Note: This column represents the opinions
of the writer and as such, is not purported as fact
At last,
the contents of Aardvark's "million-dollar ideas" notebook
are revealed for all to see!
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How smart are you?
If you're really good at answering questions there are now two ways you
can earn money.
You could enter "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" -- or you could become
a Google Researcher.
Yes, the search engine giant is trialing new service it calls
Google Answers,
and it's looking for people to come up with paid answers to questions posed
by other websurfers.
However, given the number of "expurts" out there, I wonder if they might not
get totally overwhelmed by the burden of vetting all those highly qualified
"web desinaz" and "Internet konsultantz" that are now out of work in the wake
of the dot-com crash.
The Great Web Fraud (part 2)
I'm sorry I didn't get time on Friday to publish all the excellent feedback
that was received in response to my
comments on the transparent caching web proxies now being used by many
ISPs.
One point that came to light in the correspondence received might well explain
why Telecom/XTRA still refuses to differentiate between local and
international traffic for users of its JetStream DSL service.
Think about it for a moment -- if XTRA charged international prices for
content that was actually served up from its local proxy cache, wouldn't
they be in breach of the Fair Trading act?
Need Cutting-Edge Copy?
As NZ's longest-running online commentator, I'm looking for
extra syndication opportunities for this daily publication -- or I'm happy
to write casual or regular material specifically to order for print or
Net-based publications. If you're
interested, drop me a line
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As it is, you have to wonder whether there's some extreme profiteering
going on here. When a regularly accessed page is cached, the cost of
delivering it to a local user is virtually nil (especially when you own
the copper, the PSTN and just about every other part of the connection from
a user's PC to the caching server concerned). Charging 20 cents per megabyte
for that locally served-up data is nothing short of highway robbery!
It's also no wonder they're throttling P2P traffic for JetStart users -- after
all, you can't easily cache that stuff so it must really hurt that they
can't play the same cheap tricks as is done with some web content.
ING's Day In Court
Regular readers will recall that last year an Australian company
by the name of the
Internet Name Group
copped
a lot of flack
in this column when they were stupid enough to try and dupe local
businesses into thinking that their domain names were in jeopardy.
You'll probably also remember that after I exposed their little scam,
they threatened to
haul my arse
through the courts.
Naturally I told them what they could do with their legal threats -- but
it seems that now they're the ones facing court action. According to
this
story (NewsBytes), their unscrupulous tactics have come to the attention
of the ACCC.
What is it about the domain name registration business that seems to attract
so many ex used-car salesmen? Even Verisign in the USA has had their butt
kicked for trying to dupe businesses, and a
good 30% of the spam I get is from shonky fools trying to flog me a dot-biz
name.
Have Your Say
As always, your comments are welcomed. Please remember to select
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Have your say.
IMPORTANT NOTE
Due to other higher-priority calls on my time and resources over the coming
days, the publication of this column may be a little erratic.
Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible however.
The Jet-Kart is For Sale
Check out the latest bid.
To place a bid, just drop me a line.
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