| Anvil
Issue Thirty Two
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*Welcome to Anvil, a CFC-free weekly newsletter and Web site providing
insight into online industry news, issues and trends.
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TOP
INDUSTRY NEWS
*Computer Bytes Man
*Spoken Word
DESIGN
*Let It BeOS
*Offline Web Expansion
HOSTING
*FCC Approves Universal Access
*Two Degrees Of Separation
MARKETING
*Excite PALs With Users
*Search Engines Cash In
TOP
WEB PICKS
*Barnes and Noble
*Forbes
*Lost World
*Lyrics Server
*WorldTime
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TOP INDUSTRY NEWS
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*Computer Bytes Man
Perhaps the best chess player to ever live, Garry Kasparov, recently
lost a six-game rematch with IBM’s Deep Blue computer. Kasparov
resigned his last game in frustration, allowing the IBM team to
walk away with a win and $700,000. The IBM RS/6000 SP parallel processor
is capable of analyzing millions of moves per second and contains
a wide-depth of chess knowledge, including most if not all of Kasparov’s
past matches in it’s database. The grandmaster agreed with experts
that he made a few critical errors in his match, and is determined
to beat Deep Blue in another rematch next year.
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,10564,00.html
http://www.chess.ibm.com/home/html/b.html
*Spoken
Word
Earlier this week, I (Kent Lewis) teamed-up with KVO’s Vice President
of New Media, David Smith, to discuss the "When and Where"
of online marketing. The presentation was given at an American Marketing
Association (AMA) luncheon in Portland, Oregon. The presentation
covered features and benefits of common online marketing tools.
For those who missed the event, the Verse DDG presentation (AMA_pres.ppt.zip)
is available for download. A recent version of Microsoft PowerPoint
and WinZip are required to open and view the presentation.
http://www.ama.org
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DESIGN
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*Let It BeOS
Jean-Louis Gassee’s Be software, received a boost this week from
Netscape when an announcement was made at Be’s Developer Conference
in Santa Clara, California. According to the former Apple executive,
Netscape’s FastTrack Web server will support the Be operating system
(BeOS). While BeOS currently has a small but respectable following
of 10,000 to 20,000 developers, the announcement should help increase
awareness and support of the relatively unknown operating system.
BeOS, not yet publicly available, is scheduled to be distributed
with FastTrack via CD-ROM in the near future.
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,10580,00.html?nd
*Offline
Web Expansion
The migration of print media to the Web is taboo these days. The
latest trend points in the opposite direction. ABC is planning to
air a half-hour Christmas special based on Santa’s Home Page, an
AOL Greenhouse Network project currently online. Penguin Books will
also license Santa’s Home Page for a related book due out later
this year. Salon, one of many trendy online magazines is recently
announced an exclusive agreement with United Feature Syndicate to
license content to other print and online ventures. Film.com reached
an agreement with The Seattle Times under which Film.com will supply
movie reviews to the Times print and online editions. These licensing
deals offer a new and promising revenue stream to struggling online
publishers.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/73851.asp
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HOSTING
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*FCC Approves Universal Access
Internet access is now more affordable for the masses, thanks to
the FCC. Under the FCC’s "universal access" plan, schools
will receive discounts of up to 90 percent on Internet access. The
plan will be funded with revenue generated from new charges to businesses
and residences for additional phone lines. The charges will start
at $2 a month for each additional line, with the first .40 increase
to take effect in July. In addition, charges may increase an average
of $1.50 each year until 2000. Smaller ISPs, requiring multiple
lines for service, will be hardest hit by the new charges.
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,10452,00.html
*Two
Degrees Of Separation
The Internet LinkExchange (ILE), known for it’s cost-effective banner
ad network, is being accused of censorship. Tony MacFarland, creator
of a music promotion site, believes ILE was being unfair when it
refused to allow his site on the network, as one of the links on
his site leads to "sexually explicit" content. ILE determined
two clicks is close enough to merit denial of service. The flap
follows the recent lawsuit between Ticketmaster and Microsoft regarding
"unauthorized" links on Microsoft’s Seattle Sidewalk guide.
Both cases are on weak ground, according to industry experts.
http://www.news.com/SpecialFeatures/0,5,10546,00.html
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MARKETING
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*Excite PALs With Users
Adding to an already robust search engine and directory service,
Excite recently launched Personal Access List (PAL) online chat
service which allows users to know whether friends are online and
chat with them. The new service is part of Excite’s community-building
strategy and the extension of it’s advertising. The service is free
to those who register and provide basic demographic information.
The new service will offer advertisers highly targeted advertising
opportunities. The service is similar to that of strategic partner
AOL and online service CompuServe.
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,10569,00.html
http://www.excite.com/
*Search
Engines Cash In
Viaweb, a Web monitoring software developer, recently released a
study regarding the quality of sales leads generated by search engines.
The study involved tracking 132 sites over a four month period to
assess per capita spending of netizens using search engines. Contrary
to previous beliefs, average visitor spending varied among search
engines by a factor of three. Yahoo! generated the highest average
with .31, followed by Alta Vista with .23 and Lycos with .21. Visitors
from Excite, Infoseek, WebCrawler and HotBot faired below the overall
average of .17 with a range of .10 to .15.
http://www.mmp.co.uk/mmp/informer/netnews/HTM/513n1c.htm
http://www.viaweb.com/
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TOP WEB PICKS
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*Barnes and Noble
"World’s Largest Bookstore Online" is now open for business,
with over 1 million titles available. The site offers 30 percent
discounts on all hardbacks and 20 percent off on all soft covers
as well as original content including interviews with Bob Costas
and Dick Clark. In related news, Barnes and Noble filed suit Monday
against competitor Amazon.com, on charges of false advertising in
calling itself "Earth’s Biggest
Bookstore."
http://www.barnesandnoble.com
*Forbes
The new media division of Forbes, Inc. has launched a free, daily
online business magazine. Forbes Digital Tool debuted earlier this
week with an editorial focus that includes technology news, trends
in journalism, investing and digital entertainment.
http://www.forbes.com/
*Lost
World
Touted as Spielberg’s most violent film to date, Jurassic Park’s
sequel The Lost World, due out this summer, has a site of it’s own.
The high-bandwidth site offers detailed information about the movie
through a CD-ROM-like interface.
http://www.lost-world.com
*Lyrics
Server
Confusing and gregarious lyrics are a thing of the past with Lyrics
Server. Look up the words to over 48,000 songs, searchable by title,
artist or lyrics themselves. Feel free to submit lyrics to a favorite
song not yet listed.
http://www.lyrics.ch/
*WorldTime
Don’t know the exact time? How about the exact time in Bali? WorldTime,
provided by HAB Software, provides the precise time by location
throughout the world. The global view of Earth allows users to rotate,
zoom and grid for easy access to desired locations. Be sure to reload
for most accurate time.
http://www.worldtime.com/cgi-bin/user/hb1005/wt.cgi
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CREDITS
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*Kent Lewis, Managing Editor
*Michael Pearo, Graphic Designer
*Monica Simmons, Copy Editor
*Theo Jones, Jeremy Huffman, Programmers
*Send
questions, comments and suggestions to
editor@anvil-media.com.
*Visit
the Web site at http://www.anvil-media.com
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