Slashdot Mirror

Unless Jupiter Media gets to it first.

Someone like myself would understand the hours of data-entry and database development that goes into indexing imagery. I research photo copyrights for a living.

The fact that there is a feasible, automated system that can do the work will certainly cut down the man-hours for that sort of work; at least by half.

Pity, though. I heard that Google and others had a telecommuting thing that paid people to recognize what's in a photo. Sorry to hear they'll be out of a job soon.

First it takes you to a Flash ad, then you get sent directly to the main page instead of to the article... Screw this for a lark. Here's the full article, without all of the annoyances:

The Best of the Worst
By KATHERINE MEYER
May 3, 2006

What were they thinking?

The Internet spawned so many weird gizmos and bad business ideas that mocking dot-com duds became something of a sport in the post-bubble era. But some ideas still stand out for pure silliness. These are products and services that attracted lots of publicity -- and, in some cases, millions of dollars in funding -- before folding.

In the earlier days of the Web, "nobody seemed to care if there was a real business there," said Alan Meckler, chief executive of Jupitermedia Corp. and Internet industry pundit.

If It Seems Too Good to Be True

Take CyberRebate.com, which thought it could make money by giving stuff away for free. The online retailer, founded in 1998, sold an assortment of goods at heavily marked up prices (some items going for up to 10 times their retail values), but promised customers a hefty rebate that often amounted to 100% of the purchase price.

For example, CyberRebate charged about $1,100 for a 13-inch RCA television that normally retailed for a few hundred dollars. Buyers could get a full refund of the purchase price as long as they jumped through some hoops -- rebate forms had to be submitted by a deadline, and checks came 10 to 14 weeks later. CyberRebate banked on the idea that some percentage of buyers would forget to fill out the rebate form, or fail to do so in time, leaving the company to pocket the money.

But selling items at such wildly inflated prices just about guaranteed customers would go out of their way to get their rebates, quickly sinking CyberRebate into heavy debt. The company, founded by law school student Joel Granik, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May 2001, listing liabilities of $83.4 million. Much of that debt was owed to consumers who were promised rebates but hadn't received them.

Both Mr. Granik and his business partner, Joseph Lichter, settled with the Federal Trade Commission for $40,000 in August 2004 and were barred from running a rebate-based business. Some rebate claimants eventually received partial reimbursement of about nine cents for every dollar, according to a statement on CyberRebate's Web site.

Money Matters

Then there was Flooz.com, which tried to create a form of digital currency. Similar to the also-ill-fated Beenz.com, users could purchase "flooz" and give it to others as a sort of virtual gift certificate. Flooz could only be spent at participating online retailers, which included BarnesandNoble.com and J. Crew.

The company managed to raise over $50 million in funding from 1999-2001 and even signed on comedian Whoopi Goldberg as a celebrity spokeswoman before bad times hit.

According to Flooz founder and Chief Executive Robert Levitan, who previously co-founded women's Web site iVillage, the beginning of the end came in spring 2001. That's when Flooz's corporate clients began to cut back on orders for gift certificates to be used in promotional giveaways -- a revenue stream Flooz was counting on -- amid the softening economy. Then a ring of thieves in Russia and the Philippines charged about $300,000 in Flooz to stolen credit cards. The online piggy bank officially declared itself broke in August 2001.

Several other online-payment companies also failed, though PayPal survived, largely because it positioned itself as a money-transfer service. PayPal's offerings became particularly popular with online auction users, and that company was acquired by eBay Inc. in 2002.

"I would have wanted a different outcome," said Mr. Levitan, who has since moved on to start-up Pando Networks Inc., which aims to simplify the sen

Most console users are adults. (detailed statistics) (another article)

I am amazed by how impulsive most of the comments are to the idea. First it was AOL and general sentiment was, well they're a crap company anyway so it's expected from them, they don't care about customers and want to profit. After Yahoo's name was mentioned the rage started to tone down.

It seems clear to me that this is by far the most efficient way of reducing spam. Spam represents today over 80% of all email traffic. An average spammer earns $1000 for 2 million messages sent (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123597, 00.asp), i.e. he makes 0.0005 cents per email. If AOL or however else charges 0.5c/email that translates into $10,000/2,000,000 messages which means that a spammer would lose $9000. Ultimately is pretty simple math, if it costs more to send a spam email that money you make from it then you won't do it.

