The top 1,000 Web sites agree that everyone will switch over to a penny per page on a specific date under a unified system.
The sites need to work together. If some sites switch and others don't, you will get the same problem that happens now when a site decides to unilaterally charge for its content. If there is not a uniform and super-simple billing model (so that users get one simple, easy-to-understand bill), the thing just won't work.
This sounds like collusion to me. Afaik, only major league baseball is allow to do this due to an ancient law that they still operate under that should be repealed.
The community charters a new, non-profit corporation that will handle the flow of cash from the audience to the Web sites. This is the same sort of corporate model that today allows users to register domain names at a standard price.
That corporation will be able to charge a handling fee on the penny that each page receives. That handling fee should be capped at something like five percent.
There's no doubt that this piece of it would be fairly simple, but what about when disputes occur? Also, since the web is the most international, unregulated medium in the world, who's going to police & enforce it? In the US we have laws like the Fair Credit Billing Act, Fair Debt Collections Act and many other law to protect consumers. I think it would be a virtual (no pun intended) impossibility to ever regulate the web.
Either that corporation handles billing, or billing flows through the customer's ISP, with the ISPs keeping a small handling fee to handle their costs.
Personally, I can't imagine an ISP wanting this responsibility. Do you have any idea what kind of system and infrastructure are necessary to handle fund dispersal such as these? Take a look at any of you major credit card company and you'll get an idea of the size and score of the organization required to handle such a task.
Could this work? Maybe. Do I think I'll ever see it? Nope. If a website owner needs to make money in order to run their site, then they need to do the same thing that every small business man does. Offer a product or service that's in demand. Manage cost. Attract and retain customers and get the hell outta that business if they can't make a go of it! I think the more likely answer to the web commerce issue is subscriptions. A number of site already have them and they are work...Consumer Reports and the WSJ come to mind. Paying websites per visit would be like a store charging you to walk in the door. You should feel lucky if I walk in the door of your store because that's your opportunity. If you fail to get me to buy something while I'm there it's your problem, not mine.
Ruger
No, I don't think he ever posed in Maxim. In fact, I think Maxim only has women in it's "Girls of Maxim" section...but I could be wrong. Now Jeri Ryan would be great to see in the magazine, but I don't think she's ever been a Maxim babe...pity.
...I'm guessing they're using Microsoft Heisenburg Compensators and the damn things are actually still in beta!
What would be seriously funny though is to see a few corporate logos pop up in the show. Like if they walked into engineering and there were a bunch of boxes stacked up in the corner with cow spots on them. Or maybe an Intel Pentium XXVI logo on the side of all the bridge stations.
I dont see any real computer company actually seriously selling Linux on their user level computers any time soon.
Now you may be able to make a claim about no companies making a "serious" effort to sell Linux desktops or notebooks, but you can't make the claim that no "real" computer company sells them when IBM clearly does. Although it is a very limited selection.
...Linux as an alternative PC OS to Windows? I know that IBM offers Linux OS loads on ThinkPad and other products...servers being their main focus. But, are there any plans to develop an IBM release designed for ease of use on the PC? Userfriendly GUI, more drivers, etc.?
...it just seems like Broadband's "EA" stage is going to be a bit longer than some others. But, if you compare broadband adoption/use to PC use, you'll see that it's most likely way ahead of the curve. The major detractor for the masses is that "BB" service is still at a price that most Internet user refuse to bear. Why would a family who spends only 10-15 hours a month online, doing nothing but e-mail, maybe some banking and IMing want to pay double what they're paying now for service?
Personally, I suspect that two other things are probably restricting the growth of broadband...
1. Many people have "BB" access at work and simple spend time at the office surfing and thus don't need high speed access at home.
2. Many people have never used broadband, thus they don't know what the difference relative to dail-up is like. I personally have cable access and every neighbor who's seem my access, now has broadband as well. There's something about going to your favorite website and seeing it load in 1/10th the time or watching an MP3 download in 1/100th the time it takes for their dail-up, that makes the cost seem much more reasonable.
I think John D. is wrong about it taking decades for it to be ubiquitous. In fact, if AOL ever really gets behind "BB" and makes it affordable at say $30 a month, you'll see an explosion of "BB" use among the masses.
If TV and Radio can do it, why not the Internet.
on
The Not-So-Free Web
·
· Score: 1
Network TV and Radio have free models that are paid for by advertising so some internet sites will be able to do this as well. The biggest problem is that so much crap is on the Net, I mean who would pay a fee to visit The Onion...honestly. Sites with only niche appeal or low quality content, or products and services oriented sites without a strong value proposition and no loyalty driver will always fail...just like poorly written magazines, TV shows, or a resturant in a strip mall that only make a so-so sub sandwich.
