EOTI
We all knew that it had to be somewhere -- and someone has found it. A shame really.

News Sites Desperate For Dollars?
Back in 1998 when I was busy with 7am.com, I received an email from the general manager of The Nando Times who demanded that I pay US$100 a month for the "right" to link to news stories on the Nando website and to use their headlines in those links.

Readers Say (updated hourly) .bank.nz domains... - Peter From Yesterday invest in dead trees & ink, and Hooters... - Rob e-library and e-ip... - Michael Amazon Bankrupt?... - Nick New Spooks Stratagy... - Peter Have Your Say

After I made a lot of noise about Nando's outrageous demands, CNet picked up on the story and published this article.

At that time I organised a group of other aggregators and we told Nando to sod off -- which they ultimately did -- having realised the stupidity of their copyright and "linking rights" claim over these headlines.

Well guess what folks?

In their desperate drive to generate revenue from a broken business model, at least one other dumb online news publisher has rediscovered this "great idea" and is demanding a fee for "linking rights" and the use of their headlines by some aggregators.

The situation this time is however, a little different and may be harder to counter.

It seems that at least one of the major aggregators is paying for the use of headlines from other news sites -- and this sets a dangerous precedent. Since this establishes that there is very real and realisable value associated with this intellectual property, it becomes much harder for small players to argue their right to use such material without payment.

As shareholders continue to put the squeeze on news sites which have already discovered that it frequently costs more to deliver a page over the Web than the advertising on it earns we can look forward to publishers getting very precious about unauthorised linking and third-party use of their headlines.

Given that there are dozens of online business models crashing about investors' ears right now, I suspect the Internet will soon undergo a significant evolution such that it will be quite a different place in 18 months or so. Much of what we take for granted as being "free content" will either disappear or become subscription-based.

Unfortunately those with the content and the dollars appear steadfastly unwilling to think laterally and innovate when it comes to creating new and viable online business models. They are determined to fall back on old "real-world" models such as subscription or pay-per-view -- neither of which are really leveraging the full value of the Net.

Do I have the answer -- yes I believe I do. Do I have the money and resources to implement it? No I don't.

Cybersquat Me Please?
A new business news publication has been launched today in the form of The NZ Business Times.

Unfortunately they appear to have chosen not to place any of their content on the Web (did they learn from NBR's early faux-pas I wonder?) and it appears that the Net isn't a key part of their strategy.

However -- even if they're going to ignore the Net for content distribution, I would have thought that they might at least register the domain name businesstimes.co.nz which, as of this morning, remained available.

Maybe someone at NBR might like to pick that domain up and point it at the NBR website which was delivering some fine material until I checked this morning and got a 404 error.

Magnets Debunked At Last
As regular Aardvark readers will recall, last year I questioned the veracity of claims being made by the local distributor of a magnetic fuel-saver device.

Test conducted by US authorities had indicated that these magnetic fuel-savers were ineffectual but the local distributor was flush with anecdotal reports and testimonials from satisfied users.

Well the NZ Commerce Commission recently tested a locally distributed water purifier that also used the miracle power of strong magnets to perform amazing fact-defying feats. After discovering that they were totally ineffectual, the Commission came down on the distributor like a tonne of bricks and forced a million-dollar settlement. It's interesting to note that these so-called water purifiers relied on the very same kind of anecdotal and testimonial-based marketing that the magnetic fuel savers seem to use.

Surely, in the wake of the Commission's action against the distributor of these shonkey water purifiers, it's time the Commission also investigated the claims made for the magnetic fuel conditioner -- thus potentially saving some NZers a small fortune.

As always, your feedback is welcomed.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!