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A Potpouri Today

10 August 2000 Edition
Previous Edition

Nothing really reached out and grabbed me as a topic for today's column -- but there are a few points in the news worth commenting on.

Whose Rhetoric?
I see that our beloved -- albeit apparently visionless Associate Education Minister, Steve Maharey, has felt it necessary to warn New Zealand that it should not get too "carried away by the rhetoric" of a knowledge economy.

It's nice of him to acknowledge the government's role in this Knowledge Economy -- at least I assume that's what he refers to when he talks about "rhetoric."

After all, all the industry members I know of are very realistic about the scope of the potential and, as soon as the government stops putting road-blocks in their way, they are ready to knuckle down and get going -- not just talk endlessly about what they're "going to do."

Viva La Difference!
I see that there are now more women than men using the Net in the USA -- I hope content creators are taking note of that. It strikes me that I don't see a lot of female-oriented content on the Web so perhaps there's a great opportunity for someone?

From Yesterday
Well knock me down with a feather... look at 4 this story published on IDG's site today -- all about SkyBiz 2000 being classified as a pyramid scheme in Australia.

After yesterday's article I received quite a bit of email from people who had already encountered this organisation -- and none of the comments made about them were at all positive.

I also took a peek at their so-called anti-spam policy. It seems that they don't really mind you sending unsolicited commercial email -- you just aren't allowed to mention their website by name. From 4 the policy:

"We have had some serious complaints about "unsolicited" emails coming from our members. We want to support our members in every way we possibly can, including in all of your marketing efforts. The unsolicited email complaints stem from the use of the names SkyBiz or skybiz.com, Skynary or skynary.com, Skybusiness or skybusiness.com, Skyfamily or skyfamily.com, familyontheweb or familyontheweb.com, companyonetheweb or companyonetheweb.com and skyboom or skyboom.com. (This rule also applies to ALL domain names hosted by SkyBiz)."

"Due to the complaints we have been receiving, we must ask that you do not put any of the names listed above in any unsolicited emails."

So, it appears that according to SkyBiz 2000 it's okay to spam -- just don't mention them when you do it.

As always, your feedback is welcomed.

NZL Sites
IDG.Net.nz
NZ Netguide
NZ Herald Tech
PC World NZ
Scoop
AUS Sites
Fairfax IT
Australian IT
AFR Tech
AUS Netguide
NineMSN Tech
APC Magazine
Corporate IT
USA Sites
Wired.com
CNet
CNNfn Tech
TechWeb
Yahoo Tech
ZDNet Tech
USA Today Tech
7am.com SciTech

UK Sites
The Register
BBC SciTech

The Day's Top News
4 = open in new window

New Zealand
4 Akamai taps Ihug for global network
Ihug users should see a big boost in access to global streaming media content when a new cacheing node from Akamai is switched on in the next few days...
IDG NZ
4 Caution for Kiwis on knowledge economy
New Zealand must be wary of getting "carried away by the rhetoric" of the knowledge economy, says Associate Education Minister Steve Maharey...
IDG NZ
Other
4 Visa Sets Net Security Measures
The world's largest credit card company, trying to curb runaway online fraud, says it will implement a set of 10 new security measures that vendors must adhere to...
Wired
4 Women Outnumber Men On The Web In U.S., Study Shows
In an indication of how much the Internet has evolved from its roots as a male-dominated research medium, a new study shows women on the Web now outnumber men, and their ranks are growing far faster...
TechWeb
4 AltaVista puts brakes on DoubleClick ads
The Internet search service says it's selling its own advertising in the United States, taking the sales from the online ad company...
CNet
4 Screensavers could save lives
Your computer could be helping to save lives when you are not using it to play games or surf the internet...
BBC
4 Dot-Com Hopes to Turn Net Into a Consultant's Dream
Why hire so many staff, if you can run a business with a legion of online consultants you need never even meet?...
Yahoo
4 ICANN's Nominees Come Under Fire
Two weeks after the People for Internet Responsibility took aim at the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers for its board selection criteria, another organization has surfaced to question the qualifications of the nominees...
InternetNews

Australia
4 Aussie watchdog cracks down on pyramid seller
A Perth man has been charged by consumer watchdog the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for participating in a pyramid selling scheme via the Internet...
IDG NZ
4 We'll be no.1: FreeOnline
STARTUP ISP FreeOnline has predicted it will overtake Telstra Big Pond by the end of the year to become Australia’s largest ISP...
Australian IT
4 Channel E falls short $5 million
Fierce competition in the online financial services market has pushed takeover candidate Channel E to a $5 million budget blow-out...
NewsWire
4 Westpac launches WAP, but there's a catch
Not all WAP mobile phones will be able to access the mobile banking service...
NewsWire
Other
4 NBC's Web Division Cuts 170 Jobs
NBCi is cutting 170 jobs, or 20 percent of its work force, as part of a continuing retrenchment at the TV network's struggling online division...
Yahoo/AP
4 Hackers won't give Pentagon a break
U.S. Defense Department pleas to computer hackers to quit mischief-making appear to be falling largely on deaf ears...
ZDNet
4 Intel likes what it hears in Napster
Intel sampled Napster and came away singing a new tune: Peer-to-peer networking rocks. Find out what this old-guard chip giant has in store for this hip technology...
ZDNet
4 Media object to firm's using their content
There's a fledgling San Diego company, GoSMS.com, that offers users a free service so they can get news articles and other information on their wireless-telephone screens...
LA Times/Denver Post

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