December 13, 1999
Welcome to readers of WebReference.com! Thanks for visiting, Lawrence.
NY Times: Pricing Errors on the Web Can Be Costly.
When traditional retailers mistakenly label an item the wrong price -- for instance, marking a $99 item $9.90 -- they might have to apologize to a customer and give a quick lesson in decimals to a clerk. On the Internet, they have to be prepared either to lose face or to part with a lot of money.
Information Week: Rule No. 1: Don't Annoy Your Customers.
Seasoned E-retailers know their approach to order fulfillment and delivery is critical for making their business a success. But reliable delivery is just the beginning: Online champs keep customers in the loop from the virtual shopping basket to a package's arrival at their door.
Information Week: The Leaders Of E-Business.
They are aggressive in linking customers, suppliers, business partners, and employees via the Internet, using Web sites to handle sales transactions and provide customer service; intranets and enterprise data portals to link employees and give them more access to data; and extranets to improve information flow to and from business partners.
Forbes: Santa Flaws.
PeopleSupport aims to expand the center from 300 reps to 1,500 in a year. Naysayers, however, see the human touch as merely a quick fix. "It treats the symptom rather than the disease," says Web consultant Jakob Nielsen, "and the disease is that the Web is still too damn hard to use."
Internet Week: Early Flaws Don't Doom Online Customer Service.
Meantime, customers will grow more comfortable with the online medium for inquiries, just as they have for transactions. How many of today's hard-core online shoppers swore a year or two ago that they'd never send a credit card number over the Web?
Interactive Week: Amazon.com Adopts Bubbly Shopping Companion.
[Brewster Kahle, founder and CEO of Alexa Internet] "Our challenge is to do a really good job, as you surf, to put shopping information at your fingertips," he said of the utility, which Alexa plans to release in the first quarter of 2000. "We're trying to shift control away from the merchants and give shoppers a forum for talking about products. These are talking bubbles - the Web speaking to you and other shoppers in a shoppers' forum..."
InfoWorld: Content adaptation protocol in the works.
The ICAP forum will tackle issues centered around forming a protocol that will allow enterprise companies, content providers, and internet service providers to conduct Web services, including targeted online advertising, content filtering, and data compression on Internet access devices.
Washington Post: Online Sales Heating Up Tax Debate.
States, which receive about half their revenue from sales taxes, attempted to force mail order companies to collect the levies. But courts consistently have ruled that businesses cannot be required to do so in states where they have no substantial "physical presence..."
Business Week: This Lawsuit Is Cranking Up the Volume over MP3.
But at the same time, there are powerful reasons to shield sites like Napster from liability. If Web sites are forced to police their users, then the cost of offering information on the Net will dramatically increase. That, in turn, could decrease the usefulness and financial viability of many types of search services.
SF Chronicle: Online News Syndicates Provide Missing Links.
[Douglas R. Stern, CEO of United Media] Stern said traditional syndicators like United Media are built around a finite client base of print publications, with exclusive contracts for columns and cartoons. But Stern said the explosion of Internet sites has created a demand for news that previously wouldn't fit into print, which has busted open the door for writers and artists who haven't been able to break through in print.
InfoWorld: Wireless standards support slipping.
However, companies supporting WAP are also supporting alternative technologies that are promising a single HTML development environment, rather than backing WML and HTML, eliminating the need for additional infrastructure, such as a WAP gateway...
PC World: Welcome to the WAP World.
WAP appears to have unlimited potential, with the WAP Forum already working on end-to-end security, smart card interfaces, connection-oriented transport protocols, persistent storage, billing interfaces, and push technology.
USA Today: Judges weigh site's financial disclosure plan.
The federal judicial system will decide as early as this week whether to allow its judges' personal finances to be published on the Internet. The online news service that wants to publish the information says that if the judges refuse, it will see them in court.
Business Week: Why Patents Are a Rising Currency in the Net Economy.
Emboldened by a decision by a federal appeals court endorsing business-method patents last year, entrepreneurs and companies are rushing to secure protections for their own methods -- from new ways of selling things over the Internet to the systems underpinning esoteric financial products.
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