Tuesday, March 11, 2003

Brand As Navigator StatMarket reports that direct navigation - typing a URL into a browser's address bar, or using a bookmark, is increasingly being used to access a website, at the expense of links and search engines. Direct navigation is used 64%, up from 53% a year ago. Links and search engines are being used 35%, up from 46%. I would have liked to see the breakdown between URL's and bookmarks but this article doesn't provide it. [The Trademark Blog] Confirming what we already knew? People are surfing less, now that the novelty has worn off. Interesting new sites get discovered/propogated by Word-of-blog. 10:29:37 PM

The Rise and Fall of CE Software What a sad tale. They merged with a shell public company, so they could be listed on NASD. They tried to acquire technology, but failed to acquire talent, and they moved some of their products to Windows years after competitors had staked out the market. Now they’re just a has been with no where to go but down... But for now there's no happy ending to this tale. A year or two after its merger in 1990, CE drifted into a period of bad decisions. Revenues have been shrinking for years (1999 revenues were $3.8 million, down from 1995's $12.9 million), and the company has posted losses for all but two of the past seven years. Efforts to develop new products have failed. Two acquisitions turned out to be duds. Customers have drifted. Christian Gurney, the soft-spoken, 35-year-old chief of the holding company, acknowledges that the company has been dying. Perhaps CE's execs should have paid more attention to the name of the shell company they merged with, Anubis. As it turns out, Anubis was a fearsome figure in ancient Egypt. Half man and half jackal, it was the god who led the dead to judgment. 9:13:57 PM