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February 1, 2001
Forbes: A Net Uncertain.
This week, the world's leading figures in technology, business and politics are meeting at the Davos conference in Davos, Switzerland to discuss the future of the Internet. One question: How the hell would they know?
Discover: A Love Song For Napster.
Jaron Lanier. Whatever happens, the legal decisions surrounding Napster are important for reasons that transcend the music business and extend to our basic concepts of what it means to be free in a democracy. I believe the anti-Napster forces have failed to foresee dangerous implications of their course of action.
News.Com: Cyberlawyer: Don't blame the hackers.
Q&A with Jennifer Granick. We're going to do free speech vs. copyright type issues, open-access broadband issues. We may do some trade secrets litigation, where computer security people are sued or criminally prosecuted because they threatened to reveal information about a company's security vulnerabilities.
Inside: The Next Wave In Video Games: Getting Beyond 'Reptilian' Emotions.
But can video games be an art form? An educational tool? A driving force for technology? That's what several dozen game designers, academics and representatives from the interactive entertainment industry came to figure out Monday and Tuesday at the ''Entertainment in the Interactive Age'' conference...
CIO: Interview with John Barrows.
I've lost interest in developing tools like Prudence because they are being used in ways I don't like. There are companies that are installing software like this to spy on their own employees. There are parents who are using it to spy on their children...
Wired News: Will CNN Site Spoof Crash?
That's because the story about Warren Buffet was just a joke, as was CNNdn, "the financial crash network" -- a website take-off on CNNfn that Exley created earlier this year to project what a dot-com meltdown would look like. But, predictably, the honchos at CNN and its parent company, AOL Time Warner, were not amused.
Business 2.0: BountyQuest Awards $40,000.
In its efforts to reform the patent process by capitalizing on the Internet's reach, BountyQuest claimed its first successes Tuesday when it announced that four people had collected $10,000 bounties. Tuesday's winners submitted "prior art" to support challenges to patents.
Computerworld: Personalization trade group proposes privacy guidelines.
A consortium of vendors focused on technology for personalizing Web sites today issued a set of self-regulatory data privacy guidelines as part of a continuing effort by companies and trade groups in the IT industry to stave off regulatory intervention by the federal government and individual states.
February 2, 2001
Darwin: Final Frontiers.
First, can we declare the Web frontier settled and secured in 2001? And second, how can companies balance their sensible desire to integrate the Web group with the rest of the company, giving it concrete goals and holding it accountable, with the need to encourage continuous innovation?
Wired News: Yahoo Launches Paid Placements.
In another sign that online advertising revenue is tight, Yahoo quietly launched its first "pay-for-play" program this week. Yahoo's Sponsored Sites program allows sites to "enhance" their placement on the giant's directory pages for a fee.
Business 2.0: CNET Bans the Banner.
It may look like a traditional newspaper layout, with advertisements as the major visual element. But the new look of News.com is anything but traditional when it comes to the Web. News.com unveiled its new design and new ad strategy last week, after six months of planning, feedback, and retooling.
NY Times: Kafkaesque? Big Brother? Finding the Right Literary Metaphor for Net Privacy.
The battle of the metaphors is much more than a literary parlor game, said Solove in his article, "Privacy and Power: Computer Databases and Metaphors for Information Privacy." The way a problem is framed determines its solution, he suggested.
undesign.org: A Plan for All Seasons.
Unfortunately, the potential of the Web as it stands right now is being sorely underutilized, not just by the current scapegoat, dot-coms, but by creatives and designers as well. The opportunities to help realize its full potential, and in the process raising the bar on our personal work...
EE Times: Long road ahead for Internet appliances.
The infrastructure and compelling applications needed to make Internet appliances pervasive is still about three years away, according to three panelists speaking at DesignCon on Tuesday. But they debated the best path to IA ubiquity.
Darwin: Share... and Share Alike.
Now Xerox technicians are using knowledge management to share how they fix machines better and more naturally than most companies dream about. Call it an accident—a collision of the real world and the cerebral world that resulted in something thousands of Xerox employees use every day.
The Economist: Only fakirs need apply.
Rather like the network signal that begins to break up on a mobile telephone—“Hello, hello. Are you still there?”—the first signs are emerging of serious trouble in European telecoms companies’ huge gamble to launch third-generation wireless systems.
Computerworld: EBay to limit access to e-mail.
In a change in policy, the San Jose-based online auction company will allow contact with members only through eBay's computers, unless members are actively engaged in a transaction. The company said that spam was a major complaint among its members and that this step was one way to stop it.
February 3, 2001
Editor & Publisher: News Sites Experiment with Larger Ads.
When CNET introduced a new online ad unit last week, New York Times Digital wasted no time in endorsing the new format. The larger and more-interactive ads are being developed at a time when newspaper Web sites are scrambling to attract advertisers and find alternatives to the banner.
NY Post: New Yorker Online Edition Gets Go-Ahead.
Thanks to a sudden reprieve, The New Yorker is back on track to go live on the Web next month - a mere four or five years after most major weeklies made a similar trek into cyberspace. As rumors of a corporate showdown swirled, Conde Nast CEO Steve Florio yesterday reversed an edict handed down only two days ago...
Newsbytes: ICANN Board Member Rips At-Large Membership Study.
By delaying its internal election process for up to two years, the powerful Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is cheating rank-and-file Web users out of their right to have a voice in shaping Internet policy, ICANN Board Member Karl Auerbach said today.
Computerworld: ICANN faces hearing in Congress over domain selections.
The U.S. House Commerce Committee, citing concerns about the process that ICANN used last fall to select seven new top-level domains, today said it will hold a hearing to investigate whether the organization is thwarting competition by limiting the number of additional domains to the ones it chose.
ZDNN: Are we ready for a cyber-UL?
Bruce Schneier. Applying this sort of thinking to computer networks is a natural idea. And the newly formed Center for Internet Security plans to implement it. I'll talk about the general idea first and then the specifics. A moving target I don't believe that this is a good idea, certainly not now and possibly not ever.
February 4, 2001
Glenn Fleishman: Yaahoooooo--argh! Genuine People Personalities.
A couple days ago, they completed the branding switchover, so that it's now Yahoo! Groups. This kind of thing happens all the time in the dot com world. But with Yahoo's typical response to feedback, they've already made some large blunders.
The Register: FreeDrive renews reason for service switch off.
Effectively, Sandner is saying the company made all that stuff about software piracy and co-operation with the DoJ up. We can see why it might do so: pulling a service because it's proving too expensive to run is all very well and good, but it doesn't sound too good to inconvenienced subscribers.
Fortune: Without Metadata, Content Is Just Bits.