A fee based model isn't such a bad idea for sites like on-line magazines, but for sites like Outpost.com and others trying to sell products on the web, they have to provide a product or service that's cheaper, or easier to buy, or not found elsewhere or they won't retain customers and their business model fails. In any type of retailing, clicks or bricks, you typically make 80% of your revenue off 20% of your customers and these are customers you have to retain year after year. A retail model can't be sustained through acquisition.
But I've digressed a bit. The point is that the Net's not going to become one big fee based world where every site you visit will only be accessible via login or cookie that was bought for a $20 annual fee. Some sites like The Motley Fool and others will survive with a free or a blended approach offering basic services & content free and premiums for a fee. That's not such and bad thing. It's all about supply and demand and we all know what the Net has the biggest supply of and what's in the greatest demand...PORN! Maybe Kozmo.com or Freeworks should have spent more time browsing porn sites and doing some best practices benchmarking prior to launching their ventures. Who knows, they might have been as successful and Jenna Jameson's Official Site, one of the most successful porn sites on the web.
If you build it...they will come...but only if it's worth a shit.
Banners do pay for content and if they're not paying, the advertisers will come up with a new type of ad...full page was suggested in the story...or you will be paying to view pages. Someone has to pay for this stuff...hell, even checking out a book from the library...for those that don't remember or have never done this, just think of it as MP3 "text" files in hardcopy...isn't free!
Keep/. free...click those banners. Geeks should support free content.
IBM receives a big chunk of marketing cash from M$ to put that little blurb on the bottom of their ads, but it doesn't stop them from championing open source operating systems.
Check any PC makers ads and you'll see the exact same blurb, sans "IBM."
The age of unlimited use software you buy is going away. Just deal with it. Broadcast TV is next. Expect over the air TV to go away within 50 years.
You can't compare Broadcast TV programming to software. Renting software is like renting a hammer or cordless drill. You don't rent tools! (unless it an aerator or something)...you buy them!
The reason pay-per-view TV works is because you get NEW content. If they showed you the same old programs, over-and-over again, their business model wouldn't fly. Less people would be watching TV and more would be reading books, or exercising, or spending time talking to their families. However, they do update their content, and people want to see it, so they can charge for it.
I wouldn't mind subscribing for software if I was assured that the software companies would provide useful updates occasionally. As it stands now, Word V6.0 could handle about 99% of my word processing as well as the current release of Word does. Why would I want to keep paying for it? For the updates?...I think not.
If you want people to subscribe for software, M$ and whomever else better figure out a way to justify the subscription cost or they'll find a lot of people jumping ship. All it will take is one software company opposing the subscription bandwagon and that would be enough to doom the movement. Remember when internet access used to be pay-as-you-go, $20 for 20 hours? Then some bright person came up with flat-rate service and bingo...better option, now everyone does it. Subscriptions will only work if there's collusion in the software industry or if the consumer sees the benefit. I give this about the some chance of work in the consumer market as the "Net Applicance." In the business sector, they might have a chance.
IBM bought by Microsoft for there OS/2 technology - Balmer says "Maybe Bill was right after all!" - Bush says "OK!" - Funny, but very unlikely.
In 2000 Micro$oft's Revenue was only $23B (Income=$9B), while IBM's Revenue in 2000 was $88B. I suggest the following, possibly as funny, certainly more possible...bear in mind I didn't say likely, scenerio...:^)
IBM buys Microsoft and halts all shipments of Windows to Dell and Gateway. IBM becomes the #1 PC manufacturer and supplier. The justice department thanks IBM for taking care of their Microsoft problem.
Unfortunately, your results may vary significantly. I get connection speeds of 3-4 Mbps and frequently hit download speeds of 200-300 Kbps. I'm not certain about the uphill rate.
...can be found here.
http://www.verinet.com/~geoff/Enigma/
You take control of the call and it causes them untold aggravation as you run through the questions.
Ruger
Slashdot Mirror
The top 1,000 Web sites agree that everyone will switch over to a penny per page on a specific date under a unified system.
The sites need to work together. If some sites switch and others don't, you will get the same problem that happens now when a site decides to unilaterally charge for its content. If there is not a uniform and super-simple billing model (so that users get one simple, easy-to-understand bill), the thing just won't work.
This sounds like collusion to me. Afaik, only major league baseball is allow to do this due to an ancient law that they still operate under that should be repealed.
