Friday, February 22, 2002

[Wired News] Online Tunes: People Are Paying. Online subscription services are growing despite massive file-trading that was supposed to bring down the concept. By Brad King.    Lesson 1:  Convenience kills -- These services are convenient (more convenient than the alternatives) and they deliver the music people want -- people will pay convience.   Lesson 2:  People don't necessarily need or want total control -- control requires attention and sometimes people don't want to devote any attention to something.   In fact, what people want out of entertainment is highly predictable (why do think video stores need to have a huge new release section with 30 times more copies of each movie in the section?), so they really don't need much control at all to get their needs met.   This is why the "randomize" button is a popular feature on mp3 players and multidisc CD players.   Tivo + Cable trumps VOD. 10:50:29 AM

[The Motley Fool] What Stockbrokers Do.  A short description of what it's like to be an entry-level stock broker.  Think boiler room - short sighted brokers don't care about what you buy or sell or whether you make money as long as you churn your holding and generate commission.   My experience with MSDW wasn't altogether positive, but it didn't appear they were *this* short sighted (you can't make commission on a customer who's lost all their money) in either their fee structure or their strategy. 9:20:06 AM

[Douglas W. Burke's Radio Weblog] RE: [SJL's Radio Weblog] Recession is code word for opprtunity. Eastside Journal Feb 20 2002 11:30PM ET I think that this makes sense for some companies but it really assumes cheap access to capital, a luxury that most start-ups do not have.  In the next business that I build, I will strive for both upward and downward scalability.  You've got to be able to cut back quickly when market conditions change. 9:12:53 AM

[Slashdot] Linux *Won't* Fail on the Desktop?  Linux will fail on "the desktop", as a replacement for Microsoft, for so many reasons I won't even begin to list them.   Now, if you wanted to talk about specific desktops, that would be a more interesting conversation... developer's desktops, IT desktops, researcher's desktops.   Then, at least, you might find some specific compelling requirements that maybe Microsoft wasn't already meeting. 9:09:57 AM

[The New York Times: Technology] EBay Reclaims Ownership of Billpoint. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Online auctioneer eBay Inc. plunked down $43.5 million to reclaim full ownership of its Web site's billing service from Wells Fargo Bank on Thursday, and set its sights on toppling successful payment provider PayPal Inc.  Hmmm... eBay is in the news quite a bit this morning -- this story, the story of the guy committed fraud selling figurines, and Bloomberg demanding eBay take down WTC memorbelia. 7:04:52 AM

[ZDNet Tech News] Will Apple-MS renew vows?. The five-year Microsoft-Apple deal which brings Office to the Mac is set to expire this summer. Apple needed the agreement more five years ago than they do today.   6:48:57 AM