Friday, March 29, 2024

GOODIES TO GO! ™
November 1, 1999 — Newsletter #52

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GOODIES TO GO! ™
November 1, 1999 — Newsletter #52
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Please visit http://www.htmlgoodies.com
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Greetings, Weekend Silicon Warriors,


Remember the newsletter about Wendy’s suing over the use of
their name in domains? I wrote that sooner or later someone
would inadvertently create a name that infringes. Well,
it’s happened… maybe.


Morgan Stanley Dean Witter is suing a 17-year-old kid who
owns msdwonline.com, claiming the name infringes on their
title. The young man created the domain to represent Mud
Sweat’s Downhill World Online for a mountain bike shop.


It’s not all cut-and-dried though. The msdwonline site did
look a lot like the Dean Witter site and the young man’s
father has purchased many other domains that read close to
other investment banking names. Stay tuned…


Did you hear…


>The U.S. Marines were not ready for this kind of attack.
The Marine’s Pentagon computers were hit this past Thursday
by what is called a “worm virus.” The virus affected only
Microsoft systems and did no damage to “unclassified
information.” The virus basically blanked pages that were
once full of text.


>IntelliEye is coming out. This is the new Microsoft “mouse”
that works by tracking movement by taking 1500 “pictures” a
second. It’s a lot like the flat touch pads some laptops
carry, but apparently much harder to accidentally click.
Sorry lefties, only the right-handed version is available at
this time. It’s believed that gamers will be first to jump
all over the new hardware as it allows for much more distinct
movement than a traditional track-ball mouse.


>Microsoft lobbyists are out in full force attempting to sway
the U.S. Congress to lower the amount of funding for the
U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division. They’re looking
for a cut of around $9 million. Anyone else think this is
funny?


>Anyone out there from Chicago? Did you go to “Be sure it’s
legal day?” If not, it was held last Tuesday. Microsoft had
people there to inspect your software. If any of it was
counterfeit, they replaced it for free. Not a bad deal. You
can expect to see more of this around the country. It’s part
of Microsoft’s effort to stop counterfeits of their software.


Now, onto today’s topic…


Man, the Web is huge! I once heard a report that it was
doubling itself every 45 days. Then I heard it was once every
42 days, then 41. People are flocking to the Web for commerce,
relationships, sports, broadcasts, and general thirst for
knowledge. This thing is growing so big, so fast. It’s never
going to stop growingor will it?


A Web-head friend of mine sent me a piece of e-mail about a
monthly survey done by Media Metrix Inc. (MM). In the survey,
covering American users, the company keeps track of current
and new users to the Web including tracking certain Web site
traffic. Each time they’ve done the survey the numbers just
keep going up and up and up. Well, this time they went up,
but not they should have.


According to MM, there are now 63.4 million Web users growing
at a rate of around 750,000 per month. However, September
didn’t quite reach its expected potential growing only 2%
rather than the almost guaranteed 4%.


So what? Well, September is usually big month for the
Internet. School is back in session, baseball is coming into
playoffs, American football is getting underway. Certain
sites should see great growth as well as across the Internet
board. They did, but not as much as expected.


Major domains like Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL, Lycos, and sites
that are part of the Go Network flat-lined. They showed no
increase.


On the other hand, September was a huge month for sites that
deal with weather. Hurricane Floyd tore up the Eastern
American shore and people flocked to weather.com giving the
site an overall 20% increase in visitors. I would also think
that this had something to do with people not getting on the
Web. If your house if flooded, you don’t much care about
logging on. ABCNews.com and USAToday.com were also winners
thanks to news and weather stories.


In addition, September had a major American holiday and
several Jewish holidays that could have contributed to lesser
Web use. Plus, September is only 30 days long.


Doug McFarland, VP of MM, said that he didn’t make too much
of this. He suggested the sample may have been too small and
is thus not giving a true reading. However, others are
proclaiming the stats to be correct. Henry Blodgett or Merrill
Lynch claimed the latest numbers are indicative of an overall
flattening of Web growth.


So, what do you think? Is the Web coming to critical mass?
Can it come to that? Are we reaching the point where everyone
who wants to be on the Web is on the Web? Obviously, we’re
not quite there yet, but can we see it from here?


I guess there has to come a time when everyone who can pay
for a connection has already done it and the number of Web
users flattens out or even, *gasp*, declines.


Now we get to delve into one of those “What happens if?”
discussions professors love so much. I say that because the
time will come when Web use will stop growing at an alarming
rate or may stop growing altogether. If you believe that the
number above indicates that its already happening then so
much better for the discussion.


As Linda Richman says: I shall give you yet another topic.
The Internet has stopped growing. It is a good thing or a bad
thing? Discuss.


Bad thing:
Lack of growth will mean less diversity of ideas. For the Web
to continue to better itself and its content, new people must
come into the fold.


Good thing:
Once the Web-use audience stops growing, it will settle
itself into a group of people than can be generally described
in demographics and psychographics and services can be
created for them. The playing field won’t change so often.
Those on the Web will be better served.


Bad Thing:
Smaller sites that cater to a small slice of the user pie
will have a hard time growing as they will now need to take
audience from other sites rather than procure new users from
those coming into the fold.


Good thing:
Internet hardware might be able to be formatted knowing the
Web’s top end so that all those that want to be attached can
be attached. Usage levels of many sites would top off so that
the hardware would know what it was up against and could be
configured for it. The blast of users that shut down a system
might never happen again.


Bad thing:
With no new people coming to the Web to start their own
business, the monoliths that are already on the Web will
often go unchallenged. Users won’t have a choice in many
services. With no new growth, once the little guy is put out
of business, no one is coming from behind to take up the
torch. Legal monopolies will start to pop up all over the
Web.


Good thing:
Since the audience can now be described in terms of somewhat
stable demographics and psychographics, maybe new software
can be tailored to meet demands more successfully.


Bad thing:
ISPs would see their own business flatten out.


Good thing:
Internet services would become more geared to the user
because those providing the service knows that they must
hold onto those who they already have visiting rather than
knowing there’s always someone else coming.


Good thing:
Advertising rates and costs could become more standardized.


Bad thing:
Advertising rates and costs could become more standardized.


I guess the answer of whether this is a good thing or a bad
thing depends on your take on the Web itself. If you see it
as a place for commerce, it would seem like a good thing (at
first). If you see the Web as a place for free expression and
a free exchange of ideas, then maybe you see it as a bad
thing. No new people means no new ideas.


If you post pages to the Web, you might see it as a bad
thing. If you simply use the Web to gather information, you
might see it as a good thing.


I guess it all depends on your take on the Web and what it’s
really here to do. As far as I am concerned, I only see one
absolute in this argument. Web use will flatten out. It simply
cannot grow forever. Hopefully, we’re not seeing the beginning
of it right now, but it will happen.


It’ll be interesting to see how both business and individual
users deal with it.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


And that’s that. Thanks for reading.


Joe Burns, Ph.D.


And Remember: If you had money to burn, you could try buying
the most expensive thing in the world, californium-252. It’s
an element the Atomic Energy Commission has sold for $1000
per microgram or around $350 billion per pound.

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