Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Primetime hypermedia: Why now?. The umbrella title for this series of columns--Primetime Hypermedia--suggests that, for what used to be called multimedia, the long march through the desert is finally over. The mission of these columns is to explore and document the promised land that we are now starting to colonize. But here's a question I've been asked a lot lately: Why now? The question is subtler than you might think because, in some ways, little has changed. We've had audio and video on the internet for nearly as long as there's been an internet. At times I feel like an archaeologist hacking through underbrush to find artifacts left by an almost-forgotten tribe. When I investigated SMIL, for example, the trail I followed had been blazed years before. The video genre I've rechristened screencasting has antecedents that go back a decade or more, as does the audio genre now called podcasting. So, again, why now? Two reasons. The platform for hypermedia has matured, and so has the publishing environment. In both cases, obvious and not-so-obvious factors are in play. [Full story at O'Reilly Network] ... [Jon's Radio] 10:39:40 PM    comment [] http://www.itweek.co.uk/news/1116428 "Smaller resellers cannot afford to take on the negative cashflow that SPA necessitates, but we are forced to do so because partners are not going to win big orders with Compaq's standard distribution prices," he added. Mike Morgan, channel sales director at Compaq, declined to comment on individual cases, but acknowledged the need to speed up the company's payment system in general. "Rebates have to go through a validation process which can vary in time to complete. We are making improvements to the system all the time, but partners must remember that the rebates are there to satisfy the customer, not the reseller," he explained. Right, and the Compaqs of the world need to remember that resellers exist to remove a burden from them.  If resellers, freelance consultants and small suppliers have to carry the debt of these larger companies to do business, we will be OUT of business. 6:26:29 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2005 Judy Smith. Last update: 4/22/2005; 5:18:00 PM.