Sunday, July 21, 2002

The Disconnects Continue Not only do we have the disconnect between the economy and the stock market, but we have another between the way people are increasingly using technology and the way it's valued on Wall Street. Interesting article in today's NYT about how much more deeply the net is ingrained in average American's lives. The article notes that 61% of Americans are online, up from 46% two years ago. So, a 30% increase in online users, alongside other reseach that shows that poeple are using the net more frequently, for more tasks, and spending more money doing it, yet those same two years have witnessed the fabled collapse of the 'internet bubble.' It seems that the problem is that the business plans are not properly lined with up the way the net is used. Much as the cell phone industry destroyed the long distance busienss by combining (virtually) unlimited night and weekend calling with free long distance, so much of web content is free that sadly, perhaps that is becoming people's habit and expectation of the value of web material.   9:47:49 PM     A little history: If you're looking to history as a guide for Monday's stock action, the best place to turn is to the October 1987 crash. The infamous Black Monday selloff in 1987, when the Dow Jones Industrials fell some 22% on Oct. 19, was preceded by a 5% drop in the Dow Jones the previous Friday. For the entire week before Black Monday, the blue-chip index fell just over 9%. And there are some parallels to today's sickening market action. Friday's 390-point tumble in the Dow translates into a 4.64% drop. For the week the Dow lost 7.7% of its value. The number one rule of business, part 427 It's really depressing how much my number one rule of business (make it easy for your customers to give you money) is violated, even by smart people. Took the family to the EMP today to see a family concert being given by They Might Be Giants. Afterwards, I decided to buy some tickets to a future tickets and get a pass to take the kids into the museum. IT turned out that my charter membership had expired two months previous, and they'd neglected to send me an invitation to renew my membership. I mentioned this to the customer service person, and she said that pretty much everyone whose membership had expired said the same thing. They're not asking existing customers for their money. Amazing. 4:40:13 PM

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