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Request for help
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Wow. What a week overall. Plenty of crazy and exciting
news, and once again, Up-To-Date comes out a day later than I planned.
As you may (or may not) have noticed, Up-To-Date has been bit sporadic
over the past month, and while it is still manageable, I sense it’s close
to the edge. Therefore, I’m putting forth this friendly plea for
any help that anyone would like to contribute to Up-To-Date or the techdirt.com
website/community. I have a few ideas how people can help from the
technical side (I have plenty of ideas, just no time for implementation),
and the creative side (not to imply the technical side requires no creative
skills). If you are interested in helping out send an email to wouldlovetohelp@techdirt.com
with what it is you have in your skill set that might be useful.
Depending on the response I may or may not need to utilize all the help
I get, but would be extraordinary grateful to any and all input from those
on the list. Thanks again.
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Say that again...
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"We are trying to avoid head-to-head competition with Microsoft. We
all tried that and it didn't work."
- Eric Schmidt, CEO of Novell
“By 2000 Netscape will be the No. 1 consumer portal on the web. That's
our goal."
- Jim Barksdale, CEO of Netscape on lofty goals...
"The joke is Windows 98 fixed 5,000 bugs from Windows 95, but adds 5,000
more."
- David Moskowitz, President of Productivity Solutions. Very
funny joke. Very funny.
"We're pleased, but we allow ourselves the luxury of five, maybe ten
seconds, then we're back to work."
- Tim Koogle, CEO of Yahoo, following their earnings announcement.
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How the landscape changed...
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A fun week to be in the high tech mergers and acquisitions business:
Wired Digital started a new advertising campaign on Monday that worked
so well that Lycos bought them for $83 million on Tuesday... Bertelsmann
buys half of barnesandnoble.com (despite just a few weeks ago announcing
they would “go it alone!” – how quickly reality changes your mind).
This, of course, delays barnesandnoble.com’s IPO (also interesting to note
that the following day Amazon announced its German launch – think they
rushed that one out?)... Music Boulevard announces plans to copy CDNow’s
personalization section, and the next day we all find out that the two
companies are planning on merging anyway (reported as if it were a done
deal, though it’s not)... AT&T buys Vanguard Cellular... Sun
buys i-Planet... Veritas buys the storage management group from Seagate...
Penton Media buys Mecklermedia, but is selling its web business back to
Alan Meckler... Inacom buys Vanstar... Andromedia (tracking software) merges
with Likeminds (collaborative filtering)... RelevantKnowledge and MediaMetrix
(two *very* fierce competitors) to merge and make a strong stake in the
web ratings field... GoodNoise acquires Nordic Entertainment Worldwide
and Creative Fulfillment Inc... Applied Materials to buy Consilium...
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Earnings Reports, IPOs and the like
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Pretty much sucked to be in the stock market this past week, eh?...
Excite hires former QVC VP as their new Senior VP of Marketing... Motorola
beats estimates, but it’s certainly well down from last year, and not particularly
encouraging... Digital Chef gets $10 million in financing (someone got
desperate and wanted an Internet play, is my guess)... TheStreet.com hires
former Lexis-Nexis exec as CEO... Yahoo! beats estimates by a ton and the
market still kills them... AMD actually making money (a big surprise!)
and the market still kills them... Symantec warned that it expects earnings
to be well below estimates... Sportsline warned that it expects to miss
earnings estimates and tried to cover it up with an expanded deal with
AOL (but no one cared about that part and the stock dropped in half)...
ZD ditches three magazines... Hayes Corporation files for bankruptcy (again)...
OfficeMax warns of disappointing earnings due to disappearing margins on
PCs... Packard Bell cuts workforce... Diamond Multimedia announces losses
nearly 4 times as great as expected (someone screwed up big time)... Open
Market reported disappointing earnings... Yahoo! to buy Yoyodyne, the direct
marketing services company that has received all sorts of press lately...
Apple getting ready to announce its first profitable year (which the press
will blow out of proportion, of course) in quite some time... Baan warns
of quarterly loss... Broadcast.com reports a loss, but not as much as expected...
Earthlink also reports a “not as bad as expected” loss...
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Rumors, Conspiracies etc. of the week...
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Rumors were all over last week about Oracle having to cut prices to
compete. They denied it vigorously, only making me that more suspicious...
Microsoft to rename NT...
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News you could do without
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Newsweek finally debuts on the web and no one cares... Dell and Compaq
to work with Bell Atlantic on their xDSL rollout, called Infospeed.
Infospeed will use a customized version of Snap! as its start page (oh
my, actually going back to Snap’s original business model)... Dell, of
course is playing both sides of the broadband fence by also announcing
a deal with @Home this week... Net.B@nk to offer free checking (how else
would they find anyone to use their service?)... Zapata relaunches Word
(and when does it “re-crash”?)... USA Today to outsource distribution of
their email blasts to Email Publishing Inc... The Government only barely
loosens Network Solutions grip on top level domains... IBM to help revamp
France’s Minitel (um, okay, I won’t touch that one)... DOJ wants more info
from Microsoft (don’t we all?)... IBM releases powerful new workstations
following HPs lead (sucks to be SGI these days, eh?)... Lycos copies everyone
else to offer a branded credit card... Microsoft is slow in turning over
the database info requested by the DOJ (though they simply say the DOJ
doesn’t know how to query the databases)... New microprocessors, cheaper
prices from the usual players... AOL adds web based email and personalized
news feed (how original!)... Earthlink tries their hand at portal building...
