02 August 2002

Keep Java on Deep Pages WORKBENCH.com -- Sun's Java Web site, which was redesigned recently, no longer uses applets on any of its well-trafficked pages. The last design featured applets that scrolled Java-related news and presented a directory of user groups, but Sun appears to have come to the same realization as most of the Web: The concomitantload time required for the Java virtual machine makes applets a poor choice for popular pages. Sites that use applets today employ them for games, chat, the visual depiction of information, and the like. The best way to use them is to put applets on a page that can be requested by the user, rather than integrating them into the main parts of a site.

Anti-Consumer Legislation DOC SEARLS -- Go immediately to Doc's comprehensive analysis of anti-consumer legislation currently being proposed in the US Congress. Doc also explains the destructive CARP ruling about webcasting fees. [ref : Hollywood Steps Up Its Assault on the Net While Webcasting Death March Claims KPIG.]

Sighting: Jaguar JAGUAR -- It's coming and if you want to help Apple promote the release of Jaguar, then paste this code into your web site to display a quicktime movie of the countdown. Want to see it in action? Visit www.347.com.

First Mention of Blogs Dave Winer -- On this day in 1999, the NY Times ran its first piece on weblogs. Some have claimed that weblogs didn't get started until late 1999, a few months after Blogger was first deployed. This is contradicted by the Times article and an earlier one by Scott Rosenberg at Salon, in May 1999. Both pieces reported on a weblog world that was already established and growing. The first note of Blogger on Scripting News was 8/23/99. It's possible that was not its release date, but I think it was close. BTW, it's really cool that the Times and Salon both keep archives back that far. Most pubs don't. [Scripting News]

Fighting the Copyright Mafia WIRED -- Opponents of copyright protection have considered how to make a unified cry: Let the market decide, not the entertainment companies.

Extreme Knowledge Management eXtreme KM?. It's a combination of extreme programming, early learning, project management and knowledge management. XKM could be applied to any project. It's all about building rapid learning into the project.

Supermodel Veronica Webb's eco-friendly electric car turned into a fire-spewing death machine the other night, burning down her Key West house and killing her beloved dog, Hercules. Apparently this happens all too often with electronic vehicles! [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

Camera Phones Set to Explode STRATEGY ANALYTICS -- Would you believe that consumers will purchase 16m camera phones worldwide in 2002? And that number will grow strongly to 147m in 2007? By comparison, although 22m digital still cameras will be sold worldwide in 2002, their slower growth rate of 34% will result in only 95m sales in 2007. Other key findings from the report include: one in five cellular phones sold in 2007 will contain an embedded camera; expansion camera modules are short-term solutions for current limited, niche demand; and camera PDAs, accounting for 6% of global PDA sales in 2007, will be less prominent than camera phones.

How to Pay Musicians Online SANTRY, Ireland -- We're talking with musicians and it's easy to get them aboard the Intellisign Content Channel when they know how they're going to be paid. They're often worried about digital delivery of their songs. They think it will kill their CD sales. They want revenue stasis. Many believe digital delivery makes that impossible.

Information Wants to be PPV Online Publishers Association -- In 2001, consumers spent nearly double in online purchases what they had spent the year earlier. Not surprisingly, people are most willing to pay money for business and financial information, because that kind of information influences their livelihood -- but beyond that there is a more general trend toward increased consumer willingness to pay for online content. One example: there are now more than a million subscribers to the online greeting card company American Greetings.com, which charges $11.95 a year for virtual cards. Its chief executive says: "In the past five years, we trained customers that content was free -- that was our fault." And now? "Slowly but surely, people are paying for content." [ref: NYT Technology]

Macintosh poses fewer problems than Windows SWITCH? -- It's rather amazing when you consider the number of Irish developers who are making the switch to the G4 Powerbook. As Don Lindich shows in the Post-Gazette, the Mac poses fewer problems than Windows.

Multimedia Pulitzer NYTimes.com -- Have a look at Pulitzer Prize-winning photographers, cutting-edge interactive features, audio, video and slide shows.

Changing Advertisement Lengths KILKENNY, Ireland -- While playing with Replay TV, I noticed how it's easy to skip through advertisements during playback. It seems that Replay knows it's seeing a block of ads when it senses the moments of blackness before and after. Then it factors in 30 second increments. So if broadcasters changed advertisement lengths, they could fool Replay TV. That's something Xi Creative should remember, when pushing television advertisements.

Royalty-Free Fame NYT -- The New York Times covers royalty-free fame in the form of clip-art celebrities, people who show up again and again because they were included in a royalty-free image collection popular with advertisers. The Street runs photos of George Chen, who was dubbed "The Internet Guy" because his youth, spiky hair, and thick-rimmed glasses make banner ad designers swoon. [ref: Workbench]