Cyber Skin

File this under ''maybe not quite what we had in mind.'' During the 1996 dustup over the Communications Decency Act, it was agreed that Internet pornography laws shouldn't shut out fine art. But a new porn-filtering program does more than block Pablo Picasso's cubist nudes. Like for instance, those naughty pictures of houses posted by the good Rotarians at Realtor.com (who caused the problem by telling homeowners to paint houses a neutral shade!), and, irony of ironies, the home page of anti-Web-porn activist Donna Rice Hughes. ''The [page's] background is sort of that parchment color, isn't it?'' laughs Hughes. British-based Eye-t Technology Ltd. says its new filter is better because it blocks ''excessive'' flesh tones rather than looking for keywords to censor. Eye-t's so-called eyeguard program also freezes the computer if it catches Junior looking at too much flesh--tone, that is. Only a teacher or parent can unlock it.

The makers of eyeguard seem comfortable with the idea of protecting children from pictures of tan suburban homes. ''We'd rather err on the side of spotting more pornography,'' says technical director Jonathan Scott. One machine's art, it appears, will always be another machine's smut.

By David Rocks

Boxed In

With Christmas over, overworked e-tailers may feel like curling up in a box and having a nice scream. But all the good boxes may already be taken.

That's one curious finding of Resource Marketing Inc., a Columbus (Ohio) firm that conducted an online field test of 50 leading Web stores. Purchases began arriving in ever-stranger boxes as holiday frenzy peaked. First, a Furby came in a three-foot-square box from KBKids.com. Resource called to ask whether the doll could be returned to a KB Toys store. Only if you bring it in the box, they were told. ''We had to drag this huge box that would barely fit in anyone's car to bring back this little Furby,'' says P. Kelly Mooney, Resource Marketing's director of intelligence. Mooney's favorite: a figurine from Furniture.com in a huge IBM PC box.

Behind the weird boxes, of course, was holiday online shopping that exceeded even aggressive estimates by 15% or more. But unlike in 1998, every store sent the right goods, Mooney says. That, at least, is progress.

By Timothy J. Mullaney

TABLE: Dot.com Math

Think you can still start an e-biz on a dollar and a dream? Average venture-capital deals were more than 50% bigger in 1999 than '98. Here are the biggest deals of the past four years.

                                 Amount     Company
Year   Company                 (millions)   Description

1999   CarsDirect.com            $280       Auto e-tailer
       Los Angeles

1998   Advanced Telecom Group     102       Builds phone
       Los Altos, Calif.                    networks

1997   Castle Tower Holding        74       Owns and operates
       Houston                              communications towers

1996   World-Net Access, Denver    60       Holding company of
                                            Internet service
                                            providers

Ratting Bell Labs

Ooooh, Bell Labs is full of smart guys. Smart enough to invent the laser. Smart enough to invent the transistor. Smart enough to win the Nobel Prize! Smart enough to...let a rat poison company beat them to the Web name BellLabs.com?

Yes, really. Try to get the latest information on fiber-optic networks and you'll be whisked to the home page of Madison (Wis.)-based Bell Laboratories Inc., a $30 million company that registered the domain name in 1995. Bell Labs parent AT&T (now Lucent Technologies), dithered, so the geniuses make do with Bell-Labs.com. ''I'm sure they would like to have it, but we aren't going anywhere,'' says Linda Hughes, a spokeswoman for Bell Laboratories Inc. With Midwestern helpfulness, she offers, ''We forward their e-mail to them.''

Lucent says the situation hasn't caused them any problems. Dateline NBC, alas, can't say the same. During a hard-hitting 1997 investigative piece on UFOs, the show illustrated a book's claims that little green men really invented transistors by cutting to a shot of Bell Labs' home page--and got the wrong one. Seekers of laser-powered mouse zappers no doubt felt they were in the right place.

TABLE: Top 10 Things That Irked Holiday Shoppers

10. Site didn't offer enough gift ideas

9. Prices weren't competitive

8. Site didn't provide enough information

7. Site was hard to navigate

6. Selections were limited

5. Didn't get a confirmation or status report

4. Connection trouble

3. Paid too much for delivery

2. Item wasn't delivered on time

1. Product was out of stock

DATA: ANDERSON CONSULTING

Web DNA

How do you screen candidates for a dot-com position that didn't even exist three years ago? It's a particularly acute problem for Web businesses because there are no guideposts. Can that marketing manager from Hanes really make it in the New Economy? Executive recruiter Russell Reynolds Associates says it has distilled the essence of what makes for a top Internet manager through in-depth interviews with 15 of the Net's best execs. Through a series of questions and answers, they say they can zero in on the six critical characteristics of a successful hire.

CarpeDiem.com
Forget seize the day. These Type A's seize the second. They quickly jump on new business concepts or innovations to push their operations ahead with no delays.

Radiate Vision
Evangelical to the max. They communicate, communicate, communicate the company vision. But that's just the basics. They know better than to go after opportunities for immediate gratification. Instead, they focus on the long-term strategy.

80/20 Rules
By now, everybody knows this one--unless you've been in a cave reading Sports Illustrated for the last 3 years. What sets these managers apart: Given only 80% of the data needed, they draw on experience and insight to fill in the blanks.

The Right Stuff
No, don't raid NASA for candidates. These managers stay focused on turning every aspect of the business model into a revenue-generating engine. They don't get pulled into tangential tasks with little payoff.

The Organizational Improvisers
The key here: people who push ideas, instead of hierarchy. They create organizations fluid enough to respond to customer needs or competitive moves in a split second.

The Learning Obsessed
Taking an online course doesn't cut it. These managers dive into the situation to learn firsthand. They hold themselves accountable and candidly examine their own assumptions and competencies--constantly.