-------------------------------
A quick note for the litigious
-------------------------------
Over the past six months (even during the hiatus) I've noticed that
more and more people who subscribe to Up-To-Date work for companies that
I have made fun of. One such reader later unsubscribed in disgust.
While I would prefer that those readers attempt to convince me why I am
wrong, rather than unsub, I appreciate that much better than contacting
your legal departments.
I write this newsletter on a (usual) weekly basis for fun. I have
very little influence. Trust me, my comments are not causing your
stock options to be worth any less. If I make fun of your company
for something you feel it doesn't deserve, please explain to me my mistake,
and I will make a correction if I agree with you. I am very open
to discussion on issues I put forth in the newsletter. If you feel
I am wrong, let me know and I’ll discuss it with you. I have no desire,
time, or energy to go up against the legal department of any company that
dislikes what I say.
Thanks.
--------------------
Say that again...
--------------------
"Instead of continuing to whine, I would suggest that Mr. Beussink
suck it up, take his punishment like a man, get back to school, and start
behaving like he should in the classroom."
- Kenneth McManaman, lawyer for the school district in Missouri that
is being sued for suspending a student over a website he posted complaining
about the school's teachers and administrators.
"If the two of them don't find a way to work together, they're going
to fail separately."
- Rob Enderle of Giga Information Group, talking about Adobe and Quark.
"If patents worked for manufacturers, surely they will work for the
information economy."
- Pamela Samuelson, Berkeley law professor, on these new internet business
model patents, simplifying things to the point of stupidity
----------
Fiction
----------
Apparently, Jason Kelly has written a book called "Y2K: It's Already
Too Late" which is a fictionalized account of the absolute worst case scenario
of Y2K disasters. I can easily see some of the doomsayers using this
as further ammo. In the next six months, I fully expect to hear folks
quote stories from the book, as if they were written by an expert who guarantees
the disasters in question will happen... Meanwhile, Wendy Goldman Rohm
has written a book called "The Microsoft File: The Secret Case Against
Bill Gates" where she admits to making up quotes and events to make the
story "more readable" (even I wouldn't do that!)...
------------------------------------------
Earnings Reports, IPOs and the like
------------------------------------------
Cyberguard discovers accounting "irregularities" (read: "lies") and
suspends its CEO and CFO... Allaire files to go public... Applied Materials
to cut 15% of its workforce... Infospace.com files to go public... Intuit
beats estimates... Xoom, probably one of the most highly trafficked sites
that few people know about, has filed to go public...
------------------------------------------------
Rumors, Conspiracies etc. of the week...
------------------------------------------------
Professor Kevin Warwick, who got lots of press this week for having
a computer chip implanted into his body, is really a fraud... AT&T
ditched its plans to test Ciena equipment to try to break up the Tellabs/Ciena
merger, hoping to protect Lucent... Netscape and Excite each accounted
for the two year deal between the companies differently... Earthweb's IPO
to be available to an "e-syndicate" through Suretrade (or course, I stick
by the assessment that if I can get it on an IPO, I don't want to be in
on it)... Microsoft tried to buy LookSmart, who turned down the offer (in
five years should we expect the "crush LookSmart" emails to be turned over
to the DOJ in their latest anti-trust case?)... Zip2 has cancelled all
of its advertising and sponsorships. Probably not a good sign...
CNBC looking to buy Quote.com...
--------------------------
News you could do without
--------------------------
More RBOC strikes... Lucent steps in with its own speech recognition
software... Stampmaster vs. eStamp... Cliff Stoll criticizes computers
in schools (this man needs to learn to complain a bit less and help a little
more)... Oracle releases its App Server, and everyone rushes around to
define just what an App Server is... Javascript & Java security problems
in web based email applications (how obvious was that one?)... There are
more net radio stations than real radio stations (does this surprise anyone?)...
