Quite a few gems in today's Edupage, IMO - like:
CALIFORNIA GROUP RECOMMENDS PERMANENT BAN ON INTERNET TAX
A committee formed by California Gov. Pete Wilson to examine electronic
commerce issues has recommended a permanent ban on new taxes on online
transactions, as well as some cuts in existing taxes. Although the
committee's recommendations are limited to state policies, ultimately
they
could have nationwide impact because California is home to so many large
Internet companies. (Reuters 14 Dec 98)
- and is this a new take on "metasites"? -
INFOMEDIARIES LINK BUYERS TO SELLERS
A new breed of Web sites is promoting online purchasing over the
Internet by
making it easy for a corporate buyer to find exactly what he or she is
looking for. "Infomediaries sit between buyers and sellers," says the
managing director for an investment bank. "They market everything from
blueberries to backhoes." Currently, about 150 infomediary companies
inhabit the Web, most of them focusing on one specific industry.
Analysts
predict that such sites will play an ever-increasing role in the online
business commerce market: "In a couple of years, infomediaries could be
as
much as 30% of the business-to-business e-commerce market," says a
Dataquest
analyst. Business-to-business sales over the Internet are expected to
reach
$330.6 billion worldwide by '02, up from $21 billion this year,
according to
International Data Corp. (Investor's Business Daily 14 Dec 98)
- and for Scott, the Lawyer (who is maybe 4 miles straight north of me)
-
Y2K LAWSUITS START FILLING THE HOPPER
The Cincinnati Insurance Company (Fairfield, Ohio) is asking a federal
court
to rule whether a policy it sold to Source Data Systems requires it to
defend that company from lawsuits contending that the products it sold
will
not be able to survive the Year 2000 without miscalculating dates.
Lawyers
are expecting an avalanche of such cases. (New York Times 14 Dec 98)
- and for all of us who deal with "creatives" who want the kitchen sink
on the homepage, and then want it to flash and jiggle ;-) -
WEB WISDOM
Bran Ferren, VP for creative technology and R&D at Disney Imagineering,
says
many Web designers miss the point: "Part of the issue is how to convey
(a
company's corporate culture) to the outside world. Information
technology
is now being used to do that in the Web pages that many companies are
now
using, and they're doing it incredibly badly because they're not taking
it
seriously as a storytellling problem. Often the Web-experience is
frustrating, difficult, convoluted. I can't tell you the number of
times
I've gone to the Web page of a company and spent ages waiting for dumb
graphics to download information. How many times have you seen, for
instance, a company that's posted on the Web that doesn't bother to give
you
a phone number? I don't want to talk to the webmaster or webmistress.
But
I may want to talk to the president of the company or someone in sales
or
someone in marketing, and I want to do it immediately... People will do
pages that say 'under construction.' What is this 'under construction'
nonsense? If you want something that's preliminary, fine. Put up
something
preliminary. But when I'm on the Web, I want to know about the product
you
make. This doesn't seem like rocket science." (CIO Web Business 1 Dec
98)
- - - - - - - -
Terri Grodner
Director of Interactive Development
Iovation Interactive, a division of Ovation Design
http://www.iovation.com/ http://www.ovationdesign.com/
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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