May 31, 1999
Industry Standard: At Ease: A Chat With Jermoluk and Bell.
"We had decided to spend one more year slogging it out as a portal, but eventually had to realize we're not a Yahoo," says Bell. "That was a wasted year. Marrying our content with AtHome's scale is the boldest move a portal has made. Yahoo has brand, but they don't have the platform."
Useit.Com: Spotlight of a survey that looked at the impact of word-of-mouth on the Web.
More proof of the user-driven nature of the Web and support for the need for good user interface for every single visitor (if a user likes the site, 12 others will hear that it is worth visiting; if the user had a bad experience, 12 others will be told to stay away).
ZDNN: 'Cybermediaries': The Net's new kings.
"These sites are going into places were there's a particular point of friction -- either there's not good information, or shipping is too expensive, or something like that."
News.Com: InterVu streams ahead behind the scenes.
InterVu and its competitors ultimately may rise and fall on the comparative success of two distinct business models: one promoting a brand and aggregating content under it, a la Broadcast.com, and the other providing services in relative anonymity.
Wired News: Art Auction Gold Rush.
Analysts agree that the added assurances of dealing with companies rather than individuals will lead many online shoppers to migrate toward business-to-consumer auctions in the coming years, particularly in the area of collectibles.
Interactive Week: E-Mailing Lists: Next Big Thing.
Even Poler admits, though, that collecting user profile information is not enough. The other key element of the puzzle is figuring out a way to deliver marketing messages in a nonthreatening way.
Business Week: The E-Sales Tax Holiday Won't Last Forever.
...most experts believe sales tax avoidance will become a progressively less important motivation for consumers and that people will increasingly shop online because of its innate convenience.
SJ Mercury: TiVo gives Replay company and competition.
The good news is that most of my complaints with TiVo and Replay relate to the ``user interface,'' meaning they can be resolved just by rewriting the software.
News.Com: Powerline: The future of broadband?
Media Fusion has yet to take their technology live on a power grid. But the technology's apparent potential--virtually unlimited bandwidth with a vast geographic reach--has created a growing buzz...
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