Stewart Alsop. I know this may sound obscure but, dear reader, I simply must tell you about metadata! Metadata presents the biggest challenge the tech industry faces in delivering the ubiquitous, ever present, networked future.
Washington Post: Counting Web Traffic.
Trying to measure who goes where on the Web remains more art than science in the Internet world these days. The top three ratings firms all have their own way of counting Web traffic, and as a result, all routinely report different numbers when they attempt to judge the popularity of Web sites.
February 5, 2001
Upside: Will super-sized ads protect CNET from slowdown?
When Jai Singh, editor in chief of CNET's News.com site, showed his reporters a prototype of the new oversized ad format he was introducing, they were more than a little shocked. "Their reaction was like anyone else's reaction: 'God, this is pretty big,'" said Singh.
Adweek: CNET Combats Banner Blight With New Ad Units.
After months of research and creative work, San Francisco-based CNET Networks today introduced three new online ad units designed to change the way marketers and users approach Internet advertising. Several blue-chip advertisers have already signed on for the ad program...
News.Com: Consumers combat pop-ups with software, tricks.
To combat this, Anderson and others are fighting back with software and self-styled tricks to keep pop-ups from their screens. Software including Pop-Up Stopper and Banner Catcher has emerged to help consumers fight the advertisements.
Useit.Com: Are Users Stupid?
Opponents of the usability movement claim that it focuses on stupid users and that most users can easily overcome complexity. In reality, even smart users prefer pursuing their own goals to navigating idiosyncratic designs. As Web use grows, the price of ignoring usability will only increase.
NY Times: A Cyberlab for Internet Behavior.
Vanderbilt is helping underwrite a new "eLab," a center proposed by Ms. Hoffman and Mr. Novak that will give researchers a chance to study the way people interact with Web sites as they surf. If it works, the eLab could be the first research tool to really get at what makes people tick online.
NY Times: A New Trick Gives Snoops Easy Access to E-Mail.
The maneuver does not take advantage of any security flaw in e-mail software. It is simply one feature of a fancier and increasingly common form of e-mail known as HTML mail, which enables users to send and receive e-mail messages that look and act like a Web page.
Interactive Week: Intel Protects High-Definition Video.
A little-known Intel invention called High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection - becoming widely adopted among consumer electronics makers and PC vendors - will make it virtually impossible to make unauthorized copies of high-definition video programming.
LA Times: A Virtual World Is Taking Shape in Research Labs.
The goal is to create realistic digital worlds where computer-generated avatars will become realistic stand-ins for actual people, surround-sound audio systems will emulate real-life noises and force-feedback technology will reveal the shape and texture of physical objects from across a computer network.
February 6, 2001
Adweek: The Peacock Portal.
But is that enough to keep them coming back? Neither his critics nor analysts are convinced that his portal is a peacock and not a turkey. For all its changes, NBCi's biggest battles are still ahead of it. Its image, its revenue stream, even its relevance are still in question.
Internet World: Deconstructing NBCi.com.
Peter Merholz and Jennifer Fleming. Fox focuses on its prime-time programs. Warner Brothers serves up entertainment. How can NBC differentiate itself in this crowd of network players? The plain-vanilla portal available at NBCi.com is not likely to be the winning strategy.
News.Com: Amazon debuts Honor System.
Dubbed the Amazon Honor System, the new payment method will allow Web sites to solicit small donations from visitors or charge for content on a pay-per-view basis. The system will tie into Amazon's one-click payment feature and Amazon's customer database...
Wired News: Is Amazon's Honor Plan Honorable.
The box will be delivered "on the fly" from Amazon's own servers. This means that, whether or not the donation box is clicked, Amazon will be able to detect when one of its customers visits an honor system site.
MSNBC: The coming digital patent disaster.
Charles C. Mann. The answer, some legal experts say, is that patents are being awarded to ideas so obvious — and so fundamental to the process of putting music, film and other content online — that patent-holders could hold the digital media world hostage.
Computerworld: The Interface Revolutionary.
Q&A with Jef Raskin. It's a human issue. I have yet to meet a computer user who is happy with the way computers treat them. And most of their pain is caused by bad interface design. That includes overcomplex software, nonexistent manuals and help systems that themselves need help.
ZDNN: A better way to type on your cell phone?
Gutowitz has unleashed a program he claims can accurately predict words as they are being typed on a cell phone keypad, even after just one digit is struck. He claims it cuts in half the number of keystrokes on those tiny keypads that big fingers have to push.
Financial Times: EU copyright compromise reached.
MEPs in the influential committee passed changes to the copyright rules that would tighten up restrictions on private copying of music and films, but voted against extending the current system of levies on CDs and videotapes to the Internet.
February 7, 2001
First Monday: Content is Not King.
Andrew Odlyzko. For the wired Internet, the secondary role of content will likely mean that the dangers of balkanization are smaller than is often feared. Further, symmetrical links to the house are likely to be in greater demand than is usually realized.
SJ Mercury: Big business and government stretch the boundaries of privacy yet again.
Dan Gillmor. Trusting businesses to protect privacy is always a risk, because personal data is a valuable commodity. That's why I'm hesitant to take at face value a new Amazon service that looks quite useful -- and which, at least for now, is sensitive to privacy concerns...
ZDNN: Amazon to charge publishers for promotions.
Amazon emphasizes that all of the book recommendations sent to its customers over e-mail are selected by teams of editors. But the new arrangement could give Amazon a financial incentive to select titles for which publishers are eager to cough up a large sum to be included in e-mail promotions.
News.Com: Battle lines harden over Net copyright.
Lehman helped author the laws that govern music, video and other digital media distribution when he ran the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in the mid-1990s. Now an international intellectual property lobbyist, he says he's stepping back into the digital fray, creating a pro-copyright coalition...
Wired News: Free E-Mail Gone Without a Trace.
Free mail? More like vapor mail for ZDNet U.K. and Australia users. Subscribers of those services got a rude awakening last week when they found their free e-mail was gone, along with any information or messages they'd saved in their folders.
News.Com: New MSN Messenger fuels rivalry against AOL.
Microsoft will get the interoperability ball rolling when it unveils MSN Messenger 4 in March or April, according to one source close to the company. The first phase of MSN Messenger will allow text exchanges between the Microsoft service and Yahoo Messenger...
USA Today: Firms use Web lurkers for customer service.
Every workday, the Lurker trolls the Internet. He dips into frequent-traveler electronic bulletin boards to check the postings about his employer, Starwood Hotels & Resorts. He ferrets out comments on any of the big hotel chains that operate under Starwood's corporate umbrella...
Forbes: Linking Like Minds.
