June 28, 1999
SJ Mercury: Net is blurring the line between products, services.
Q&A with Vinton Cerf. For one thing, from the policy point of view, consumers don't know enough about what is being done with their personal information.
TechWeb: Internet Offers Power Of Choice.
Q&A with Andrew Shapiro and David Shenk. Marketing pitches and management models that are presuming passive conusmers and passive employees are outdated, and business models that are based on these assumptions need to be rethought completely.
Salon: Clueless - in Tokyo.
But does this mean that the Japanese "get" the Net? No. In fact, you could say that the country's all-powerful bureaucrats and corporate overlords have gone out of their way to prevent online networks from taking root.
Ask Tog: Ads—Can't live with them; can't get rid of them.
The reason you are seeing ads breaking content in the middle is that people have learned to not see banner ads anymore. It isn't that they don't read them, they literally don't see them.
News.Com: How much content do community sites "own"?
So while members think they are only receiving space to place their intellectual property, the Web sites are acting like publishers.
LA Times: Most Net Retailers All Sale, No Service.
"It became absurdly expensive," said Forrester's Seema Williams. "Even for stuff they can figure out on their own with five more clicks, many consumers prefer to have someone just talk them through it."
NY Times: For a Personal Touch, Some Sites Add Real People.
In addition to losing repeat customers, executives say feeble customer service systems have resulted in customers not spending money in the first place.
News.Com: E-commerce firms try community.
Customers share their experiences, make recommendations, and post criticisms of the sites, all of which can be of value to an e-commerce firm looking for an edge over the ever-growing competition.
Interactive Week: Tools Of The E-Trade Debut.
...service-level managers - provide a browser-based view into Web site operations, giving managers a consistent view into their site's level of service no matter where they may be located.
OASIS: Digital Property Rights Language.
DPRL is intended to support commerce in digital works, that is, publishing and selling electronic books, digital movies, digital music, interactive games, computer software and other creations distributed in digital form.
Wired News: Watershed for Digital Music.
A coalition of more than 100 music business companies and groups said Monday they had completed work on a new standard designed to place online music distribution back in the hands of industry.
News.Com: Excite@Home speed caps draw fire, prompt new plans.
"If I'm a power user, then give me the opportunity to choose another service option… If folks are willing to pay more, why not take the incremental revenue?"
Interactive Week: Amazon.com Vs. Wal-Mart? Not!
"The biggest difference between Wal-Mart and Amazon is that Wal-Mart is a mile wide, and an inch deep. It's about being the greatest hits of product. It's all about price and not selection..."
Interactive Week: Bezos: Sleeping Like A Baby.
Q&A with Jeff Bezos. I think our front page, compared to a lot of the other major Web sites, is one of the cleanest, easiest to use. We put a huge amount of effort into making sure that, as we add new categories, we continue to be an easy-to-use site.
TechWeb: RealNames To Appear On Internet Explorer.
Beginning sometime in the third quarter this year, users who type "Michael Jordan" into the address bar on IE will be taken directly to the basketball legend's official site.
NY Times: 3-Week Delay in Opening Up Internet Name Registration.
The major question is who has rights to the Network Solutions database that holds the information about who owns the more than 5 million registered domain names.
PC Week: Making IT easy--but for whom?
When you look closely at some of the things we take for granted, you have to wonder at the absurdity of it all.
Useit.Com: Spotlight of an Iconocast report of increasing advertising budgets outside the Web.
These people are starting to realize that advertising doesn't work on the Web, so they are spending more of their money where it will do more good.
Industry Standard: Can Pitney-Bowes Stamp Out Net Rivals?
Initially, Pitney-Bowes tried to negotiate a settlement with Stamps.com and E-Stamp. When negotiations broke down, Pitney changed tactics. In June, the company filed separate patent-infringement cases against both Stamps.com and E-Stamp...
ClickZ: Rich Words.
There is no requirement for rich media here. But there is a need to rethink the way one writes for the web.
Forbes: Global Satellite Positioning.
Since satellites can provide a near-instantaneous transmission of data to servers outside of a network band, SkyCache's use of GE-Americom's birds is designed for caching update and response times that supersede what can be achieved even on the fastest of terrestrial networks.
Advertising Age: Industry eyes counting banners a different way.
Web publishers may not be eager to accept numbers that, while perhaps more accurate, could be smaller.
Wired News: Aussies: Open Access Not Hard.
ACTEW is selling shovels to gold miners, making money regardless of who strikes gold and who goes home broke in the content area.
MSNBC: Home furnishings move to the Net.
"When you combine a big market with a terrible buying process, to us you get an interesting online business..."
PC World: AltaVista Piles on Services.
The pioneering search site now offers a search "freshness guarantee": To keep search indexes from growing stale, the company will update them at least every 28 days, and possibly more often.
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