Slashdot Mirror
X10 Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection
telstar writes "As a followup to the recent Slashdot story about X10 losing a $4.3 million patent infringement suit over pop-unders, X10, the wireless camera company that 'only last year billed itself as the world's largest online advertiser', have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. This allows them to continue to operate, but they'll be shielded from creditors while they reorganize their finances - so rest easy, X10 popups are here to stay."
X10 popups have made the Web what it is today. Losing them would be like losing a part of one's body. I'm glad to hear they will still be with us.
Long live X10!
1) Spend bazillions on new web marketing campaign
2) Alienate web users with pop-unders and fake pr0n
3) ???
4) Bankrupcy!
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Read a report on this an hour ago. It seems that X10 has assets of $1-10M, and debts of $10-50M. The three brothers that won the settlement the other day are by far the biggest creditor, so I assume that they get first crack at any assets when X10 goes under. (My prediction there)
So they'll probably get everything that X10 has, and still be short on their settlement. Everyone else will get stiffed, punitive damages against X10 won't be assigned since there's nothing to assign them to, and because it was done under the umbrella of a corporation, the CEO and other execs will walk away with their salaries for the last several years, ready to enter another sleazy line of work.
The best thing about a corporation is that it protects individuals, encouraging risk-taking competitive capitalism. The worst thing about a corporation is that ir protects individuals, encouraging irresponsible and borderline-criminal behaviour.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
'only last year billed itself as the world's largest online advertiser'
I saw this and thought back to the mid/late '90s. Remember all of those big internet companies? The ones who survived off advertisements online? No? Me neither. I don't think I'd promote the fact my company is the world's biggest advertiser online. We've been down that road that's littered with the corpses of about a thousand defunct new e-conomy companies who either; A) Didn't turn a profit after spending huge amounts of money advertising online (as is the case here), or B) Who's sites were abandoned by said failed business plans and then folded with no positive cash flow coming in.
Just a thought.
Request: ECM unit, 1000 km fullerene cable, 1 tactical nuclear weapon. Reason: Birthday party for foreign dignitary.
There is no difference between the company X10 that cells the wireless remotes and X10 the company that advertises its wireless cameras all over the place.
Their full name is X10 Wireless Technology. They are also the same company that makes all the home automation software (that was sold for a while by Radioshack).. It's pretty neat stuff. You can hook it up to your computer and control all your lights, etc.. Check it out. You don't need to use their software or interface either, there are plans around, and even Linux software.
It's been a long time, but I seem to recall that although declaring bankruptcy can shield you from normal creditors, it cannot shield you from legal judgements against you. Meaning that the kids who won the 4 million dollar lawsuit should still be getting their 4 million dollars.
And good.
--
RumorsDaily
that are rapidly becoming illegal or at the least highly regulated on the interent. Why is it legal to pop up unwanted windows under OR over the browser without the Expressed Written Concent of the END USER.
I suppose they would argue that by viewing the site said concent is implied, however its hard to know what you are signing up for when you click a link and WHAM you get attacked by unwanted windows containing advertisments, often times, inappropriate material to say the least. would be nice to see a question on the home page of these popup serving pages like: "Would you like to see our ads?"
Unrealistic, yes. but so are some of the laws being proposed that TAKE away from the user experience, and they seem to be passing through as laws easy enough.
Just Say no to pop-ups/pop-unders
Yah patents! I love my X10 home automation stuff. Its useful. But equally, I think that a new and innovative idea about opening one window *underneath* another one is worth $4.3 million. Those silly X10 people for manufacturing useful physical objects and creating manufacturing jobs should pay more attention to the much more valuable world of clever, original ideas.
So, someone caught X10 with their pants down, so to speak?
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
X10 made offers they never backed up - anyone remember this slashdot story? I'm still waiting for mine and that was 1999.
X10 had a niche product - home automation products. Not everyone is willing to replace plugs and switches in their home with x10 enabled smart ones.
X10 tried to appeal to rather base instinct: buy our video gear and you can make movies of naked or at least semi naked 19 year old models. The problem is most people don't have anyone that resembles a model living in their home. If anything the footage most people would secure is suitable only for America's funniest home videos...
-- $G
Now really, is there anyone who reads Slashdot that is still dealing with popups? Between builtin popup blockers in the Mozilla family, Safari, and Opera and the Google Toolbar in IE why would any self-respecting geek ever have to see an X10 ad?