There is no shortage of people willing to freely give their time to their favorite sites, and certainly, companies are quick to reap the benefits. Mindful of the legal pitfalls, executives are hiring consultants to show them new ways to involve volunteers online without incurring liability.
February 8, 2001
InfoWorld: New laws may be needed to end piracy, movie head says.
But as the industry develops encryption technologies to prevent unauthorized duplication and distribution of its movies online, those technologies may have to be legitimized by law, he said. "We may have to have some legislation to make sure the technology finds its roots," said Valenti...
Wired News: Follow Your E-Mail Everywhere.
Both scenarios are possible, thanks to services that track when and where e-mail messages are read without the recipient's knowledge. The technology has long been used by online marketers to determine who reads their spam; now it's available to consumers as well.
Editor & Publisher: E-mail Your Audience Anything They Want.
Steve Outing. What's not possible in print, and is not currently in practice from news Web sites, is making it possible for a news consumer to have any little bit of a news organization's content delivered. I'm talking about total, complete choice by the consumer of what he/she receives.
InfoWorld: The next generation of Web site interfaces.
Q&A with Nick Gould, CEO of Catalyst Group Design. As the medium matures, you're going to have fewer sites serving more people, as well as serving more user groups, and [the sites are] going to need to learn how to more effectively target their product offering to those groups based on what [the customers] really want and need.
Business Week: Is the Web the Only Place to Place Newspaper Ads?
Funded as a for-profit subsidiary by the Newspaper Association of America trade and research group, NICC aims to create a one-stop shop where media buyers can pay for and place ads anywhere in the nation. In turn, newspapers can receive payments and the necessary artwork from one source.
Red Herring: Smart technology trounces traders.
I engaged in a friendly battle of wits against IBM's intelligent agent technology to trade commodities. The result's weren't pretty. The object of the exercise was to test their intelligent agent's buying and selling powers against live humans.
W3C: Common User Agent Problems.
This document explains some common mistakes in user agents due to incorrect or incomplete implementation of specifications, and suggests remedies. It also suggests some "good behavior" where specifications themselves do not specify any particular behavior...
NY Times: Comparing Nasdaq and Tulips Unfair to Flowers.
Hal R. Varian. Was the Nasdaq bubble yet another example of tulipmania? The answer is no, but not for the reason you think. There is a good argument that the run-up in Dutch tulip prices in the 1630's was more or less rational. But there is no such excuse for the Nasdaq bubble of 1999...
February 9, 2001
Salon: The Napster parasites.
Peer-to-peer networks in which Net-connected individuals make the contents of their hard drives available to the general public are no longer being used just by music fans to swap illicit MP3s; they are also increasingly being used as a savvy promotional tool and a market research database...
Washington Post: Patently Ridiculous Claims.
Ian Jacobs, with the W3C's communications team, put it simply: "The Internet and the Web grew up and have been successful in part because a lot of the technologies have been royalty-free." Anybody and everybody can experiment on and improve the Web without hiring lawyers or paying licensing fees.
PC World: Three Minutes With Michael Dertouzos.
It's a call for a radical shift in the way that we design and use computers. It's aimed at normal people who could have a lot more if they asked for it. And it's aimed at normal designers who could do a lot more if they focused on human beings.
News.Com: Complaint site wins court victory.
Filing the lawsuit was the only way that Egghead could find out who was running Eggheadsucks, Stanton said. A lawsuit enabled the company to subpoena records from Eggheadsucks Internet Service Provider for information on its operators.
Boston Globe: A minor leap for the Internet.
The Brandeis faculty unanimously approved a minor in the nascent academic field, which weaves classes in computer science, law, economics, and other disciplines into an education of how Web-centric Americans work, play, and learn.
BBC News: Chinese webmaster on trial for 'subversion'.
A webmaster is to go on trial in China for subversion next week in the country's first-ever prosecution case of an internet content provider, court officials said on Friday. Huang Qi, 36, who published articles on human rights on his website, will be tried next Tuesday at an open court in Chengdu...
InfoWorld: German record industry takes on Web piracy.
Germany's record-manufacturing companies want to use sniffing and blocking technology to tackle illegal music downloads from the Internet. The system would be installed at key Internet junctions, blocking users in Germany from accessing such sites, whether domestic or foreign.
Editor & Publisher: Online News Association To Study Journalism.
Howard Finberg and Martha Stone will direct the study, which will develop principles and guidelines for online journalism. Those guidelines will focus on the proper relationships between editorial content, advertising, and e- commerce. The study will also examine ethical standards and hyperlinking.
February 10, 2001
Washington Post: Losers, Lawmakers Worked Up Over Internet Suffixes.
But at a congressional hearing yesterday, business leaders and others said the organization has evolved into one of the most influential business and public policy authorities in the new economy, and they asked that lawmakers reexamine its powers.
Accenture Outlook: The unfinished revolution.
Q&A with Michael Dertouzos. Meanwhile, no one's paying any attention to the huge shift we are seeing in collaborative activity and the proffering of human work at a distance. And this is how the growing information marketplace will have an enormous impact on the economy.
Upside: 'Unfinished' demands better technology.
Review of Michael Dertouzos' new book, The Unfinished Revolution. Dertouzos seems intent on inspiring those who can make these changes to get up and do so. It's a thinker's book. And that may turn off some potential readers who are looking for more solid solutions and examples.
AtNewYork: The Myths and Realities of Peer-to-Peer Networking.
Although helped by the wild popularity of consumer file-sharing programs such as Napster and Instant Messenger, P2P has different uses in the corporate world but is similarly ushering in social transformations of how people communicate and build networks.
EE Times: Prototype tips Sony's hand on organic EL displays.
"The final target of organic EL displays is a large-sized panel. Organic EL is a suitable format for the mid- to large-size displays necessary in the coming broadband era, and can possibly replace CRT TVs," said Suehiro Nakamura, president of Sony's Core Technology & Network Co.
February 11, 2001
Industry Standard Europe: Right idea at the right time.
And now Swatch's president, Nicolas Hayek Jr, is dreaming of another coup. "Swatch changed the habits of the watch industry," he says. "We can change people's Internet habits as well." Unfortunately for him, the company's track record outside the watch market is not encouraging.
Web Informant: How to make money with an online news web site.
Robin Miller, editor-in-chief of OSDN.com. The best way to make money with an online news site is to use a revenue model closer to those used by free alternative newspapers than to those used by large-circulation dailies. This is not a bad thing, since many small weekly papers produce excellent journalism.
Washington Post: Another Message Brought to You By America Adline.
For a sense of where the Internet is going after the dot-com bloodshed ends, look no further than America Online's welcome screen. The main point of the AOL-Time Warner mega-merger sank in for me earlier this week when I signed on to AOL for a long look at cyberspace through the company's souped-up marketing lens.