Microsoft buys Valence Research to help with fault tolerance and load balancing
in NT (well, at least they recognize that they have a problem)... Microsoft
repositions MSN (again)... Broadcast.com will now be webcasting a home
shopping type of channel... Quickturn rejects Mentor Graphics takeover
bid... Microsoft claims it "can't find" the important part of the MS-DOS
source code they are required to turn over to Caldera (every time I try
to like Microsoft one of these stories turns up)... Tripod redesigns to
be (take a wild guess here) more like a portal... AOL gets to 13 million
users (though it took them substantially longer to get this last million
than the one before)... Priceline.com names former Citicorp president to
be its new CEO... CNet has called on Saatchi & Saatchi to develop a
brand for Snap! (throwing good money after bad?)... Bill Gates begins his
deposition, where he is described as "evasive"... Tellabs doesn't actually
cancel the merger with Ciena. Instead they cut the price tag by a
third... Steve Jobs blames ISPs for most of the iMac's problems connecting
to the net (of course, it's Apple that chose to make the modems only compatible
with v.90)... Net usage increased significantly the night of President
Clinton's "apology" speech... Bug found in Microsoft Access... Ericsson
is looking for a way to push cell phones into the hands of talkative teenagers
(can't wait to see the ad blitz on this one)... NT4.0 has Y2K problems
that no one noticed before...
------------
Surprises:
------------
Software.net changes their name to beyond.com... In a fairly cool move,
Oracle has announced plans to lease programs and space on its servers to
small businesses... Mecklermedia acquires CyberAtlas... Quark pulls a Zapata
and tries to buy the much larger Adobe... Fore Systems buys Berkeley Networks...
FoxMeyer, a drug distributor that went out of business in '96 sues SAP,
saying its inventory-control system caused them to go out of business...
Opera for BeOS... Different states are looking into a class-action suit
against GeoCities for breaking its privacy policy... TNT made-for-TV movie
called "Pirates of Silicon Valley" to star Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and
Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates... Lotus has pushed back the release
of the Domino 5 Beta (not a good thing)...
-------------------------------
(Mis)Uses of Technology:
-------------------------------
The World of Atari '98. Does anything more need to be said?...
MailPush jumps into the unified messaging business by letting you check
your email from anywhere using a phone, fax or pager... ICG Netcom IP telephony
allows calls as low as 5.9 cents a minute... Using spare cycles through
the Internet to help in the search for extraterrestrial life... The new
Pentax security camera that can email you photographs of your burglar...
Bayan's Switchboard.com and AOL will not renew their contract (where a
large percentage of Switchboard's traffic comes from). Banyan tries
to play it off as a "good thing", but I don't think anyone was fooled...
EA has released free demos of its latest Wing Commander game. Of
course, the demo included the recently dreaded win95.CIH virus... A new
TV camera from Lucent allows users to watch tennis by viewing the whole
court from the side...
----------
Studies:
----------
According to our friends at Nielsen Media Research and CommerceNet,
25% of web users are shopping on the net. Interestingly, 64% of shoppers
and 71% of actual buyers are men... Almost 70% of web users have visited
travel-related sites according to NPD Online Research... Only 6% of consumers
are currently using online banking... A $1.5 million study by Carnegie
Mellon, has found that the Internet makes people more lonely and depressed.
Though, another researcher commented on the user group, which was not randomly
chosen, and all from Pittsburgh, by saying maybe the Internet just made
them wonder what they were doing stuck in Pittsburgh...
-----------
Overhype
-----------
Auctions on the web, with the possible exception of eBay... The Win95.CIH
virus... Microsoft pressuring Intel over Internet software... Royal's cheapo
Pilot-alike device called the daVinci... Microsoft engineers toyed with
the idea of disabling competitive products (2 thoughts: (1) what's the
surprise? This has been talked about at length before. (2) The real
damning evidence is if they actually *did* this, rather than just toy with
it. I don't see anything wrong with thinking up the idea - implementing,
however...)...
--------------
Predictions:
--------------
This whole idea of patenting Internet business models has to go away.
CyberGold received a patent this week for paying consumers incentives to
click...
------------------------
Too much free time:
------------------------
Okay, so there are plenty of useless webcams out there, but what gets
me about this one is how many visitors it's had on the counter. What
are people looking for?:
http://eastnet.educ.ecu.edu/cameras/
|