My own outlook on the whole matter is that any company that uses pop-ups as a form of advertising deserves whatever it gets. Not so much because of the fact that pop-up are wrong, but they are unpopular, and any marketing exec that hasn't worked out that getting people to hate you isn't a good way to sell products needs to go and do a refresher. The best advertising is word of mouth, if your friends recommend it then you are more likely to go there. Which is exactly how I found slashdot, the other important aspect is that slashdot has the community and the content to make people want to stay around. Essentially they are not just in it to weasel people out of their money.
Well it sounds like they didn't actually spend lots of money on the web advertising campaign - the lawsuit that triggered this bankruptcy was by a pop-under company suing x10 for unpaid bills (among other nonsense). In a strange way it's a karmic balance for x10 to go bankrupt depriving some pop-up "innovators" from getting their bounty.
Having said that, x10 was amazingly successful at their campaign - from a collection of fringe items by a company that no-one knew, to millions in sales and a company whose name we all know well. I also think it's a bit foolish to demonize x10- x10 didn't put ads on the sites you visit--The site put ads there (well, apart from gator but that was a prior story). If you don't like the pop-under ads at a site, blame the site itself not the people paying the bills.
Seriously, X10 had a decent concept - build budget networks, budget devices, and sell to people who really don't need much more than that.
Their biggest problem was their promotion. By sexing their ads up, they really didn't do much for themselves. By then having said ads as extra windows - hey, that got irritating, really really fast.
This demonstrates how NOT to sell a product. You want to sell something, you make it attractive to the consumer, not so repulsive that they want to spit boiling acid at the computer screen. (Unless you're a merchant of either boiling acid, or computer screens.)
X10 have only themselves to blame for this. Very few companies, once in Ch11 ever really get out. For most, it's just a delayed death of the company. Usually because they don't actually change anything. Sure, they dump workforce, but that just makes the company top-heavy. It's not the workforce that's the problem, it's the income. There ain't any. The solution is to change what you're doing, to make some. Duh.
Sadly, this often doesn't happen, and I doubt it will in the case of X10. Anyone that persists in ads that don't work, but just infuriate, has demonstrated an inability to change a failing strategy.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
So that would make them X11 then?
Well, confusing. Whats more, What are these popups you speak of? Use a decent browser and you wont have them...not at all.
People tend to forget that X10 is a communications protocol designed to send signals over the 60Hz wave in your house's wiring. The X10 Home Solutions Company does not have exculsive rights over the X10 protocol. It's like naming a company TCP/IP. If you'd like to buy home automation devices and not support this company, a simple google search will bring up many companies. I've used SmartHome's products before and have been happy with them. Hell, even IBM got into the game for a while until that part of the business spun off into Home Director Inc.
"Sexy Man" is not a moderation option. -- arose
Of course they are broke! I imagine the food and housing bill alone skyrocketed after all those hot chicks kept breaking into their living rooms, bedrooms and porches.
Luckily I have a camera to keep them away...at least I think it's the camera that does it..
The lawsuit files by the brothers against X10 had nothing to do with patents. X10 hired them to write the behind-the-scenes code to create their annoying pop-under ads and then chose not to pay them for their work. It appears they had a contract with X10 which is the main reason they won the judgement - AS THEY SHOULD HAVE! Would you like it if your employer chose not to pay you because they just didn't want to? How would you respond to that?
As a followup to the recent Slashdot story about X10 losing a $4.3 million patent infringement suit over pop-unders"...
It wasn't a patent infringement suit. The brothers were suing for money owed for services rendered. The popunder technology isn't even patented, though according to the article it is proprietary.
This distinction was made many times over when the last article was posted, so I was surprised to see this misconception make it into the text of the next article...
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
Just when I was starting to get some good footage on the nanny-cam!
NEW! Bankruptcy special! Buy 1 X10 Super-Delux Cameramatic 5000 and get your own pop-under Javascript Code FREE!
It will be a shame to see this company go. Seriously. So they used pop-up and pop-under advertising -- so what? Lots of companies do. At the end of the day, they still sold home automation gear at great prices. I hooked up my entire home using their products, didn't spend a lot, and it's wonderful to use. With the X10 company gone, I will have to turn to Lutron, Smarthome, or other more expensive makers of X10 gear.
:)
Or we could all just upgrade from X10 to X11. I hear the upgrade lets you run graphical applications remotely.
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