February 12, 2001
FEED Magazine: Disappearing Act.
Clay Shirky. This concentrates a huge amount of power in the hands of Michael Powell, the FCC's new chief. And if Powell goes through with even half of what he's been promising in his speeches, the FCC under his tenure will catalyze the greatest change in our media landscape since the Depression.
Salon: Napster: Hanging by a thread.
Napster is still alive -- but just barely. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the recording industry on virtually every point of law at issue: Napster users are infringing on recording industry copyrights, and a preliminary injunction shutting down Napster is not just "warranted, but required."
Mappa.Mundi Magazine: World Wide Wunderkammer.
In their new project, WonderWalker: A Global Online Wunderkammer, Walczak and Wattenberg apply this old metaphor to the Internet. The results are fascinating. WonderWalker is a visual map of icons. People create icons and lay those icons in a place that is appropriate on the map.
LA Times: Cyberspace Taking the 'Sneak' Out of Sneak Previews.
Knowles insists he hasn't been "co-opted" by these perks and he says his success has recently enabled him to begin paying his own way to premieres and filming locations. But many in Hollywood think his objectivity has been compromised.
NY Times: Chief Privacy Officers Forge Evolving Corporate Roles.
But those who have grown cynical watching business fads come and go — remember the vice president for total quality management or the chief knowledge officer? — can be forgiven for wondering whether the chief privacy officer is corporate America's executive flavor of the month.
Industry Standard: Just the Text, Ma'am.
So an impatient Wolff took it upon himself to do what Salon's staff couldn't seem to: make the site quick and easy to use. In less than an hour, the 35-year-old New York Web developer wrote a program that strips out Salon's tables, ads and graphics and leaves just the raw text.
Wired News: Google Buys Deja Archive.
Search Engine Google has acquired one of the Web's most venerated resources, Deja.com's Usenet Discussion Service, and plans to build a new service incorporating its search technology. The collection contains more than 500 million Usenet newsgroups messages dates back to 1995.
Interactive Week: ICANN Tethered.
But three years later - and six months after the U.S. aimed to cut loose its control of the group - the Department of Commerce maintains oversight of both ICANN and what was supposed to be its prize: the Internet's "A" root server, the database that makes up the Internet's domain name system.
February 13, 2001
SJ Mercury: Napster is just one battle in the war for control of digital content.
Dan Gillmor. While it's ostensibly only about traditional protections, it goes to the heart of what's permissible in the Digital Age. Once again, we discover that the owners of copyrighted material have essentially all the rights in their dealings with customers -- and that customers have essentially no rights.
Wired News: Windows XP Can Secure Music.
The Secure Audio Path adds "static" interference to media files that require video and audio cards to authenticate themselves with Windows software before they can be played. The company would be able to verify that a media player isn't playing an "unsecured" file...
Business Week: Digital Hollywood: No Resolution.
In complex negotiations over the past few months, the studios have been strong-arming the cable and satellite companies into decreasing the resolution of high-definition digital video and restricting consumers' right to record what's on TV.
Business 2.0: Peak Performance Pricing.
Clay Shirky. While common sense suggests using a "pay as you go" system, the average PC user actually pays for peak performance, not overall resources, and it is peak pricing that produces the excess resources that let Napster and its cousins piggyback for free.
Newsweek: Is It software? Or spyware?
Though it does perform a neat function—creating sometimes-useful links for words that aren’t already hooked up to related Web sites—its modus operandi is problematic, and only sketchily explained to users who install it from the NBCi portal.
MSNBC: Small start-up helps the CIA to mask its moves on the Web.
The technology is a clever piece of software called Triangle Boy that SafeWeb plans to post free this month on the Web. The CIA, through In-Q-Tel, is investing in a revved-up version of the software, which can bounce digital traffic around the Web anonymously...
eCompany: Parody Sites Prevail in Court.
Cybersquatting laws aside, our legal system veers toward the side of humor. Even the federal law against cybersquatting specifies that parody is a form of fair use that must be considered by a court as a mitigating factor for any defendant sued under the statute.
Lighthouse: Swimming against the stream.
Web video won't happen this way, not by 2005. In image quality, reliability and economics, streaming video lags far, far behind television. For the next few years, people betting on TV-style streaming video risk great disappointment and monetary loss.
Mediaweek: Online Publishers Tweak Model.
Subscribers to the popular Silicon Alley Daily e-mail newsletter recently received a curious pitch. In order to continue receiving the free daily update on media-industry news, the company said in a note last week, readers will have to accept one promotional e-mail a week from advertisers.
February 14, 2001
LA Times: Media Giant Serving Two Masters.
Because of its unprecedented size and scope, AOL Time Warner is in a unique position to use its databases to create detailed portraits of the private tastes and interests of consumers, using such data for marketing or selling it to others, privacy advocates fear.
Editor & Publisher: Yes, Interactivity Really Is Good for Your Site.
Steve Outing. New research offers some rationale for making your site more interactive. Studies of the psychological aspects of new media suggest that empowering online users can make them trust and feel better about content as presented in online media.
NY Times: Fighting Free Music, Europeans Take Aim at Personal Computers.
While American music producers pursue their marathon court battle against Napster, European composers and record companies are opening an entirely different front in the war against unauthorized copying: the personal computers that do the actual work.
Inside: Movies aren’t the real threat of DivX.
Tom Watson and Jason Chervokas. TV producers have gotten more savvy of late, offering up full-season packages of Sex and the City, The X-Files, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, on videotape and DVD. But with a simple $40 card for your PC and easy-to-use DivX software, you could capture TV files on your hard drive.
Online Journalism Review: Innovation or Irritant? News.com's Redesign.
The redesign of News.com, and the shockingly large ads that are part of it, may be the first real innovation in online publishing in a long, long time. Those ads, those huge, those enormous ads, are something new. For that, if for nothing else in this design, CNET should be commended.
Mappa.Mundi Magazine: The Netscan Project.
Even though Usenet lacks a single, central authority, its user communities have developed sophisticated social structures and mechanisms and Smith notes, Usenet is a place where cooperation should be hard, but cooperation happens there anyway and with an abundance and profusion that is remarkable.
The Register: Deja UI too costly to save, Google boss tells Reg.
Although the historical archive has been saved from the moribund Deja operation, one of the co-founders of the Internet discussion system added his voice to the criticism yesterday, telling that he thought the new style of user interface was inappropriate.
Business 2.0: Hold the Phone-and Read It.
To help users interact with the wireless Web, new interfaces such as speech, touch screens, and maybe even gesture recognition are in the works. The principle is simple: If phones are going to deliver the Web, they must be designed with that in mind.