Microsoft relaunches MSN (again)... Peapod redesigns its site (is this
a case of rearranging the furniture to hide the fact that the house is
falling apart?)... Netscapes bug fix, doesn’t... UPS complains that the
US Postal Service is infringing by introducing secure document technology...
Microsoft not allowed to have confidential tapes and notes by the authors
of a book about Microsoft... Netscape to provide custom portals to anyone
who wants them (lets think about this one for a moment)... Microsoft succeeds
in having the trial delayed again... Microsoft continues its scare tactics
by subpoenaing notes from a CNet journalist (as far as I can tell they
are simply using this to scare journalists away from writing anti-Microsoft
articles)... Cisco looking to break their alliance with Alcatel... E*Trade
looking at moving into online banking... Fox Sports Online says plugging
the site on TV has increased their hits... PCs for under $500 from eMachines
(who needs margins?)... Internet tax freedom act passes without any trouble...
Real Networks announces a big deal with Lotus (that isn’t really that big)
and the stock shoots upward...
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Surprises:
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Cisco under investigation by the FTC for meeting with Lucent and Nortel
about illegally splitting up the networking market (ouch)... One of the
suspects in the IBM bribing the state bank of Argentina case is found dead
(was the sale worth it?)... AOL chief technical executive, Michael Connors
to step down... Mindspring’s CFO resigns (generally not considered a sign
of confidence)... In Argentina, an electric company is now offering free
email accounts... The Recording Industry Association of America is suing
Diamond Multimedia for their new MP3 playing device (the RIAA apparently
is struggling to realize that they don’t really have control over who can
listen to music how)... Pandesic names Pete Walcott as its new president...
DoubleClick says its DoubleClick Direct is a failure and they are selling
“guaranteed” impressions at a measly $2 CPM (can we say a collective “ouch”
for the online ad industry?)... Sony to use AMD chips... Oracle to spin
off their business online solutions group... William Razzouk, for 4 months
the President of AOL, has signed on as CEO of PlanetRX, yet another online
drugstore... Electric Village changes its name to OnRadio and announces
a huge deal with Amazon to sell music online...
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(Mis)Uses of Technology:
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Y2K real estate agents, finding safe hideaways for you in case the
world ends on 01/01/2000... Furby, the new “furry” interactive toy from
Hasbro (no, I don’t want to know any more)... Conducent’s new application
that will put banner ads into software applications for Windows (time to
switch to Linux)... Microsoft selling telephones with voice recognition
(how else are they going to record what everyone says about them for subpoena
purposes?)... Cal State San Marcos offering computers instead of money
for financial aid... Man caught trying to sell human organs over the Internet...
PDA in a pen: the SmartQuill... ATMs to use IP (argh – competing acronyms
– you figure out which ones apply)... A new phone browser from Spyglass
and Lucent lets you surf the web using voice commands over a telephone
(okay, someone, *please* explain the application here)...
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Studies:
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A new study says there are seven Internet companies with recognizable
brand names: AOL, Yahoo!, Netscape, Amazon, Priceline, Infoseek, and Excite.
The list looked fine for a moment and then I said “Priceline???”.
It’s certainly a well-known brand among the net savvy, but I don’t think
it’s in the same class as the others. Then I saw the small print:
the study was commissioned by Priceline. Ahhhhh, it’s one of *those*
studies... Despite a strong showing on auto sites on the web, sales through
these sites has been slow, according to the National Automobile Dealers
Association... Media Metrix study shows that web users go online for news,
entertainment, and info (in that order)... According to the latest from
Nielsen Media Research the three most purchased items online were books,
computer hardware, and computer software. Among younger shoppers
(16 to 24) music, videos, and clothing were the most popular items... New
users on the Internet are much *less* likely to buy online than online
“veterans” according to Forrester... A new study from ActivMedia says that
e-commerce will grow even more this year (63% vs. 58%) than last year.
The top area for growth: computer hardware and software...
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Overhype
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All these damn Internet bills in Congress. No, I don’t deny their
importance, but I can’t believe that we have allowed a bunch of incompetents
who spend all their time finding pointless scandals to embarrass their
counterparts to have a say in this medium... The effect of the Bertelsmann/Barnesandnoble.com
and CDNow/N2K deals on Amazon.com in terms of competition. I think
the more interesting component was the implicit valuation of barnesandnoble.com
based on the Bertelsmann purchase and its comparison to Amazon...
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Predictions:
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This is only the beginning of Internet company merger mania.
As companies begin to realize that profitability is years (possibly decades)
away, and their margins are continually being eroded thanks to “irrational”
competitors, it’s the only choice...
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Too much free time:
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I’m afraid I really don’t know how to comment on a web page such as
this: http://www.10k4awife.com/
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