December 1, 1999
Editor & Publisher: A Judge's View of What's Right and Wrong.
Steve Outing. In today's column, I'll assess how a sampling of online news sites are doing — what they're doing right and where they're still in need of work. Here are some of the things I noticed on my recent EPpy-induced surfing trip to a variety of news sites...
ClickZ: Time Out Of Mind.
Big media have never understood the basics of the Internet information transaction. Perhaps they never will. Time Warner and News Corp. represent two good examples of this aggressive, insistent Cluelessness. They think brand equals trust, and trust means you buy. So they demand your money before they give value.
Internet World: A Better Tap for Importing Beer.
Armed with a Web application developed while most companies were still debating whether they needed a Web site, Heineken USA has cut in half the number of weeks it takes to ship beer from the brewery in Holland to American distributors.
Internet World: On the Web, Advertising Often Leads.
It's not just that a site's primary real estate--the top of the page--is uniformly given to a banner ad. Sites have also taken to building sponsored microsites and content areas, in which the content is often supplied by the sponsor, and to creating content sections based on whether advertisers exist to support it.
Freedom Forum: 'Consumer protection' is latest excuse to regulate the Net.
Jon Katz. In the last few years, even the most mule-headed and reactionary corporations have figured out that they'd better learn to do business on the Net, if they're going to do business at all. So one way or another, the wild, unregulated frontier atmosphere that has characterized the Internet's first decades is coming to an end.
PC Magazine: It's the Warehouse, Stupid.
Web customer-service people are equipped to chat online with shoppers or to chat via phone while they surf alongside shoppers. It's an important point: Web-based shopping hasn't saved Lands' End any money on customer service and order entry. All those people are still there working at telephones and computers.
News.Com: Barnesandnoble.com tests 24-hour delivery service.
Without alerting buyers, the online bookseller has been delivering books using messengers on bicycles, on foot, by subway, and in delivery vans to bring near instant-gratification to its customers who order books online in Manhattan.
Fast Company: Digital Competition - Laurie A. Tucker.
On one side of the screen, a customer was on the phone with a call-center rep, asking a question about a certain page on FedEx's Web site. On the other side, the rep was apologizing profusely and explaining that she couldn't see the page. When the video was presented to the board, "there was an audible gasp in the room..."
CIO WebBusiness: First Line of Defense.
To cope with the electronic blitz, Meskill tapped nearly 100 people to read and answer customers' messages. Not long after, PacBell Internet Services (and later, all of SBC Internet Services) implemented its automated e-mail system. Since then, SBC as a whole has viewed Web-based technologies with a more generous eye.
Industry Standard: Check It Out.
Now comes the Net, which in theory could overturn this whole arrangement by offering content for free, without the need to buy a book or other object. But in fact we'll look back on this moment as a time when the Net was trying out countless schemes, to see which would solve its payment problem.
ZDNN: eBay sanctions first outside search service.
The exact terms of eBay’s deal with Auction Rover were not disclosed by either company. But the deal basically allows Auction Rover to search and list eBay auctions as long as the results are separated from other auction listings, and as long as Auction Rover doesn’t "spider" eBay’s site...
SJ Mercury: Mall lifts ban on advertisement of Web sites.
After creating a stir by telling its retailers that promotion of e-commerce won't be allowed this holiday season, the Saint Louis Galleria mall has decided to lift the ban. The upscale mall recently sent the store owners a second letter, essentially saying to disregard the first.
Computerworld: Motorola demos 64K wireless network.
The company said its 64K bit/sec. technology will be available to service providers in the U.S. in the first quarter of next year. According to a Motorola official at the conference, delivering the solution is the first step in a strategy that will lead eventually to third-generation (3G) packet data services at 384K bit/sec. or more.
| 