February 15, 2001
Salon: Who's leeching who?
Scott Rosenberg. Music companies, the court has ruled, have the legal right to sit on their copyrights and demand that the world stop changing around them. But that won't win them any friends as they try to turn Napster devotees into paying consumers...
Dan Gillmor: P2P's Promise, and Peril.
In that world, every client -- that is, every PC and other device connected to the Net -- should also be a server. Lots of people are working on this, but a Menlo Park startup called KnowNow has figured out something that just might set off a new Net revolution.
Wired News: 'Napster' Networks Have No Peers.
Attendees chirped about a fundamental change in the organization of the Internet, away from today's broadcast-like network of servers, portals and browsers, toward an interactive PC-to-PC exchange, like Napster, instant messaging and distributed computing.
Wired News: Amazon Loses Patent Suit Round.
Amazon.com thought it had a leg up on the competition a couple of years ago when it patented its popular '1-Click' shopping system. But now, a federal appeals court is casting doubt on whether the patent is as broad as Amazon believed it to be.
Interactive Week: MS Brewing A 'HailStorm' To Battle AOL.
But privately, Microsoft is pushing equally hard, if not harder, to sell developers on an upcoming set of Web services building blocks code-named Hailstorm that could be used as part of a new offensive against America Online and its dominance in instant messaging.
SJ Mercury: Search results becoming more commercial.
But while GoTo may be the most blatant purveyor of pay-for-placement, search sites such as those at Yahoo, AOL, MSN, AltaVista, NBCi and even the librarians' beloved Google are increasingly including at least a few Web sites, often prominently featured, that paid to be there.
Inside: Time.com Closes a Message Board After Anti-Semitic Comments Are Posted.
The decision to pull the board down sparked a newsroom discussion over free speech on the boards. ''There are some people who think, 'To hell with it, let's take 'em down,' '' says Stengel. ''And there are some who feel this is a real First Amendment issue."
Media Guardian: EU follows British lead on music piracy.
In a vote that attracted ferocious lobbying from all sides, MEPs approved a copyright directive that will ensure European clones of Napster can be swiftly shut down through legal action. But they rejected calls from the music industry to outlaw reasonable private copying for personal use...
February 16, 2001
O'Reilly Network: P2P Smuggled In Under Cover of Darkness.
Clay Shirky. Just as workers took control of computing 20 years ago by smuggling PCs into businesses behind the backs of the people running the mainframes, workers are now taking control of networking by downloading P2P applications under the noses of the IT department.
Inside: Napster and Bertelsmann Finally Reveal Blueprint for New Version of File-Swapping Service.
Charles C. Mann. But the new Napster -- call it Napster II -- will use a proprietary form of digital-rights management to impose limitations on what members do with the files once they download them from other Napster members. The changes may occur as early as June...
Washington Post: Hill Takes Notice of Napster Legal Fray.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin G. Hatch said the music industry has failed to deliver a marketplace alternative to Napster... Hatch warned that some in Congress may attempt to remedy the situation by stripping the music industry of some of its Internet copyright privileges.
ZDNN: Domain database sale--marketers delight, privacy nightmare?
Since the dawn of commerce on the Web, companies that want their own dot-com addresses have registered with Network Solutions. Now Network Solutions is selling that information. "On your mark, get set, go!" gushes a recent advertisement in a newsletter for direct marketers.
Internet World: Should Whois Be Public?
The domain business is unique in that a customer list with personally identifiable information is required to be posted for all to see. Register a domain name, and your contact information will be accessible to the world in the form of a searchable Whois database.
Online Journalism Review: The New Yorker's Sad Arrival On the Web.
Expectations of NewYorker.com arriving in the distant future - best illustrated by parody sites at Feed and Modern Humorist - have been ruined by this week's untimely arrival of the official Condé Nast NewYorker.com. In keeping with the failure standards of Web publishing, it is a disappointment.
FEED Magazine: Stories on a Rail.
Steven Johnson. Games have complexified tremendously in recent years: You didn't need twenty pages to explain the PacMan system, but two hundred pages barely does justice to an expanding universe like Myth II or Ultima. But that complexity can also be crushingly annoying.
TechWeb: Web Developers: Upgrade Or Get Left Behind.
A coalition of developers issued a call on Friday for Internet users to upgrade their browsers if they want to make the most of the Web. WaSP does not promote one browser over another, just the latest upgrade to any browser that supports standards.
digitalMASS: Monster.com starts online ads that roam the screen.
In a claimed first, Maynard-based Monster.com has unveiled a new form of online advertising called 'Shoshkeles.' Developed by United Virtualities, a New York-based software company, a 'Shoshkele' roams around around the screen inviting users to click.
February 17, 2001
Interactive Week: Lessig: 'We're Losing the Idea War'.
Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig strongly criticized the ruling against Napster that the U.S. Court of Appeals of the 9th Circuit issued earlier this week, saying that policymakers should let technological innovation proceed before codifying the laws of cyberspace.
Internet Week: E-Retailer's Personal Touch.
REI's 35 Web developers will spend the better part of this year deploying software that gives customers more personalized views of products based on their tastes, a move the company is hoping will translate to more online sales. The retailer is no stranger to adopting new technologies.
Darwin: E-Business as Usual.
Customers want to shop wherever and whenever they want, so companies need to be able to meet customers' needs in any sales channel—in REI's case, that means stores, catalogs and websites—and make it easy for patrons to move seamlessly among channels.
MIT Technology Review: Digital Renaissance: The Director Next Door.
Now, the introduction of cheap and lightweight digital video cameras, PC-based digital editing software, and streaming-video distribution on the Web puts the resources of filmmaking in the hands of an equally broad range of citizens and thus expands the potential for grassroots creativity.
Industry Standard: China, the Net and Free Speech.
Qi's prosecution is the latest and highest-profile attempt by the Chinese government to control the Internet. In 1999, the government convicted Lin Hai, a computer company owner in Shanghai, after he provided e-mail addresses to a pro-democracy group.
Business 2.0: AltaVista Fights Better Business Bureau.
The thorny issue of kids privacy has put search engine AltaVista at odds with the BBB. A press release from a unit of the BBB, released yesterday, implied AltaVista was closing some community services as a result of a BBB probe into kids privacy. Today, both sides say that's simply not true.
February 18, 2001
Crypto-Gram: Hard-Drive-Embedded Copy Protection.
Bruce Schneier. So, what do we have here? We have a serious threat to civil liberties: large entertainment companies are allying themselves with the computer industry to dictate what can and can't happen on your hard drive.
Useit.Com: Success Rate: The Simplest Usability Metric.
