At 18:42 11/06/98 -0700, you wrote: >Hi All, > >Well, I'm back from my big bike ride (California AIDS Ride 5 - San Francisco >to LA, if anyone wonders). It turned out to be 576 miles, in 7 days. Whew! >Imagine doing 3 centuries (100 mile rides) in a week, buffered by mere 65-85 >mile rides in between. Well, I pedaled them all. My wife only missed 15 >miles, mostly due to a really hot day and not enough food in the belly. She >did great. We're a coupla proud folks. We all (2500 riders and around 300 >volunteers) ended up raising $9.5 mil US for SF and LA local AIDS support >organizations. Not too shabby. Jack, congratulations on completing the ride and to all of you for raising the money for a very good cause. >1. AOL bought Mirabilis' ICQ. An evil beast buys a beloved little company >and along with it goes my user information, and any "private" info I may >have divulged to Mirabilis. Privacy issue. As a software user, how can you >know that a software company that you've trusted, and maybe given >"confidential" info to, won't be sold to one of the evil beasts? Guess you >can't. This reminds me of the Firefly/Hotmail/Microsoft thing. Do "privacy >statements" apply when a company gets bought out? Or are they just so much >hooting into the wind? I can even see an evil empire creating a front with a >nice little privacy statement, such as the one at bigfoot.com, only to lure >data out of people, then change their policy via a buyout. I dunno, maybe >that's taking it a little far? Maybe not. Comments? Interesting one. I'd hazard a guess that in most legal jurisdictions when you buy a company you also by all assets and liabilities with it, and all written and implied guarantees and warranties. In other words, you have to abide by any privacy guarantees given by the company you've purchased. But I'd still be wary of giving any information I didn't want generally available or that couldn't easily be found out about me through other means. Incidentally, we have a check box on all our web sites where information is gathered that if checked says, 'do not use the information gathered here for further promotional or marketing contacts' or words to that effect. Our database manager asked me, 'does this mean I have to flag the db for no more contacts if this is checked?' My answer...'f course. That's what people have asked for.' > >2. Yahoo bought Viaweb. Very interesting. Now you can setup shop, complete >with shipping, reporting, credit card verification, etc, through Yahoo. >They're starting to get a bit big for their britches, IMO. Next evil empire? Not necessarily. I don't believe big always equates with evil. Nor are the little guys always the good guys. It comes down to ethics and large companies can behave ethically just a small entrepreunerial companies can behave unethically. > >3. Amazon started selling music. IMO, they did a rip-roaring job with their >site. I think their sites are the smartest, most useful shopping sites I've >been too, not that I spend a lot of time examining retail sites (George ?). >I was particularly interested in seeing that they have a section called >something like "In The Media", where you can go and click on "David >Letterman Show" and get a list of albums by musicians who where on his show >in the recent past. Same things for other TV shows, newspapers and magazines >(Spin, Rolling Stone). I think this is some interesting cross-marketing. >Then there's the usual really handy search tools, reviews, etc that we've >come to know from the book seller once known as Amazon. What's next for >them, I wonder? Groceries? They really are the model for interactive marketing. It'll be interesting to see if they grow so large as to shut out most other people from their market segments. > >I'm starting to see this kind of "decision database" or "fuzzy logic" >database show up in sites here and there (take a look at >http://www.personalogic.com/ for more on where their tech is used). It think >the delivery of the idea is a bit rough around the edges, but is on it's way >to being used in many applications. Again, I think we're only just beginning to see the possibilities of truly interactive marketing. Already the more advanced marketers are moving away from the ROI model to one of lifetime value - how much is a customer worth over a 20 year period if you establish a mutually beneficial dialog and give them the best service you can over that period. That's the new marketing model, and the interactive media now make it possible. >7. Brent Eades returned to the WC and brought with him a lovely little Java >Applet. Good to hear from you, Brent. Seconded. and thirded. > >8. Barry's customers still can't understand the use of fixed width tables >and that danged space on the right. ROFL > >9. Javilk is back to pounding the keyboards with delightful chunks of >experience. Glad you're feeling better, Javilk. > >10. Hmm, it's almost time for dinner. Trying a new South African Vegetarian >place tonight. Oh, um...uh... > >See ya, >Jack Good to see you back in one piece and with nothing more than a tender butt. franko Frank Lee, Information Architect. Member: Aust. DM Assoc., Market Research Soc. of Aust., Web Conslts Assoc., HTML Writers Guild, Internet Professionals Association. Associate, Aust. Marketing Inst. Interactive Strategist, IBM Australia Ltd & Managing Director, Wired World Consulting. http://www1.tpgi.com.au/users/franko/ ____________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------- Join The Web Consultants Association : Register on our web site Now Web Consultants Web Site : http://just4u.com/webconsultants If you lose the instructions All subscription/unsubscribing can be done directly from our website for all our lists. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
