzwords (screw the explanations)...
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Say that again...
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"There are very few people who are thinking of Dilbert and thinking,
'Let's get it on.'"
- Scott Adams, Dilbert creator, explaining why they chose against creating
Dilbert lingerie. This suggests, of course, that Dilbert inspires
heart burn, as we anxiously await the Dilburito (no joke).
"People are willing to serve up a lot of marketing information about
who they are and where they live because if we don't know that, we can't
send them their prizes."
- Mark Herman, Director of Sales and Marketing at NineCo. I feel
like I should comment, but the comment speaks volumes by itself.
"The Pope and our company share many of the same interests. Sex
is what drives our business and sex is a main concern of the Catholic Church."
- Seth Warshavsky, CEO of Internet Entertainment Group, one of the
most recognized online porn companies, explaining why they are creating
a site to "chronicle" the Pope's visit to St. Louis.
"If Microsoft forced upon the world a single browser, that would make
things simpler, but that's not what choice is about. If Henry Ford had
a monopoly, we'd all be driving black cars."
- Dr. Franklin Fisher, MIT Professor, at the DOJ trial, possibly rewriting
history a bit, but it sure makes a nice sound-bite.
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Earnings Reports, IPOs and the like
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SpyGlass (yes, still in business) warns of a bigger than expected loss...
CompUSA not doing all that well (gee, wonder why?)... Earthlink more than
doubles revenue for the quarter, but is still losing money... Amazon is
doing well, and had their stock split (3 for 1). Investors apparently
interpreted this as a way to jump back a month in history and bid it back
up to pre-split levels... SAP warns that their earnings really aren't very
good... Hyperion warns of less than expected earnings... Mentor Graphics
says they'll have better than expected earnings, and finally gives up their
hostile takeover attempt of Quickturn... AT&T is thinking about putting
out a tracking stock to follow its TCI acquisition...
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Rumors, Conspiracies etc. of the week...
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Excite and Lycos up for sale (well, we *knew* that!). Sony talking
with Excite, but they're less excited following AOL/Netscape. AT&T
also in the running, though, more recent rumors showed AT&T looking
at MSN. Of course, in the end everyone says all those talks are over
anyway, so who cares? As for Lycos, Bertelsmann or possibly News
Corp are apparently in the running... Quark and Corel to join forces...
Cabletron for sale... SyQuest about to get money and return to some sort
of business... The Mining Company files to go public... Lucent to buy Ascend...
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News you should have read elsewhere
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Who the hell isn't trying to buy AirTouch? Oh, okay, MCI isn't
(really). Bell Atlantic and Vodaphone continue the battle in the
meantime... AOL reports that AOLies were suckered out of $1 billion of
their hard-earned cash this holiday season by purchasing stuff online (just
how did they track all this?)... Microsoft bidding for British Telecom's
cable TV franchise... AT&T in some insanely long contract to build
out @Home's backbone... Echostar and WebTV to offer Internet access over
satellite...
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News you could do without
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AOL can't stop AT&T from using the terms "You Have Mail", "IM"
or "Buddy List" (and I thought Tom Hanks was on WorldNet)... Go2Net shells
out $13 million for Web21, more popularly known as 100Hot.com, whose lists
seem to be based on the highly scientific "order found" method... Chalk
it up to having no clue about their audience: eBay has difficulty trying
to auction off various McGwire and Sosa home run balls... Entrepreneur
Mag agrees to pay tons of cash to get a preferred spot on AOL... Comcast
launching their own broadband portal (yawn)... AOL has drained ABC dry,
and is now sucking the blood from CBS... Compaq pushing home networked
PCs... WalMart sues Amazon again, but in a different state (if Dad says
no, ask Mom?)... Netscape claims 10 million registered users for NetCenter
(so, I assume, AOL will now think they have 25 million users?)... Microsoft
Office 2000 will still be expensive... Bug found in Microsoft Excel...
"Trojan Horse" email virus wreaking havoc on AOL users (or, so claims Network
Associates, who make a pretty penny from virus scares)... Finjan hypes
up a security hole ("Biggest ever! We swear!") in IE that Microsoft
posted a fix to a month ago... Microsoft suing folks who registered microsoftwindows.com
and microsoftoffice.com... Oracle delays shipment of 8i... Adobe buys GoLive...
