October 4 - 10, 1999
from the Up-To-Date dept
Techdirt party, details (or how to get details) below, Webvan stupidity, Yahoo has happy earnings, famous net analysts getting bored, Russians with supercomputers hacking away, why you shouldn't use your cell phone at the gas pump and much much more.Click below for this week's Up-To-Date
********************************************************************* UP-TO-DATE ********************************************************************* The not always serious, not always weekly update on the High-Tech Industry October 4th - October 10th, 1999 ********************************************************************* Jumping the Gun because a Quiet Period Just Isn't Any Fun --------------------- Techdirt Shindig --------------------- Yes, so for no real good reason (well, we've got plenty of bogus reasons, but I'll spare you) the fine folks at Techdirt have decided to have a shindig somewhere in San Francisco sometime soon (probably next week). And, true to form, we believe in complete last minute planning, and while some details are all set and in place, others aren't. So, no details for you just yet, but it really will be a fun and exciting event where you will have the opportunity to hang out, meet other folks interested in this high tech stuff (crazy, huh?), play pool (probably), and maybe (if you're good) get drunk. We might even have party favors if we get our act together, but don't expect anything. Since I have no clue who of you on this list is anywhere near the San Francisco area, I'm asking that anyone who's interested in being on the invite list (yeah, yeah, we'll use one of those funky web based systems to invite everyone - just because it's cool) send an email to invite@techdirt.com. Not that it matters, because once you send that email I'll put you on the list no matter what, but just to amuse me, you should add a reason why you want to come to the party (this need not, and probably should not, be serious). Details will also probably get posted to the website, so you should read the website everyday, but still send an email just to make sure. And for the folks who skim Up-To-Date and won't read long things like the paragraphs above: PARTY! SEND EMAIL TO INVITE@TECHDIRT.COM. Now, go read the above for details. --------------------- Techdirt on the Web --------------------- This week's Techdirt Poll: What do you think of when you hear Webvan? https://www.techdirt.com/pollBooth.pl?qid=webvan Open Source Journalism - Part II: What happens when folks are allowed to review articles before they're even published: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/991008/1128221_F.shtml New iMac's! Is it anything special? Am I a moron? https://www.techdirt.com/articles/991005/1645231_F.shtml Wal-Mart. Does the new site stand a chance? https://www.techdirt.com/articles/991006/0222251_F.shtml Observations on the Palm VII: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/991005/2017225_F.shtml And, as always, there's plenty more stuff at https://www.techdirt.com/ updated most every weekday. -------------------- Say that again... -------------------- "The obvious answer to all this is let everybody do everything." - Edward E. Whitacre Jr., Chairman of SBC, on how the FCC should act in determining what's okay with all the telecom mergers going on. "WorldCom has finally digested MCI and is ready for its next meal." - Scott Cleland from Legg Mason Precursor Group explaining the reason for the Sprint purchase. "Nobody wants a phone that toasts bread." - Mitchell Kertzman, CEO of Liberate, though one that doubles as a thermos might be cool. "It's not a wonderful fit because it's not a big repeat purchase." - Shawn Milne, analyst at Hambrecht & Quist on the online funeral business. ------------------------------------------ Earnings Reports, IPOs and the like ------------------------------------------ Yahoo blows away earnings and suddenly the internet is cool again... WebVan proves their execs think this is just a "get rich quick" game, as they tried to get rich too quick, and jumped the gun on their IPO. The SEC is making them shut up and wait... E-Stamp has a pretty good IPO, but nothing special (these days)... Calico Commerce had a dandy of an IPO, watching as its shares quadrupled... Breakaway Solutions, yet another consulting firm, only tripled in its debut... ------------------------------------------------ Rumors, Conspiracies etc. of the week... ------------------------------------------------ DoubleClick in talks to buy 24/7... Macromedia thinking about spinning off Shockwave.com... Sony to build Playstation based workstations... ---------------------------------------- News you should have read elsewhere ---------------------------------------- New fiscal year had a couple of Y2K problems in the Energy Dept and the National Science Foundation (civilization held on, for the time being)... MCI Worldcom swallows up Sprint (US Gov't not so happy about the possibility)... -------------------------- News you could do without -------------------------- Palm VII officially launched, as the price drops $100 (and I remind you that we've got the Techdirt Palm VII app available https://www.techdirt.com/pqa/)... Paul Allen investing in more broadband: this time RCN Corp gets $1.65 billion (spare change, these days)... Intel buys IPivot as they really really want to be an ecommerce company... New version of AOL. AOL also lets us know that its users really *are* stupid. Apparently, despite the fact that AOL has explained a thousand times to its users not to give out their login info, users will still fall for just about any trick in the book to give away their account info to complete strangers... Yahoo! adds wallet technology to their shopping site (anything to make it easier for you to spend money)... Looks like the famous net stock analysts are getting bored: Keith Benjamin ditches Robertson Stephens for a venture capital group, while Henry (hype 'em till they pop) Blodget has a new book deal where he explains the economic impact of the Internet (we know, it made him rich and famous)... CVS and Merck to work together on CVS's online drugstore, so that CVS can actually sell drugs... Wal-Mart's new website delayed until after the holiday shopping season (oops)... Infoseek discovers internet auctions... The Justice Department has spent over $13 million in the Microsoft trial... Xerox has been firing people caught surfing porn sites... Microsoft complains that Linux really isn't that good, as if we're all just going to take their word for it... Amazon.com finally adds gift registry (took 'em long enough)... Kmart, perhaps seeing all the problems Wal-Mart is having with their website, is just throwing tons of money at someone else (sign up now!) to create their site for them... CNN won't run Salon TV commercials because they think Salon is a competitor... ------------ Surprises: ------------ Russia opens its brand new civilian computer center (using the illegally bought IBM supercomputers) the same week the US gov't discovers Russians have been hacking into our computers. Coincidence? The Russian government, of course, claims we give them too much credit for being able to hack into US computers... Preview Travel and Travelocity to merge as the online travel industry discovers consolidation... Compaq VP claims the "PC is dead"... Macromedia buys Andromedia... Onebox.com (which really isn't in the business of doing this) provides voice technology for Amazon.com greeting cards (sounds like Onebox is desperate for a deal with a big name company, and are willing to change their business to make it happen)... AT&T cable boss Leo Hindery (who's face is all over the TV adds explaining why TCI bills now have an AT&T logo on them) is quitting... Media Metrix buys up AdRelevance... Philips ditches the Velo, another blow to Windows CE devices... ------------------------------- (Mis)Uses of Technology: ------------------------------- France has decided to stop its trains on New Years Eve to protect them from dreaded Y2K problems (well *that* makes me sleep easy)... US House of Representatives discovers what spam is, as a staffer sends out a diet-pill spam, and everyone starts arguing (don't worry, they're professionals)... UPS will now give you internet access for free - if you only surf UPS's site... SlateTV... Novell's DigtalMe service (what's the incentive to use this?)... BP Amoco warns against using cell phones near gas pumps: might cause a fire, they say... Ericsson and Electrolux to create kitchen equipment for connecting people to the internet... hz.com as the new, easy way to get info sent to your pagers, PDAs, and mobile phones (damn, this got a lot of buzz this week)... ---------- Studies: ---------- 30% of computers bought in the past 6 months were bought online or directly from the manufacturer according to Odyssey... Yet another study comparing web use to use of traditional media, this time Arbitron NewMedia says they complement each other... And, agreeing with that is a new study from MTV and Turner Broadcasting (hmm, bias?) saying that TV has not been adversely affected by the internet... Retailer mistakes should end up costing online retailers $6 billion this holiday season (note this isn't all that much less than most predictions for sales during the holiday season) according to Creative Good... Forrester is saying that the young buyers of today will influence how commerce happens in the next few years, as they grow up using the web to buy stuff... ----------- Overhype ----------- Amazon's new wireless offering for the Palm VII. How often do you really really need to order a brand new book/CD right now(!) especially, when you'll have to wait 3 days to get it... Same goes for Larry Ellison spouting his mouth off about how we'll all be buying all of our goods via our cell phones... Itanium? Whatever... CBS to bribe users to visit its attempt at a portal... Microsoft, MIT and lots and lots of money... The new iMac. I know, I know, all the Mac fans out there hate me for saying it, but it's nothing special. It's nice, some things are cool, but shut up already... Trying to trip up Echelon with carefully chosen key words... -------------- Predictions: -------------- New "affinity group" ISPs will find a small amount of success among certain groups, but never become a huge success... Despite Steve Jobs' claims to the contrary, the "next big thing" is not going to be desktop video... ------------------------ Too much free time: ------------------------ Some useful tools for work: Generate some marketing speak: http://www.p45.net/scriptorama/marketingspeak.html Quit in style: http://www.p45.net/scriptorama/resign.html Create your resume (okay, since it's a Brit page, a CV): http://www.p45.net/scriptorama/cvomatic.html ********************************************************************* Up To Date is written by Mike Masnick from whatever news he hears from whatever sources they happen to come from. It is not intended for any uses other than as one of many possible ways to follow what's going on in the hi-tech industry. I certainly wouldn't rely on it as your only source of info. And, of course, my comments may not accurately reflect reality. Finally, an explicit warning about investing: I do not, under any circumstance, consider any piece of information in this newsletter "investment advice" and neither should you. If you would like to subscribe to the email version please send an email to utd-sub@techdirt.com with "Subscribe Up-To-Date" in the subject heading. Up To Date is also available on the web at https://www.techdirt.com/uptodate/ If you want more in depth, daily up dates, along with your own commentary head over to https://www.techdirt.com/ Comments are always welcome! Email: feedback@techdirt.com. *********************************************************************
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