In addition to being expensive, collecting usability metrics interferes with the goal of gathering qualitative insights to drive design decisions. As a compromise, you can measure users' ability to complete tasks. Success rates are easy to understand and represent usability's bottom line.
Business 2.0: Metricom on the Ropes.
The Ricochet service is currently available in 15 markets nationwide, with construction under way in an additional 31 markets. By the end of 2000, the company had signed up only about 12,000 new subscribers--falling far short of analyst expectations.
Lighthouse: Online economics 2001: Davids win, Goliaths lose.
Daniel Rutter. The clincher, the simple point, the open secret that nobody in a major media organisation with a Web arm - which is all of them - ever mentions, is that sites with a very small staff and none of the big-company overheads can compete very effectively with a large number of the major-leaguers.
February 19, 2001
NY Times: Online Companies' Customer Service Is Hardly a Priority.
But they are also motivated by the bottom line: providing phone support is expensive, so Internet companies under mounting pressure to achieve profitability are adopting more economical automated systems. Critics say customers may be the losers.
MIT Technology Review: Owning the Future: IP's Bleak House.
Have you ever read Bleak House, the Dickens classic in which lawyers fight incessantly over a disputed inheritance until they gobble it all up in legal fees? With the U.S. Patent Office now handing out a staggering number of patents on various methods of doing business it looks like we're in for a modern-day remake.
DaveNet: Internet 3.0.
Internet 3.0 will realize the groupware vision of the late 80s which was really Doug Engelbart's vision of the 60s and 70s. Shared writing spaces with good boundaries. Structures that link to each other but are capable of managing greater complexity than the page-oriented metaphor of the Web.
Context Magazine: Sense and Censor-Ability.
John Perry Barlow. It’s still true that cyberspace exists as a data cloud through which any packet may travel by multiple, unfiltered routes to any destination. But, increasingly, those routes are being channeled and filtered, while message origins and destinations are being monitored and placed under legal constraint.
Strange Connections: Software for Information Architects.
Peter Morville. And of course, the vendors and their products are multiplying, merging, and mutating at a terrific pace. Given this fluid, ambiguous context, here is an early attempt to define just a few of the product categories that information architects will need to work with in the coming years.
Lighthouse: Content management systems: short-lived satisfaction.
Just five years ago, it was almost impossible to waste a million dollars building a Web site. But modern, twenty-first century Internet technology means that any medium-sized organisation with Web ambitions can now pour a seven-digit sum of money straight down the hole almost instantly.
USA Today: Software turns Web into easy-to-use data map.
"Why should we organize it as pages? There's no reason," said associate director Alberto Canas. "It's just that we're used to it." Canas heads a team that took a learning tool called concept mapping, developed with paper and pencil in the 1970s, and turned it into a pageless method of browsing Web sites.
MSNBC: Microsoft invades the airwaves.
Stinger will be 30 percent smaller than an average phone in Europe or the United States; will weigh less than 100 grams; have a color or gray-scale display (up to 208 by 240 pixels); and provide up to 100 hours of standby time with the screen and personal information management functions running...
February 20, 2001
Wired News: PGP Creator Bolts to Hush.
Phil Zimmermann will become the chief cryptographer for Web-based e-mail company Hush Communications. Citing differences with Network Associates Zimmermann said he left the company so he could devote his time to making the open standard called OpenPGP more accepted in the industry.
NY Times: The Key Vanishes: Scientist Outlines Unbreakable Code.
But with Dr. Rabin's system, the message stays secret forever because the code uses a stream of random numbers that are plugged into the key for encoding and decoding. The numbers are never stored in a computer's memory, so they essentially vanish as the message is being encrypted and decrypted.
Industry Standard: Napster Offers Settlement with Record Companies.
Napster, the wildly popular online song swap service, on Tuesday offered $1 billion in licensing fees over five years to settle its legal battle with the U.S. recording industry which wants it shut down and establish a workable business model of its own.
Business Week: Hype Addiction: It's One Tough Habit to Kick.
"Why don't you write something positive? Why don't you write about something good happening?" These are the kinds of questions that I've been getting recently, not only from public-relations people but also from company executives I speak with for stories.
Internet World: The Pretend Privacy Watchdog.
What does warrant attention is that eBay came to this decision in concert with TRUSTe, a so-called privacy advocate that sells quality assurance seals and advice on privacy policies to hundreds of Web sites. So, how could any privacy advocate look over this proposed change and give it a clean bill of health.
Inside: Source Philosophy Lies at the Heart of Media Businesses.
Jason Chervokas and Tom Watson. Just because the law ignores reality doesn't mean reality is going to change, and as a result media business will continue to be under assault from new technologies until we develop some consensus based not on stop-gap approaches to specific technologies, but basic principles.
Industry Standard: The Lonely Crowd.
Of course, as media distribution migrates to the digital world, companies will want to charge for something. So the question remains: If distributing conventional media online doesn't work, what will? How do you create successful media products for a hypernetworked audience?
Editor & Publisher: Feds Mull Court-Record Access In Cyberspace.
During last year's presidential vote recount battle, Florida courts quickly posted lawyers' filings and counterfilings on the Internet. For journalists craving access to the historic arguments, the rapid-fire Web postings showed a promising face to the brave new world of electronic court documents.
February 21, 2001
Inside: Henry Yuen's Master Plan to Rule the Publishing World.
So big, in fact, that Gemstar has stirred up major anxiety among competitors and e-book enthusiasts. One former associate calls Yuen ''a world-class control freak'' whose aggressive pursuit and protection of patents is turning a previously wide-open market of innovators into a risk-averse legal minefield.
MSDN Online: The Role of Flow in Web Design.
In a more abstract and functional definition than Mihaly's, I think of flow in a design as the movement of a person from their desire to their satisfaction, in as natural and easy a way as possible. A good developer, designer, or creator of anything strives to allow users to experience this kind of flow.
Editor & Publisher: Web Advertisers Seek Balance While Walking A Tightrope.
Steve Outing. In recent weeks, it's been one headline after another about failing and faltering Web content and news sites. As a result, those who wish to survive are urgently experimenting with new ways to make money online. But judging by some of these efforts, Web publishers are stepping into dangerous territory.
EE Times: Race heats up for high-resolution LCDs.
Amorphous-silicon LCDs have pushed beyond the 100 color pixel/inch density of the typical CRT and, in a few cases, crashed through the 200-pixel/inch frontier, a level at which observers say the display approximates the quality of print and begins to approach that of photographic film.
Business Week: AOL Time Warner: Newsstand or Publisher?
It has thus moved the debate over the Web's journalistic ethics from the realm of the theoretical to the intensely practical. The issue is: Whose standards should prevail -- those of AOL Time Warner the publisher or those of AOL Time Warner the newsstand aggregator?