The community charters a new, non-profit corporation that will handle the flow of cash from the audience to the Web sites. This is the same sort of corporate model that today allows users to register domain names at a standard price. That corporation will be able to charge a handling fee on the penny that each page receives. That handling fee should be capped at something like five percent.
There's no doubt that this piece of it would be fairly simple, but what about when disputes occur? Also, since the web is the most international, unregulated medium in the world, who's going to police & enforce it? In the US we have laws like the Fair Credit Billing Act, Fair Debt Collections Act and many other law to protect consumers. I think it would be a virtual (no pun intended) impossibility to ever regulate the web.
Either that corporation handles billing, or billing flows through the customer's ISP, with the ISPs keeping a small handling fee to handle their costs. Personally, I can't imagine an ISP wanting this responsibility. Do you have any idea what kind of system and infrastructure are necessary to handle fund dispersal such as these? Take a look at any of you major credit card company and you'll get an idea of the size and score of the organization required to handle such a task.
Could this work? Maybe. Do I think I'll ever see it? Nope. If a website owner needs to make money in order to run their site, then they need to do the same thing that every small business man does. Offer a product or service that's in demand. Manage cost. Attract and retain customers and get the hell outta that business if they can't make a go of it! I think the more likely answer to the web commerce issue is subscriptions. A number of site already have them and they are work...Consumer Reports and the WSJ come to mind. Paying websites per visit would be like a store charging you to walk in the door. You should feel lucky if I walk in the door of your store because that's your opportunity. If you fail to get me to buy something while I'm there it's your problem, not mine. Ruger
I happen to know for a fact that it's safe stored in Area51.
Ruger
He started screaming when she went borg on his ass in the middle of the kiss. Hot babe or not...no one wants to get assimilated.
Ruger
No, I don't think he ever posed in Maxim. In fact, I think Maxim only has women in it's "Girls of Maxim" section...but I could be wrong. Now Jeri Ryan would be great to see in the magazine, but I don't think she's ever been a Maxim babe...pity.
Ruger
...I'm guessing they're using Microsoft Heisenburg Compensators and the damn things are actually still in beta!
What would be seriously funny though is to see a few corporate logos pop up in the show. Like if they walked into engineering and there were a bunch of boxes stacked up in the corner with cow spots on them. Or maybe an Intel Pentium XXVI logo on the side of all the bridge stations.
Ruger
Look here for IBM Thinkpads with Linux preloaded.
Ruger
I dont see any real computer company actually seriously selling Linux on their user level computers any time soon.
Now you may be able to make a claim about no companies making a "serious" effort to sell Linux desktops or notebooks, but you can't make the claim that no "real" computer company sells them when IBM clearly does. Although it is a very limited selection.
Ruger
Looks like Blizz has found out the problem and according to this the disappearing items problem is going to the taken care of. We shall see I suppose.
Ruger
...Linux as an alternative PC OS to Windows? I know that IBM offers Linux OS loads on ThinkPad and other products...servers being their main focus. But, are there any plans to develop an IBM release designed for ease of use on the PC? Userfriendly GUI, more drivers, etc.?
Ruger
...it just seems like Broadband's "EA" stage is going to be a bit longer than some others. But, if you compare broadband adoption/use to PC use, you'll see that it's most likely way ahead of the curve. The major detractor for the masses is that "BB" service is still at a price that most Internet user refuse to bear. Why would a family who spends only 10-15 hours a month online, doing nothing but e-mail, maybe some banking and IMing want to pay double what they're paying now for service?
Personally, I suspect that two other things are probably restricting the growth of broadband...
1. Many people have "BB" access at work and simple spend time at the office surfing and thus don't need high speed access at home.
2. Many people have never used broadband, thus they don't know what the difference relative to dail-up is like.
I personally have cable access and every neighbor who's seem my access, now has broadband as well. There's something about going to your favorite website and seeing it load in 1/10th the time or watching an MP3 download in 1/100th the time it takes for their dail-up, that makes the cost seem much more reasonable.
I think John D. is wrong about it taking decades for it to be ubiquitous. In fact, if AOL ever really gets behind "BB" and makes it affordable at say $30 a month, you'll see an explosion of "BB" use among the masses.
Ruger
Sig, we don't need no stinking sig!
...you know this is bound to happen!
Ruger
Network TV and Radio have free models that are paid for by advertising so some internet sites will be able to do this as well. The biggest problem is that so much crap is on the Net, I mean who would pay a fee to visit The Onion...honestly. Sites with only niche appeal or low quality content, or products and services oriented sites without a strong value proposition and no loyalty driver will always fail...just like poorly written magazines, TV shows, or a resturant in a strip mall that only make a so-so sub sandwich.
