They're pretty funny, but come on - it's annoying enough when some radical activist types spray paint the sidewalk, but for a major corporation to be doing it is just lame.
the biggest advertising mistake is Silicon Alley and by extension blowhard idiots like this! Quit spending all your VC on fancy launch parties and useless extensions to your core product, and then I'll listen to your complaints about ad banners. A basic, useful site can survive on banners - it's just these bloated, useless sites like Abuzz that can't.
Through customer feedback we heard that many of our members like you,
who originally opted not to receive occasional e-mail news from us,
would like to change their preference.
You told us not to bother you. But someone else told us you might be wrong! So we're bothering you.
The writer should get some kind of award, anyway...
I think they were mainly thinking: "Hey, there's VC out there, let's get some!" Since the downside wasn't perceived as very high (so what if you fail?) and the upside appeared huge (remember Amazon at $400?) otherwise rational people went and did it.
I think Warren Buffett said it best in his annual report:
The fact is that a bubble market has allowed the creation of bubble companies, entities designed more with an eye to making money off investors rather than for them.
And people bought into this. So fools and their money were, in the classic style, parted.
I saw the writeup in the Chronicle. But even though I work in the old dot-com district (South of Market) and am in the tech business (for an established company), I don't think I'll bother with this show.
Why? Businesses come and go all the time. Most startups fail. It has always been this way. The only difference is that
many
moredumbstartups got funding (and huge PR) in 1999-2000, and now more of them are toast now.
Here in SF everyone wants to dump on the dot-coms, because they brought too many of the "wrong" (smart, educated, young) people into a city that the locals think is exclusively theirs. Certainly many of the stupid startups were a waste of time, money, and office space. But you have to put up with a lot of failures to get the diamonds in the rough.
So while I think it's fun to make fun of the bad ideas, we shouldn't forget the good stuff. Think of the auto industry: 100s (maybe 1000s) of companies have failed between the invention of the auto and today, but autos got vastly more reliable by 1950 than they were in the 1920s - in no small part because of this innovation.
3) Sensing that the publishing industry is no longer bound to the traditional obligations of the copyright social contract, the public abandons their half
of the social contract. Copyright violation becomes like drinking during prohibition -- just another bad law waiting to be struck off the books.
They got 100K astroturf emails from the American Family Association and backed down. I think they made a big mistake, because now every Tom, Dick, and Harry that wants to influence Yahoo (e.g. the French government? who's next, China?) will just flood them with angry email.
Well, even Slashdot deleted OTIII rather than fight the Scientologists. So I guess corporations only stand up for their users' rights for so long.
Of course teachers wanted to use it for education! And I bet baseball owners wanted to use it for sports... Everyone wanted to take advantage of the medium, but only some of their ideas made commercial sense.
I haven't been to the UK since the privatisation (right UK spelling, yes?) but I have certainly heard about the delays and crashes - it sounds to me like they made some pretty dumb assumptions about the ability of multiple companies (Railtrack and the operators) to run service together.
The experience of Amtrak, which uses other companies' tracks except on the Northeast Corridor and is therefore subject to delays from late freight trains, should have informed the UK that this wouldn't work very well. Oh well!
Localizing the internet would make it instantly much less usable by making hostnames not univeral. So users would have to think about what country they are in before typing in domain names; links wouldn't work across borders; and the net would become more balkanized (like DVD regions). Forget it.
Yes, but keep in mind that Amtrak (officially the National Rail Passenger Corporation) was created in 1971 to save passenger rail service that the rail companies would otherwise have discontinued. It receives a significant operating subsidy and annual capital grants from Congress, though it is supposed to be self-sufficient in its operating budget in 2003 (I think).
Amtrak is most often competitive with driving. In some markets it's distinctly faster (notably the Northeast Corridor, where it competes with air travel). But for the same customer experience you really don't have an alternative.
Note that there's almost nowhere in the world where there is competition for intercity rail service. Japan is probably the notable exception, with national and private railways competing on many major routes.
So, back on topic: gubmint is gubmint, as you said. If you want to transport drugs, you'd do better to stay in your car. I guess.
Reminds me of the list of risk factors of using drugs / being suicidal / being at risk of shooting up your school that schools gave to parents. As I recall it was pretty much impossible not to qualify!
put the mocha down, and discard some of the dangerous,
propagandized misconceptions about the benefits of unions.