MSNBC: Police crack down on Net fraud ring.
Two suspects in Brooklyn have already been arrested and a flurry of additional arrests are expected soon, according to documents MSNBC.com has obtained. The scam started with a fake PayPal.com Web site designed to trick potential victims into revealing their account information to the suspects.
Industry Standard: Sony Pitches Its Broadband Plans for PlayStation.
Sony Computer Entertainment delivered its "don't worry, buy PlayStation" message Wednesday by firing off three announcements with three of the hottest buzzwords of the new economy: broadband, wireless and online copy management.
February 22, 2001
LA Times: Anti-Piracy Laws Rob Consumers of Rights.
This is a disaster waiting to happen. In its attempt to eradicate piracy, the government is making it impossible for consumers to engage in lawful behavior. It's like arguing that automobiles should be banned because bank robbers use them for getaways.
Industry Standard: Don't Read Aloud This Version of Alice in Wonderland.
However, the inspired nonsense in this tale did not spring from the mind of Lewis Carroll. Instead, it arose either from the greed and reflexive possessiveness of e-book publishers or, more likely, from the confusion and metaphoric excesses of an esteemed cyberlaw professor: Lawrence Lessig.
FEED Magazine: Gift for the Gab.
Clay Shirky. As anyone who has asked Jeeves knows, computerized grasp of human language is a long way off, and attempts to design a simple language for predator agents has similarly failed. Giles and Jim follwed a much more radical approach: They allowed the agents to evolve their own language.
LA Times: Giving Consumers What They Want Before They Know They Want It.
Several times each week for the last eight months, RealNetworks has left a little gift on some of its customers' computers. The songs go to users of RealJukebox who signed up for its automatic music delivery service, RealNetworks' experiment with "push" technology.
hypergene: Amazoning The News.
Where are the stories that are being told in a new way appropriate to this medium? In my opinion, the stories that are done in the best, the most web-specific way, are not on the New York Times site or Salon or Washingtonpost.com. The best job of story telling is being done by ... Amazon.
MSNBC: The secret selling of ‘Whois’.
It’s tough to keep a secret in Washington, but that’s exactly what the folks at VeriSign did, until now. Their dirty little secret is blown: For about a year they’ve been selling the personal information attached to Internet domain names to anyone with a checkbook and a hankering to exploit this lucrative data mine.
NY Times: The Web, Without Wires, Wherever.
With a laptop computer equipped with a wireless card, anyone within a few hundred feet or so of one of these access points, or hot spots, can tap into a wireless network that is in turn connected to the Internet via a broadband connection.
ZDNN: Lasers beat bandwidth bottleneck.
Until recently the technology has been relegated to white board theories, research and development labs and trial projects. Now start-ups Terabeam and FSONA Communications are set to announce for the first time the commercial availability of their products and services within the next week.
February 23, 2001
The Register: IBM withdraws CPRM for hard drives proposal.
It had been thought that this amended CPRM proposal, made public on January 22, would be passed. Changes included limiting its use to removable media, and references to CPRM were deleted. In the event, IBM withdrew the proposal and no vote was taken.
Interactive Week: IBM Backs Off Digital Tagging Plan.
The coalition instead adopted a plan proposed by an engineer at laptop technology maker Phoenix Technologies. The adopted plan calls for a general-purpose technology that could be used in ways other than copy protection...
NY Times: Hype and Anti-Hype.
The Gartner Group consultants have developed a useful concept to describe the hype around new technologies, which they call the "hype cycle." As a new technology is triggered, the hype curve soars upward until it reaches a peak of inflated expectations. Then it sinks almost straight down into a trough of disillusionment.
Salon: Losing faith in PayPal.
And while PayPal's usership numbers seem to prove that there's a demand for such a service, the lack of bank-backed support could threaten to injure the very consumers who have made it popular. PayPal thrives in what many consider a dangerous form of legal limbo.
Boston Globe: Palm chief calls '3g' systems costly, 'overhyped'.
Instead of pouring money into 3G systems, Yankowski said upgrades of existing 14-kilobit wireless data systems to 250 kilobits would be ample to provide improved e-mail and Web-surfing, at a sensible cost for phone companies and on devices consumers already own.
BBC News: Mobile firms face 3G delays.
Some fear that the slow pace of change, driven by either the wariness of customers or a spending squeeze, could hold Europe back. The basic technology that underpins the future high-speed data services is already in use in other parts of the world.
NY Times: Legal Expert Sees Napster Competitors Thriving.
The Napster decision "validates Gnutella," said Jeffrey S. Rothstein, a partner in the Chicago office of Sidley & Austin and a member of the law firm's technology and e-commerce practice group. "The appeals court laid down a rationale that can be used to defend a decentralized file-swapping system..."
American Journalism Review: Can Salon Make It?
Salon's odyssey--from struggling newborn to struggling 5-year-old--raises a fundamental question: Can the Internet support a purely journalistic enterprise? So far, the answer appears to be no, or at least, not yet.
February 24, 2001
Advertising Age: Advertorial seeps into search sites.
A few years ago, the idea of tainting search results with paid listings set off an industry fury. But in today's economic climate, what once was unthinkable by the most successful search engines is now being accepted as status quo and a means to eking out desperately needed online ad revenue.
Wired News: Concern About New Web Monitors.
CyberScan, CyberAlert and eWatch are among the companies that comb the Web to report what's being said about their clients in all the public and not-so-public corners of the Internet -- from online news outlets to Usenet groups, Web logs and e-mail listservs.
Internet Week: The Newest DSL: Faster And Further.
The G.991.2 standard defines single-pair high-bit-rate DSL as DSL technology that lets carriers use existing copper wiring to provide symmetric data transmission rates ranging from 192 Kbps at 6,000 feet to 2.3 Mbps at 20,000 feet.
The Register: Web Communities Don't Bring in the $$$.
are a lot of unreasonable people in the world, but they get a lot more unreasonable when they write messages online. In fact, I'd say most people lose inhibitions when writing online, but it's the biggest jerks among us who end up dominating the discussion and controlling the agenda.
CIO: Channel Crossing.
Instead of excluding dealers, Polaroid embraced them. Last June, the company launched PolaroidWork.com, a site for commercial customers that delivers information and demonstrations on products such as film, cameras and digital imaging equipment.
ZDNet E-Business: Fulfillment best practices.
You don't want to lose any shopper who's come this far. Information about shipping, returns, and ordering deadlines needs to be clear. Otherwise, shoppers may lose confidence in the transaction and hit the "cancel order" button.
February 25, 2001
Internet Week: Airlines Stuck At The Gate.
