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While it's true that the Net has captured the attention and spare time of millions, the average couch potato remains firmly ensconced on the sofa, moving only when an ad-break gives them the chance to answer nature's call.

What's more, in the wake of the dot-com crash, the illusion that lots of website traffic makes for lots of revenue has also been found to be false, as advertisers retreat to the comparative safety of print and broadcast media.

Now we find that TVNZ has made the decision to axe its NZoom.com website and scale down its online operations.

Rather than treating its online presence as a separate entity, reports suggest that TVNZ will simply create a new site that provides support material for its broadcast content.

Although it's a sensible move, the result will almost certainly be job losses and a reduction in the amount of locally produced online content.

Readers Say (updated irregularly) From Yesterday... Electronics in cars... - Tidds Oh for that kind of... - Malcolm Have Your Say

It's a move that also leaves me wondering why they recently engaged in a rather high-profile advertising campaign for the NZoom site and brand -- does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?

So, with the demise of NZoom, which site will become "New Zealand's Homepage"?

It sure won't be TV3's website which, for some reason, contains somewhat disfunctional legacy elements like this and completely out of date news stories like these

So could NZoom's demise be a great opportunity for a new entrant to make their mark in the online content marketspace? Possibly so. The only question that remains unanswered however, is how will they make a dollar from it?

Oh, and speaking of TV3 -- how many others are really ticked off at the size of the new watermarked station logo they plaster on the bottom right corner of the screen?

Maybe it's time someone in NZ started a website like this one.

Trust Microsoft?
Microsoft may have launched a policy of "trustworthy computing" but it seems that the same level of "trust" can't be applied to their PR department.

I refer to the fiasco surrounding the company's Net-ready toilet of course.

First of all MS told the world they'd developed a cyber-bog and the world believed them.

Then, just this week, they "came clean" and said: "oops, sorry, we are flushed with embarrassment -- the cyberloo was just a mistake."

Well guess what?

Yes, it seems the company has done yet another about-face and decided that there really was an MS PC-potty after all.

Sigh!

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