Okay, put the Pabst Blue Ribbon down, and listen to what the guy has to say. He doesn't want to be stuck in a hierarchy behind guys who are ahead of him on the list simply because they lasted longer - he wants to be compensated for his skills and expertise. Which is totally fair, and NOT what unions have been fighting for - sadly.
Slashdot Mirror
They're pretty funny, but come on - it's annoying enough when some radical activist types spray paint the sidewalk, but for a major corporation to be doing it is just lame.
Bring him on!
I don't have one now, but if I can find one, I'll post it - maybe submit it as a story. "No more banner ads, now it's sidewalk graffiti!"
the biggest advertising mistake is Silicon Alley and by extension blowhard idiots like this! Quit spending all your VC on fancy launch parties and useless extensions to your core product, and then I'll listen to your complaints about ad banners. A basic, useful site can survive on banners - it's just these bloated, useless sites like Abuzz that can't.
Thanks! This is the answer I've been looking for for weeks...
I'm getting very strange behavior as well. Partial pages, time outs, front page without my ID, etc. What's the story?
Perhaps they moved or deleted it due to the traffic?
They're also painting SF sidewalks with "Peace, Love, Linux" stencil graffiti. Weird. I wonder if they will get hit with a fine for that one...
No, they'll be on Gnutella in Divx the next day. He wants to make money on selling his videos!
You told us not to bother you. But someone else told us you might be wrong! So we're bothering you.
The writer should get some kind of award, anyway...
Precisely!
is here
I think Warren Buffett said it best in his annual report:
The fact is that a bubble market has allowed the creation of bubble companies, entities designed more with an eye to making money off investors rather than for them.
And people bought into this. So fools and their money were, in the classic style, parted.
Why? Businesses come and go all the time. Most startups fail. It has always been this way. The only difference is that many more dumb startups got funding (and huge PR) in 1999-2000, and now more of them are toast now.
Here in SF everyone wants to dump on the dot-coms, because they brought too many of the "wrong" (smart, educated, young) people into a city that the locals think is exclusively theirs. Certainly many of the stupid startups were a waste of time, money, and office space. But you have to put up with a lot of failures to get the diamonds in the rough.
So while I think it's fun to make fun of the bad ideas, we shouldn't forget the good stuff. Think of the auto industry: 100s (maybe 1000s) of companies have failed between the invention of the auto and today, but autos got vastly more reliable by 1950 than they were in the 1920s - in no small part because of this innovation.
Tech is no different.
Well, I've already abandoned it. Who here hasn't?
Well, even Slashdot deleted OTIII rather than fight the Scientologists. So I guess corporations only stand up for their users' rights for so long.
I agree with you, the headline sucked. But: note the link to UDDI.org. At least there was something of substance that wasn't /.ed.
Frankly, it will probably be some time after analog goes dark (IF it goes dark!) that I even begin to give a shit...
Of course teachers wanted to use it for education! And I bet baseball owners wanted to use it for sports... Everyone wanted to take advantage of the medium, but only some of their ideas made commercial sense.
Maybe it's because both of us know that the adoption rate will stay slow-as-molasses and so as a result analog TV won't be discontinued?!
The experience of Amtrak, which uses other companies' tracks except on the Northeast Corridor and is therefore subject to delays from late freight trains, should have informed the UK that this wouldn't work very well. Oh well!
Localizing the internet would make it instantly much less usable by making hostnames not univeral. So users would have to think about what country they are in before typing in domain names; links wouldn't work across borders; and the net would become more balkanized (like DVD regions). Forget it.
Amtrak is most often competitive with driving. In some markets it's distinctly faster (notably the Northeast Corridor, where it competes with air travel). But for the same customer experience you really don't have an alternative.
Note that there's almost nowhere in the world where there is competition for intercity rail service. Japan is probably the notable exception, with national and private railways competing on many major routes.
So, back on topic: gubmint is gubmint, as you said. If you want to transport drugs, you'd do better to stay in your car. I guess.
Reminds me of the list of risk factors of using drugs / being suicidal / being at risk of shooting up your school that schools gave to parents. As I recall it was pretty much impossible not to qualify!
Okay, put the Pabst Blue Ribbon down, and listen to what the guy has to say. He doesn't want to be stuck in a hierarchy behind guys who are ahead of him on the list simply because they lasted longer - he wants to be compensated for his skills and expertise. Which is totally fair, and NOT what unions have been fighting for - sadly.