January 10, 2000
Salon: AOL and Time Warner's marriage of insecurity.
Scott Rosenberg. Time Warner, the ungainly media conglomerate, needed a credible way to salvage its Internet strategy after a decade of failure in the digital realm -- from the colossal flop of its "Full Service Network" interactive television experiment to the spectacular flameout of its misconceived Pathfinder Web portal.
Industry Standard: Time Warner, AOL to Merge.
[Steve Case, Chairman and CEO of AOL] "We are looking forward to being on the cable platform, and we expect to have many competitors on the cable platform." He predicted that both AT&T and Time Warner, the nation's largest and second largest cable companies, respectively, would commit themselves to open access.
News.Com: AOL grabs Net names before merger.
AOL registered at least 21 domain names that might be useful to the new company, which will be named AOL Time Warner. The sites the company registered Sunday ranged from AOLTW.com to AmericaOnlineTimeWarner.com.
ClickZ: It's Their Network, Not Yours.
The bad news is that it's not your network. Not yours to own. Not yours to mine. Not yours to control, sell, swap or manipulate. This comes as something of a shock to offline marketers who are used to owning, mining and thoroughly controlling customer lists and databases.
Interactive Week: The Everywhere Web.
The Internet is spreading like wildfire into the lives of individuals and businesses around the globe. Twenty-five years into the new millennium, it likely will be part of the landscape, a tool people take for granted, like today’s telephone networks or highway systems.
Forbes: Stuck in the slow lane.
In the near term, manufacturers can't do much about that thanks to government regulation, so instead the nation's number one and two car makers are trying to build direct relationships with existing consumers.
AIGA: Advance for Design.
The objective of this 'Advance for Design' is to establish a new community of design practitioners who are challenged to design for a world that is increasingly digital and connected.
Computerworld: Wireless Web access will be vital.
Technology exists now that can automatically convert HTML pages into information that can be viewed from a cellular phone. But most experts agree that this isn't a promising approach. Wireless users expect a different experience: no scrolling, easy click-through and a high degree of personalization.
Internet Week: Avoid The Pitfalls Of Going From Bricks To Clicks.
A recent KPMG report says many attempts by traditional companies to integrate the Web into their core business suffer from a lack of strategic vision, planning, and the IT talent and infrastructure required to execute the effort.
NY Times: Government Figures Will Shed Little Light on Holiday Online Sales.
An entire industry has developed around the Internet sales forecasting arena, with firms like Forrester Research, Jupiter Communications and others vying for statistical pre-eminence. But the inconsistency of those numbers is what rankles executives and policy makers.
News.Com: Wal-Mart's Net spin-off to provide tax relief.
"As a separate stand alone company, Wal-Mart.com will not collect sales taxes except where it will have a physical presence which is in California, Arkansas, and Utah," Wal-Mart spokesman Les Copeland said.
Industry Standard: Europe's Killer App: Financial News.
The latest move comes courtesy of two Financial Times reporters, who have resigned to launch a site called Breakingviews.com. The move only adds to the pressure on their former employer, which is struggling to relaunch its own site.
SJ Mercury: DVD suit detours new legal ground.
As often happens in heated court fights, the presiding judge in the DVD case may not have to deal with some of the larger constitutional and legal principles at stake, according to legal experts, who for the most part are puzzled by the industry's tactics.
Red Herring: Online music distributors blast Realnetworks deal.
Liquid Audio and other digital distribution systems were vocal about their unhappiness with the Realnetworks/ Universal deal. Not only does it mean missed revenue for them, it keeps the recording industry's solutions fragmented, they say.
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