It may be that 1c/email is not necessary, and companies could see the same effect by charging 0.01c/email. This will not bankrupt anyone. You can send 1000 messages for 10 cents. The benefits would be enormous: huge decrease in spam sent, less time spent keeping up spam filters, less time deleting spam. Jupiter research reports that in 5 years the average user will be exposed to 830 marketing impressions/day, double of the number today (http://www.jupitermedia.com/corporate/releases/02 .09.24-spamreport.html). I don't take these numbers too seriously, but I believe the trend is that spam is increasing because it's the cheapest way to advertise.

I don't believe at all that "even" AOL is trying to profit from spammers or consumers. The benefit they would get from 80% less email immensely greater than revenue from charging a fraction of a cent per email. I know for sure that this solution was also discussed at Google because it's so effective in stopping spam, but the even bigger issue than initial public backlash, is how to handle micro payments. A credit card company charges a few cents per transaction so for a value amount of 1c you pay the cost many times more in transaction fees (just for that and AOL and Yahoo won't be making any money from this). Having cheap way of handling micro payments without losing money on fees is almost impossible in the current system. Credit card companies can't do it, Paypal can't do it, Google can't do it. Google will lower the cost of micro transactions but anything less that 10-50c will still be unprofitable. At the same time having to pay for email is also a huge disadvantage for spammers. Money has to come from an real account and that is infinitely easier to trace than an email account. Anonymity of spammers will be much more difficult to hide and that is a huge deal. Of course, so will be anonymity of everybody else but that is a separate discussion.

We need to place an RFID chip in everyones dominate hand. The mouse would communicate at low power with the RFID chip. This would communicate SSL over the internet to a database at the Department of Homeland Security. When I go to launch GTA3, Postal2, that Ghetto Boys CD, or even an X rated video the computer will reference my age and either allow or deny me access.

Granted, if there is a minor over my sholder then that is a problem. So maybe the mouse can read all chips in the room?

Then again, I am in "The Right." God gave us free will. He wants us to make the right decisions of our own free will, not by force. If parents buy GTA3 and give it to their 13 year old kid even though it says MATURE right on the packaging, then shouldn't complain when there is mature material in the game.

There is nothing wrong with the current system. The government can't take parenting out of parenting no matter how much they keep trying.

Besides, most gamers are now over 18.
http://www.games-advertising.com/demographics.html
http://www.jupitermedia.com/corporate/releases/02. 11.06-gamerep.html
http://www.nforcershq.com/article2724.html
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl e?AID=/20051205/BUSINESS01/512050302/1066/BUSINESS 01

Would you like some salt to help that hat go down?

The Jupiter report referenced here shows that 39% of users (yes, ALL users, not just tin-foil hat wearing users) delete their cookies once per month.

Note that stating a deletion rate without a time period is useless (for the mathematically challenged it is like reporting speed in miles or km rather than mph or kph).

Of course, the online advertising industry reacted much as you did to this report.

Atlas did their own report and found - wait for it - exactly the same thing.

While you are correct that much of the cookie deletion occurs periodically rather than by being blocked, this is largely irrelevant since most publishers want to know monthly visitor figures. This is what the advertising industry expects and it is frequently the metric used to generate a lifetime value per visitor metric which is key to the business' revenue forecasting.

JupiterMedia's Press Release Page Lists that they are also set to host a DRM Strategies Conference on the uses of DRM in entertainment and corporate domains. They also have a niofty press release detailing the fact that Cookie Blocking and Deletion hinders attempts to track web visitors.

Neither one of these is directly related to the topic of municipal Wifi but I found them interesting.

JupiterMedia's Press Release Page Lists that they are also set to host a DRM Strategies Conference on the uses of DRM in entertainment and corporate domains. They also have a niofty press release detailing the fact that Cookie Blocking and Deletion hinders attempts to track web visitors.

Neither one of these is directly related to the topic of municipal Wifi but I found them interesting.

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