Dated IT systems and a lack of carrier cooperation are preventing airlines from effectively using the Internet to alert customers to flight delays--and it could take the airlines three years and hundreds of millions of dollars to fix the problem.
Financial Times: VeriSign's new domains make room for Ø, ü and ñ.
Initially the new service will only allow VeriSign customers to buy domain names and register them on its global registry. The names will be added to the company's testbed, where the process for encoding multilingual characters will be trialled, before the names go live in two to three months' time.
Web Review: Editorial Response to WaSP's Upgrade Your Browser Initiative.
We don't really need to upgrade our browsers to be writing documents that conform to certain W3C recommendations. Even if some people prefer not to use CSS positioning, and even if some want to hang on to the font tag—you can still do it all and be in adherence with the recommendations.
February 26, 2001
NY Times: Investors Finally Consider Internet Companies' Shaky Math.
Every day, it seems, another couple of Internet companies fail. So it is perhaps not surprising that corporate credit managers are scrutinizing the financial standing of Web companies much more closely and demanding more security from them before handing over merchandise on credit.
- Industry Standard: From February 28, 2000; Debt Wish
Interactive Week: Back To The Drawing Board.
Computing devices are getting more complicated, not less, as they become more powerful. The World Wide Web has unleashed millions of "interfaces" on unsuspecting users, most created by people with no knowledge of, or training in, usability.
Interactive Week: The Hidden Cost Of P2P.
But observers predicted the rise of P2P could also mean the rise of Internet service provider access fees. Why? Because P2P programs have the potential to radically change the amount of bandwidth the average Internet user consumes.
Internet Week: Web Customer Service Isn't A Cost-Cutting Proposition.
The Web has been muchmaligned for replacing attentive customer service with impersonal, sometimes tortuous "self-help." God may help those who help themselves, but God help the call center rep who must handle the frustrated customer who's been thwarted by a labyrinth of service links.
News.Com: An e-commerce lament: Service still stinks!
Poor service is clearly not unique to online companies, but there seems to be a preponderance of incompetence on the transaction side of e-tailing. In fact, things are so bad that an online purchase is often more notable when nothing goes wrong.
NY Times: New Alternatives to Banner Ads.
That is one reason Cnet's new ad format brought a spate of me-too responses from publishers like Snowball.com and The New York Times on the Web — as well as the first serious discussions within the Internet Advertising Bureau about new standards for ad sizes.
The Economist: Banner-ad blues.
Thousands of dotcoms saw it as a substitute for a business plan, a blithe answer to the question of how to make money from the traffic on free websites. It has polluted the top of millions of web viewers’ screens, making an inch of valuable property a no-go zone of garish clutter.
SJ Mercury: CueCat scanner is not catching on with consumers as quickly as predicted.
A little over four months later, that initial pace has slowed considerably. The service has more than twice as many registered users since October, 1.3 million, but those users scan less than a fifth the number of bar-codes each month as in the beginning -- just over 900,000.
February 27, 2001
Internet World: First-Mover Advantage Is Overrated.
Jakob Nielsen. Most of the successful Internet companies were not anywhere near the first to market. There probably is some first-mover advantage, but it has been much overrated and used as a poor excuse for foisting poor-quality services on the public.
USA Today: Virus researchers: Internet needs immune system.
But contrary to the long-held notion that biological models can be used to predict how cyberviruses proliferate, two European physicists have found that they actually spread differently — a finding that could lead to better and faster ways to protect against this PC threat.
Industry Standard: BlueLight Special.
The company's original Web site barely made an impression on e-commerce watchers – or customers – after its debut in 1995. Rather than renovate the struggling Kmart.com, however, the company started fresh late in 1999, designing and building a new site from scratch...
ClickZ: Bizarro Web Revisited.
Well, today I propose a similar mental exercise. Let's take another trip through the looking glass. Only this time when we ask, "What if Webvertising came without there ever being mention of a click-through?" the scenario is much more disturbing.
Wired News: Chat Room Rants Protected.
A Los Angeles judge dismissed a lawsuit last Friday that sought to collect damages from "John Does" who criticized the company anonymously on Internet message boards. Privacy advocates say the decision sets an important precedent in the fight to protect anonymous speech online.
Internet Week: Dotcom Fire Sales: IT Buyers Beware.
Computers, applications, databases and Web content designed for one company's infrastructure don't always fit another's. And some buyers have found it nearly impossible to get precise quantities, configurations, conditions and other specs on IT assets from defunct companies.
Wired News: Courts Face Privacy Conundrum.
Courts' ability to post records available online promises to make it more difficult to keep documents in obscurity. Over the course of the year, the U.S. federal court system plans to develop a new set of rules governing how case filings are disseminated online.
Computerworld: Domain-name registration gets 64 more languages.
The 64 new languages are being added to a multilingual domain names test-bed program being organized by the IETF and other standards bodies that are working to develop global standards for registering domain names in many languages to help promote the use of the Internet around the world.
February 28, 2001
Editor & Publisher: Can News Content Save e-Books?
Steve Outing. Let me start by saying that there are some serious problems with the current state of the e-book/e-reader industry. Foremost is the industry's near-exclusive focus on books — and consumer titles at that — as the content to be consumed on these devices.
NY Times: Revving Up the Search Engines to Keep the E-Aisles Clear.
More than two-thirds of online retail sites tested last spring by Forrester Research failed to list the most relevant content in the first page of search results. No wonder sites have suffered from an inability to convert browsers into buyers. Customers are literally being driven away by weak search technology.
Interactive Week: Net Copyright Decision Causes Stir.
A recent appeals court decision in a Maryland copyright law case has Internet companies expressing concern, and even outrage. To what extent are Internet portal sites and service providers responsible for policing their networks for copyright infringement?
Context Magazine: Location, Location, Location.
Despite all the new choices, long-established settlement patterns and social arrangements will continue to be remarkably resistant to change; when they change, they do so slowly, messily, and incompletely. Human nature hardly alters at all.
PC World: Coming Soon: Paperlike Displays for Your PDA.
Royal Philips Electronics, Europe's largest maker of consumer electronics, said on Tuesday its Philips Components division and private electronic ink technology firm, E Ink, will jointly develop visual display technology for handheld devices to make text and images appear as if they are on white paper.
Business 2.0: To Bot or Not to Bot?
Although Andrew no longer greets visitors to Artificial Life, the fact that a robot software maker itself has trouble configuring bots for its site underscores the difficulty in choosing, implementing, and maintaining these Web-based "virtual assistants."
Argus ACIA: An Interview with Christina Wodtke.
Lots of clients assume this methodology will be slow and expensive, or lacks business sense. The second concern is pretty easy to dispel. We don't practice User-Driven IA because we are philanthropists: we do it because a happy customer is a loyal customer.
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