Abortion clinic sues AOL because anti-abortion activists use the service
to access the internet to look up info about abortion doctors (oh that's
right, it's America, so sue the company that has the money, no matter how
distantly connected they might be)... Lycos to be the "portal of choice"
for IBM Aptivas... Katmai to be Pentium III... Charles Schwab web site
went offline for a few hours Friday as the stock market shot up (and people
are pissed)... GeoCities to work with InterWorld to integrate their technology
for e-commerce... Starwars.com cracked, but not much is done (insert force
joke here)...
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Surprises:
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Multi-colored iMacs are actually considered big news (*sigh*)... Hayes
really, finally, (seriously!) closes down... Mindspring buys up Netcom's
customers... PlanetRx scoots in before Drugstore.com can even wake up to
solidify a costly AOL spot (but who cares about the money? It's just
the VC's.)... Apple has announced that they've removed their price restrictions
on iMacs. Resellers can sell them for whatever price they see fit.
Isn't this illegal? Since when can a distributor set prices for a
reseller? I thought there were laws against that sort of thing, but
I guess laws don't apply to Mr. Jobs... Cisco to enter the consumer market
with co-branded modems and other devices... McAfee invests in Bigfoot's
NeoPlanet, a browser enhancement (that only works with MSIE)... Intergraph
is kicked out of Mac Expo for displaying a machine running NT (What's wrong
Steve? Afraid to test those speed comparisons in front of people?)...
Mitch Kapor joining Accel Partners (despite being an investor at Kleiner
Perkins)...
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(Mis)Uses of Technology:
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Mercedes adding emergency navigation systems to their cars, so more
folks can be led astray by computers... TalkNetRadio.com has opened up.
Anyone can have his or her own online radio show. Of course, the
better you are, the more you pay. How's that for incentives?... Iridium
satellites reflect the sun at the right angle (can shine for up to 20 seconds
in some locations)... British Airways to install heart monitors and cardiac
resuscitation devices (in preparation for Y2K ?)... Elron Software making
a utility to specifically block access to info about the Clinton impeachment
for corporations to install... What the hell is Microsoft's "Universal
Plug and Play"?... Robokoneko, the robotic artificially intelligent cat
with a "tabula rasa" brain... Itsy's Rock 'N' Scroll feature is actually
kinda cool (now, all they need is a shake to erase feature and we'll be
all set)...
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Studies:
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We stupid Americans aren't the slightest bit worried by the Y2K problem
(except those of us who need to be on planes at the moment of truth) according
to a recent poll... Media Metrix found that women are shopping online more
than men are. 60% of online shoppers in the holiday season were women...
From the folks at Zona we find out that nearly 60% of online shoppers during
the holiday season were new shoppers (combine these studies and you get...
oh, nothing)... Nearly one third of small business owners don't plan on
preparing for Y2K at all, according to a study by the National Federation
of Independent Business (N-FIB?)... Forrester claims that online advertising
revenues will double in 1999, while Jupiter says they'll only go up from
$2 billion to $3 billion. Meanwhile, everyone else says that advertising
is becoming less important, but they aren't big name research corporations,
so who cares...
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Overhype
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Making cool, iMac like computers. Everyone's talking about how
beige is out, and we need cool looking computers. Um, duh?
I remember this conversation 4 years ago... All the Y2K failures caused
by the dawning of 1999. What? Civilization, as we know it,
didn't even crumble just a little bit? How disappointing... Sony
Playstation emulator for the Mac (and, while we're at it, LinuxPPC has
a bit of overhype to it as well). On the Sony PSX front, the latest
rumor is that Sony will sue Connectix for the emulator, even though it
should only drive demand for PSX games (where they make their money from
anyway)...
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Predictions:
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The level of understanding the press has of this industry continues
to deteriorate. Take, for example, this week's fiasco with zap.com
and Amazon. Zap.com (the "internet powerhouse" of Zapata Corp) announced
in a press release "Amazon to work with Zap.com!". Reading the press
release it's pretty easy to see that Zap simply filed to be an Amazon affiliate,
which anyone with a web page can do, and was approved (hell, I'm approved
to be an Amazon affiliate). Too many news sources picked this up
as a story (the Zap to work with Amazon part - not the stupidity).
As a result, the stock shot up. I'm feeling sick. I really
(really) want to believe people are smart, but I'm proven wrong time and
again... News.com is claiming that with the death of the word "portal"
the new buzzword is going to be "destination"...
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Too much free time:
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If jodi.org or superbad.com weren't enough for you, take a gander at
http://www.absurd.org/ |
