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Filtering
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Working on making some small changes to the format of Up-To-Date following
some feedback. I admit, the “News You Could Do Without” section has
gotten a little unwieldy, and many people choose not to read it.
This week I’ve added a “News You Should Have Read Elsewhere” section to
cover the big, but not so exciting stories. NYCDW will remain
as a section full of news tidbits that shouldn’t have surprised anyone,
and the media shouldn’t have wasted space on, but did. Please let
me know what you think of the change, and if you have any more suggestions.
Thanks.
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Say that again...
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"Everyone says that when the 'net comes to television, it'll really
kick. And I say no, it won't. It'll probably just be really annoying TV."
- Omar Ahmad, Netscape.
"You are a wooden board. Intel is a threaded fastener. Microsoft
is a tool that drives threaded fasteners into wooden boards. Are
you getting the picture yet?"
- Alice Hill and Bill O’Brien, in The Hard Edge in Computer Shopper’s
September issue.
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Earnings Reports, IPOs and the like
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@Home still losing money, but at the expected rate... Intel beats estimates
easily, and the stock still drops (which appears to be due to their cautioning
that next quarter – usually a big one – won’t be)... CBS.MarketWatch files
to go public (in response, a co-worker of mine replied “just which market
have they been watching?”)... LSI Logic to cut 1,200 jobs... Apple beats
estimates by a long shot, and makes money for yet another quarter.
Of course, thanks to Steve Jobs’ magic tricks everyone seemed to miss the
fact that revenues were actually down, despite the iMac... Compaq barely
beats estimates... Kodak’s revenue dropping big time... E*Trade barely
beats estimates (or misses them entirely, depending on your accounting
preferences), but we can say for sure that they are still losing money...
Excite losing more money than expected (unless you discount their Netscape
deal, and then they’re doing just dandy)... Sun barely beats earnings estimates
and keeps on growing... NCR beats estimates (hell, they surprised me by
still being in business)... Adobe expects to beat estimates (that’s what
you get when you fire all of your expensive top management)... USWeb (who
still insist they are changing their name) posts a profit, which was a
surprise... DoubleClick beat expectations by a bit... Broadcast.com beats
estimates as well...
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Rumors, Conspiracies etc. of the week...
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Microsoft, which had been planning to release a tax product to compete
with Intuit’s TurboTax is going to delay release for yet another year...
Bertelsmann came close to making a deal with Amazon before finally buying
into barnesandnoble.com... In the meantime, the latest is that the potential
combination of CDNow and N2K is only to have both of them be acquired by
Bertelsmann as well (add to that the potential created by the new “network”
described below and there’s suddenly quite a large online commerce concern)...
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News you should have read elsewhere
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IBM expected to hit $100 Billion in revenue by 2001... CMP to get rid
of LAN Times (because, of course, LANs are so *old school*)... Four big
name online retailers form a network (to compete with Amazon, of course):
CDNow, Cyberian Outpost, eToys, and Reel.com (is this preparation for more
mergers?)... EchoStart to offer Internet access and interactive TV via
its satellites next summer... Sprint offers $9.95 Internet access for home-based
businesses that use its long distance services... Gov’t approves increase
in high tech visas... Zapata abandons its Internet plans (okay, you can
stop snickering now)... Amazon in Europe... No more delays (yet) in the
Microsoft trial... Intel picks up 5% of Micron for $500 million... Crackers
break into the Indian Army web site... Intel negotiating with S3 so they
don’t get sued for infringing on Exponential patents with Merced... The
Recording Industry Association of America won its restraining order preventing
Diamond from selling their MP3 device for now (love it when judges who
don’t understand this stuff make dumb rulings)...
