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Monday, January 14, 2002 |
From the 'I told you so' department...
For the past several years, each quarter I give a lecture at a local college on web development and Internet Strategy (sometimes an oxymoron). Each quarter I start with two propositions:
1. Free does not equal Profits -- 5 years of dotcom hell should have taught us all this lesson (I hope). It is the one real lesson of the whole mess.
2. Being a 'pure play' grants you no special abilities. In fact it seems to cause stupidity.
3. The line between stupidity and genius is inversely proportional to the amount of VC money you have...
Ok, I lied. That was three. We need to focus on 2 & 3 which seem to have been proven by the fiasco of HomeGrocer and Webvan. A couple points on the failure of this doomed enterprise:
A. Webvan was run by morons. Why drop a great name like HomeGrocer for a stupid one like Webvan....pleeeaassee!
B. In case no one noticed the Grocery business has almost no margins. It is a volume business...which pipe did you smoke!
C. Once the chains entered the business you were dead anyway. They already have a distribution system.
Safeway has opened their online delivery site. You wonder why this will work? Well, they don't have to build a whole freakin' distribution network. They also have a track record of stocking shelves, meeting customer expectations and doing mundane things like...making money...wow!
Will they survive...who knows. They could simply blow chunks, but at least they are doing something in a business they know something about...mj
5:09:47 PM 
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Verisign finds new way to suck
Remember the dotcom era idea that you could make money from nothing? Well, Verisign wants to launch a new service allowing consumers to purchase domain names before they expire. [via Slashdot]
...needless to say some are less than pleased, and with good reason. This is a 'BAD' idea...mj
9:54:17 AM
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Who's Accountable?
Congressional investigators tell Time that the Oct. 12 memo directed workers to destroy all audit material, except for the most basic "work papers." [Time]
...the stench is getting pretty heavy. Will Bush dodge the mess...yes (sadly), better than he avoided choking in the pretzel...mj
9:25:23 AM
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Beauty is...not!
Miss France pageant has hit another low as a contestant accuses winner of being too short. The contestant had been disqualified for trying to have her spine stretched [Sun Times]
...do you seen anything wrong with this picture...mj
8:01:30 AM
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Losing the war overseas
Korea migrates 120K civil servants to Linux desktop. Microsoft is big loser [The Register]
...i am sure that the Linux camp will make big hay out of this. They are right, this is big. The real punishment for MS's misbehavior will be Linux in other countries. Of course I expect that they will end up slapped down here too...in spite of the sell out by the Bush DOJ...the 'real scandal'...mj
7:36:56 AM
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