A fee based model isn't such a bad idea for sites like on-line magazines, but for sites like Outpost.com and others trying to sell products on the web, they have to provide a product or service that's cheaper, or easier to buy, or not found elsewhere or they won't retain customers and their business model fails. In any type of retailing, clicks or bricks, you typically make 80% of your revenue off 20% of your customers and these are customers you have to retain year after year. A retail model can't be sustained through acquisition.
But I've digressed a bit. The point is that the Net's not going to become one big fee based world where every site you visit will only be accessible via login or cookie that was bought for a $20 annual fee. Some sites like The Motley Fool and others will survive with a free or a blended approach offering basic services & content free and premiums for a fee. That's not such and bad thing. It's all about supply and demand and we all know what the Net has the biggest supply of and what's in the greatest demand...PORN! Maybe Kozmo.com or Freeworks should have spent more time browsing porn sites and doing some best practices benchmarking prior to launching their ventures. Who knows, they might have been as successful and Jenna Jameson's Official Site, one of the most successful porn sites on the web.
If you build it...they will come...but only if it's worth a shit.
Banners do pay for content and if they're not paying, the advertisers will come up with a new type of ad...full page was suggested in the story...or you will be paying to view pages. Someone has to pay for this stuff...hell, even checking out a book from the library...for those that don't remember or have never done this, just think of it as MP3 "text" files in hardcopy...isn't free!
/. free...click those banners. Geeks should support free content.
Keep
Ruger
IBM receives a big chunk of marketing cash from M$ to put that little blurb on the bottom of their ads, but it doesn't stop them from championing open source operating systems.
Check any PC makers ads and you'll see the exact same blurb, sans "IBM."
Ruger
Judges should just log on and go to Bill Nye or How Things Work and they could get 95% of their questions answered.
Ruger
Gruesome Stuff
...with the big fuzzy dice hanging down in front of your "chop-top" monitor.
Imagine a 21" monitor that's 6"x20"...a must for a Lowrider PC amigo.
Ruger
The age of unlimited use software you buy is going away. Just deal with it. Broadcast TV is next. Expect over the air TV to go away within 50 years.
You can't compare Broadcast TV programming to software. Renting software is like renting a hammer or cordless drill. You don't rent tools! (unless it an aerator or something)...you buy them!
The reason pay-per-view TV works is because you get NEW content. If they showed you the same old programs, over-and-over again, their business model wouldn't fly. Less people would be watching TV and more would be reading books, or exercising, or spending time talking to their families. However, they do update their content, and people want to see it, so they can charge for it.
I wouldn't mind subscribing for software if I was assured that the software companies would provide useful updates occasionally. As it stands now, Word V6.0 could handle about 99% of my word processing as well as the current release of Word does. Why would I want to keep paying for it? For the updates?...I think not.
If you want people to subscribe for software, M$ and whomever else better figure out a way to justify the subscription cost or they'll find a lot of people jumping ship. All it will take is one software company opposing the subscription bandwagon and that would be enough to doom the movement. Remember when internet access used to be pay-as-you-go, $20 for 20 hours? Then some bright person came up with flat-rate service and bingo...better option, now everyone does it. Subscriptions will only work if there's collusion in the software industry or if the consumer sees the benefit. I give this about the some chance of work in the consumer market as the "Net Applicance." In the business sector, they might have a chance.
Ruger
If you're interested you can read about it here...
IBM Research News
Ruger
...you missed the mark here:
:^)
IBM bought by Microsoft for there OS/2 technology - Balmer says "Maybe Bill was right after all!" - Bush says "OK!" - Funny, but very unlikely.
In 2000 Micro$oft's Revenue was only $23B (Income=$9B), while IBM's Revenue in 2000 was $88B. I suggest the following, possibly as funny, certainly more possible...bear in mind I didn't say likely, scenerio...
IBM buys Microsoft and halts all shipments of Windows to Dell and Gateway. IBM becomes the #1 PC manufacturer and supplier. The justice department thanks IBM for taking care of their Microsoft problem.
Ruger
...provides mucho speed in my area.
Unfortunately, your results may vary significantly. I get connection speeds of 3-4 Mbps and frequently hit download speeds of 200-300 Kbps. I'm not certain about the uphill rate.
Ruger...can be found here. http://www.verinet.com/~geoff/Enigma/ You take control of the call and it causes them untold aggravation as you run through the questions. Ruger