June 14, 1999
Industry Standard: Open House: Realtors Learn to Love the Net.
All of this will add to the downward pressure on commissions the industry is already experiencing. Smart agents will make it up in volume, says James Punishill of Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research: "People who don't will fall off the map."
News.Com: Patent Here, Patent There, Patent, Patent Everywhere.
Internet business model patents also are much more likely to increase litigiousness than promote efficient commerce. It would surely be ironic to see all the efficiency gains of e-commerce wasted on unnecessary litigation.
Internet World: Detailed Database Can Be Key to E-Commerce Success.
And in a world where a rival can copy an interface, a business model, or distribution plans in short order, structured data and the interactions it enables are emerging as a new kind of intellectual property-and maybe the only kind worth owning.
NY Times: Seeking Ways to Cut the Web-Page Wait.
Bandwidth concerns, he says, force Internet companies to make hard choices about optimizing their sites to appeal to certain customer groups, such as those with higher-speed connections, while possibly alienating users who connect at lower speeds.
PC Week: Is this any way to run an e-business?
Way beyond snappy Web interfaces, what will keep customers--retail customers and business partners--coming to a company's Web site is that they can count on a light being on whenever they call.
ABCNews.Com: Wireless Networks Catching On.
This system of transmitter-to-receiver wireless data services is known as fixed wireless, and it has become one of the hottest strategies for telecommunications companies looking for new and cheaper ways to bring broad band Internet and data services to businesses.
Business Week: Getting the Right Ad Play -- without the Portals.
Because the ad networks can track this over a wide group of sites, that gives them an opportunity to have a better understanding of how people react to ads. That's what advertising online is all about -- tracking and adapting on the fly.
Industry Standard: DoubleClick to Merge With Abacus.
Abacus has a database chronicling the purchasing history of 88 million U.S. households. It sells the data to over 1,100 consumer catalogers that use the information to fine-tune their mailing practices.
News.Com: AT&T hails the "broadband millennium".
"Where we're going is interactivity, a future where television breaks off the passive mode forever, and adds a dimension of consumer choice and control that, until, now, has been just talk..."
Interactive Week: AOL Plans High-Speed Service.
AOL Plus will offer a limited set of streaming media features, along with more photos, graphics and animation than what is offered on its flagship consumer service today...
Wired News: Every Web Site a Chat Room.
The software links a visitor to a Web site with other visitors and lets them strike up a conversation.
ClickZ: Pretty cool, eh?
Create a clear, friendly voice that connects on a simple, emotional level. And make that voice and that connection part of every transaction and every communication.
Interactive Week: Cache Preens For Broadband.
Cable operators are starting to try to relieve the backbone pressure they feel, because their last-mile bandwidth is so much faster than their upstream Internet connections...
Internet Week: Extending The Internet.
But Jaffery says that will change substantially by 2003, when he estimates wireless data subscribers will jump to nearly 36 million. "The Internet will be the prevailing platform..."
News.Com: Microsoft launches service for pagers, cell phones.
"As long as there's a pipe there from the services side, we can pump the information to [any] device," Vieira said. "What we're waiting on is for the hardware to develop."
News.Com: Compaq develops Linux handheld.
The product intended "to explore futuristic ideas in handheld and wearable computing," Frazier said. About 75 prototypes exist.
Industry Standard: Book Burnout.
Anyone who's used a Rocket eBook or a competing model knows that they're early-generation models in need of interface and ergonomic improvements.
Interactive Week: Web Retailing Goes Madison Ave. Route.
AdOutlet.com plans to sell excess advertising space that is days or weeks away from its deadline to appear online - at prices up to 80 percent less than original levels.
ZDNN: Can Google's search engine find profits?
They don’t want to become a portal. No content. And they want to avoid competing with other search engines to be the browser of choice for existing portals.
Interactive Week: Manugistics Puts It On The Line.
"Manufacturers have traditionally had difficulty collaborating with the retail channel, because all they get is an estimate of what they think is selling. What they need is systems that can tell them in real-time what is selling in the stores..."
TechWeb: Chrome.com Looks To Tune Up Net Car Buying.
"Autobytel is no more than an electronic front end to feed into existing franchise dealers controlling a particular geography," said Ross McDonald, Chrome.com's director of business development. "In our model, transactional control is in the hands of the consumer or the organization."
Wired News: 7-Eleven for Your Convenience.
Modeled on a successful Japanese system, it goes beyond record-keeping to help store managers predict what fickle consumers will want tomorrow by tracking which items sell best -- or worst -- and adding in weather forecasts and schedules of local events.
Editor & Publisher: How Newspapers Can Retain New Media.
Steve Outing. Here are some ways that newspaper executives can retain the best people, who embody not only journalistic excellence but also possess a vision for how newspapers can keep pace with the Internet industry and not get run over by it.
| 