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News you could do without
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The Direct Marketing Association (junk snail mailers) has taken over
the Association of Interactive Media as they plan to let the professionals
learn how to spam us all... Microsoft’s WebTV is collecting info about
users surfing habits and creating reports on them for future use in advertising
(“Microsoft: Where do we think you should go today?” or “Who has paid us
the most to tell you where to go today?”)... Columbia House offering custom
CDs on their website... The Rod Stewart webcast (which I made fun of a
few weeks back) was apparently so popular that it is going to be *repeated*
(only confirming my suspicions that the web is turning into a lowest common
denominator entertainment medium)... 25% of all tickets in the post season
for the San Diego Padres home games were sold online by Ticketmaster...
Quicken.com adds content from CBS.MarketWatch and TheStreet.com... 60%
of Cisco’s sales occur over the Internet, saving the company over $550
million a year... Compaq to move AltaVista to the west coast, though their
GM will stay behind... 1-800-Flowers restructures its online group... AOL
to use Open Market for e-commerce technologies... Shareholders of Bay Networks
sue Nortel over “misleading” financial info... Iomega getting ready to
release the Clik drive at Comdex (wait, wasn’t that last year’s headline?)...
SportsLine settles trademark dispute with the telephone service of the
same name... Young & Rubicam to handle advertising for Geocities...
Lycos new site lasts a few hours until many problems are discovered and
the old one gets put back up... Microsoft has posted code that allows you
to kill that damn paperclip in Office (apparently the clip cries out “I’m
melting! I’m melting!” before being squashed)...
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Surprises:
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The Wall Street Journal to raise the rates of an online subscription
by $10 (meaning either they’re doing well enough that they undercharged
originally, or they’re not making enough money and need to squeeze a few
more pennies out of their current customers)... Merrill Lynch has decided
to offer free access to its stock research online... InterNIC hacked to
point AOL.com to a different domain... Symantec to buy Quarterdeck... Wal-Mart
suing Amazon (the Wal-Mart of the Internet! – ugh) for stealing trade secrets
by hiring away certain key personnel...
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(Mis)Uses of Technology:
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ValueClick is offering to put up banner ads with sound (anyone remember
what happened last time this was tried? No? That’s because
you didn’t miss anything)... Alexa Internet donates a “copy” of the World
Wide Web (only two terabytes?) to the Library of Congress... Yahoo! Autos
“lemon check” feature... Virtual Reality autopsies done over the Internet...
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Studies:
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Despite DoubleClick’s recent troubles, the InterMedia Advertising Solutions’
InterWatch report claims that online advertising nearly doubled in the
first quarter of ’98 as compared to the same quarter last year... Gartner
Group claims that next year half of all IT budgets will go towards Y2K
spending... A study by Inverse Network Technology Inc. has found that there
were a lot more failed attempts at connecting to the Internet in September.
The blame, apparently, goes to folks back at school and, of course, the
Clinton stuff... Media Metrix has released its list of most visited websites
for August, and AOL leads the list with more than double the number of
visitors than number 2 Yahoo! (interesting)... Zona research shows that
Netscape’s browser is leading in corporate settings (and it also said that
when corporate users are given the choice, they prefer Netscape)... Transamerica
Intellitech and National Mortgage News report that many people use the
Internet as a source of info for refinancing mortgages, but very few actually
complete the deal online... Arbitron says that the Internet is cutting
into the amount of time people listen to the radio... Meanwhile,
Forrester has released a report saying that radio stations need to use
the Internet to drive e-commerce (eh?)...
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Overhype
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There were way too many articles about how you can now search AltaVista
for pictures. Lycos has had that functionality for as long as I can
remember... Apple’s new Sherlock technology which really doesn’t sound
all that impressive... The island of Tuvalu and the deal they made with
some Canadian company to sell .tv domains, which they (honestly) think
will be big sellers...
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Predictions:
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The 31 companies that Zapata has suddenly decided not to buy will file
a lawsuit against Zapata and Mr. Glazer...
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Too much free time:
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Not for the squeamish:
http://www.zug.com/zug/scrawl/lobster/
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