Sponsor's Message

When I first started Aardvark it was published once a week and the biggest problem was deciding what to leave out. The industry was in its infancy, personalities abounded and the pace of innovation was frenetic.

Since then however, things have changed an awful lot. These days the main players in the industry are stiff, stuffy companies rather than head-strong, opinionated individuals with a penchant for stirring things up.

Who could forget the likes of John O'Hara and Chris Tyler -- a pair of antagonists who kept the Net-industry press loaded with quotes and tales of "unorthodox" behaviour.

Back in those early days, we all knew the names and attitudes of those who were at the helm of every Kiwi ISP. These days things are different.

To be honest, I'd have to look up my little notebook to see who's running Xtra right now and I probably wouldn't recognise them if we passed in the street.

Gone are the crazy (perhaps outrageous) battles that were waged for so long between Voyager and Xtra. Battles that saw John O'Hara's team stealing email addresses from a poorly configured server at Xtra and then spamming them with a better offer.

Readers Say (updated irregularly) Nothing Yet Have Your Say

These days it's all boring press releases from nameless suits -- although this seems to suit some publishers who simply put a by-line on the top and publish this material as "news".

When you're trying to steer clear of "announcements" and focus on the more interesting aspects of the industry however, some days it becomes really hard to find something worth writing about. Can you guess that today is one of those days?

It gets even worse when (as is the case today) you're weighed down with a stinking cold and all you feel like doing is going back to bed.

So, rather than try and kick-start my brain this morning I'm going to do something long-overdue. I'm going to ask you all to send me some feedback on this daily column, where you'd like to see things heading, and how it can be improved.

One thing I *do* want to pursue is the inclusion of "guest columns" from people who have something to say. If I had a guest column on file right now I'd already be back in bed and you'd be reading it.

But what about things such as the topics being covered?

Although my primary focus is on the Net, I also cover topics such as music piracy, games, general technology, etc.

What do you want to see more of and what have you had enough of?

Is the current news links section adequate, too much, insufficiently categorised?

Fire off your emails now. I probably won't get a chance to publish them today (I will head back to bed in a few minutes) but I'll read them all and use them to refine the directions in which Aardvark is headed.

If you want to have your say on the contents of today's column then please do so. Only comments marked "For Publication" will (if I have time) be published in the reader's comments section.

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

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