COMMENTARY
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COMMENTARY
Nuclear Delete of Archives
RE-BARF!
Start UP!?
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COMMENTARY
COMMENTARY
RE-BARF!
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cyberbarf
EXAMINE THE NET WAY OF LIFE
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by Paul C. Pinderski
In no particular order, some random thoughts:
When the national media business magazines begin to preach about the problems of the internet way of life, you know that the baby has grown up and the bathwater has evaporated. It is so crystal clear in hindsight that people drawing business plans on napkins for millions in venture capital financing were immature spin doctors playing with monopoly money. The mature industries did not understand the child who was making more money than them without showing a profit; so the old overbuilt and overspent other people's money. If only a few go out to the woodshed to pay for these ills, the shed should be the size of Rhode Island.
Regulators want high definition television to be mandatory by 2006. This is government pushing a technology on the public that it appears slow to adapt. It is regulation over market reality. A clear digital signal is a nice goal, but stations and networks are balking at the cost, production woes and customer demand. Twenty years ago cable was found mostly in rural America because they could not get a clear signal from the metro stations. The current cable signal and channel selection is enough for most Americans now. Digital sat service is the premium blend for the technophiles. But there is no ground swell for change. So why push us into a new medium against the collective will (can you say beta?)
What do you want to be? A PORTAL, a jumping off point to other sites? Or a PORTEL, an ISP, telco, message, email, and electronic content site? Or a PORTALET, both?
I can click close those pop-up ad windows faster than the image can download inside them.
De-regulation of the telecommunications industry after the break-up of AT&T has created an explosive overcapacity rush of fiber optic and cable space, like the old railroad rush in the late 19th Century. Like past rushes, most railroads went bankrupt after the bubble burst. Now the modern telecommunication companies are scrambling for customers, dying with unused network capacity, and billions in near defaulting debt loads. The only logical solution is consolidation by the strong players and the deathknell of the weak. Consolidation back to the Old Ma Bell? Talk about your bizarre "round trip" transaction.
The record industry is still fighting with the post-Napster sites and radio stations on the question of Internet royalties, the whole concept of the internet music stations is dying on the regulatory vine. But the most important copyright case of this decade will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court this term, when it decides whether Congress can forever extend the duration copyrights by subsequent legislation.
I get enough junk email already. So when news sites are now requiring “free” registration for access, I decline. Nothing is free. The company is data mining. Who is kidding who? An office worker buys something on line, and months later the junk emails or catalogue e-ads pile up in the email box. California now has a law that prohibits junk faxes and junk emails. Politicians hear the moans of the people, but this is another unenforceable political move in an election year. The next great software wave will be the junk email filter.
Nuclear Delete of Archives
by Paul C. Pinderski
As I mentioned in last month's cyberbarf, the news media is on life-support with their web sites. Generally, the news is stale or directly from the wire services. Some sites are trying to go paid subscription like the Wall Street Journal, not realizing that the WSJ site is value added to a current subscription, giving its readership advanced archive search tools for business research. Those who keep their archives open for searches perform a valuable service to its readers.
But when Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene suddenly resigned over an inappropriate relationship with a high school student, all of Greene's columns were deleted from the Tribune web site. Then a search of other news organizations who carried his column, it was found that the syndicate had nuked Greene's entire archive. Within a day, Greene's presence on the web, his current and past columns, were nuked from existence. It was like he never wrote or published a word. He became a very famous non-person.
The Tribune store on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago took all of Greene's books from the shelves. Total disassociation was apparent.
Some pay or subscription news and clipping services still had Greene's columns on file. So I did get to read the alleged 1988 column that came back to haunt him.
The power to distribute content is the greatest asset of the world wide web. But this example of purging a career of columns in a flash is the greatest magical eraser of history. Years of archival material gone within a few key strokes.
It shows that the musty old public libraries, with their microfilm drawers, will still have place in the archival history of our society.
GET THE T-SHIRT OR THE NEW HAT!
comments? suggestions?
write to us at
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Start UP!?
by Paul C. Pinderski
Like the Real World without a camera or a cable channel:
This is what the news media will protray the go-go 90s. Dot.com excess to dot.com disaster: tales of idiot CEOs, golddigger bankers, toxic business plans, financial fraud, and just plain stupidity. Domain name registrations in the U.S. have leveled off, and now falling. Word has it that half the domain names are for sale. The internet outpost land grab may be over, at least as the Big Fish spawn in the www pond. So what do I do? I continue to forge ahead with three web sites. I am getting to the point of hitting a technical wall now and then; FTP uploading problems have cropped up like west nile virus at a nursing home on one site. But normal work, the real world, has put tackling that problem for the next weakends to correct or curse. Call it growing pains.
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