Archives: June 2005

Grokster and the Economist

Posted by: Heather Green on June 30, Categories: Digital Music

It's increasingly challenging for weekly magazines to figure out something to write two or three days after news breaks, which is why I thought it was interesting how the Economist...

Opening Up Data (Kinda, Sorta)

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 30, Categories: Digital Imaging, Web 2.0, open source

For years, open-source advocate Tim O'Reilly has excoriated some companies such as Mapquest for failing to open up their storehouses of data to creative outside programmers who could create new...

Grokster Goes Global

Posted by: Heather Green on June 29, Categories: digital media

Now a word from our international friends about the recent Supreme Court ruling on file sharing. Ben Hammersley reminds us that we Americans are forgetting the clause in the U.S....

Keeping with the Grokster Theme

Posted by: Heather Green on June 29, Categories: digital media

How VCs may react post Grokster.

Larry Lessig: Grokster Decision Will Chill Innovation

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 28, Categories: Grokster, file-sharing

Stanford law professor Larry Lessig knows what he's talking about when it comes to the collision of technology and intellectual property law. Today, the day after the Supreme Court essentially...

Cell Phones vs. Credit Cards: The Battle Begins

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 28, Categories: wireless

Wireless service providers might soon compete head to head with credit and debit card companies in facilitating payments.

AMD throws down the gauntlet

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on June 28, Categories: Chips

You've got to credit chipmaker AMD for being incredibly gutsy (or is it deeply short-sighted?). Its latest lawsuit against rival Intel accuses the bigger chipmaker of both bribing and coercing...

Lessons from eBay Live

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 27, Categories: Amazon.com, Google, e-commerce, eBay

After spending three days up close and personal with 11,600 of eBay's members, I'm beginning to think the conventional wisdom about its recent decline is wrong--or at least behind the...

The Grokster Case's Silver Lining?

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 27, Categories: Grokster, file-sharing

Billy McNair certainly has an ax to grind when it comes to the Grokster file-sharing case, in which the Supreme court held Monday that such services can be held responsible...

Rudetones: Ringtones Are Getting Rude

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 24, Categories: wireless

New kinds of ringtones, called rudetones, are making a splash -- and they could grab a chunk of the $500 million ringtones market.

Showdown over European Software Patents

Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 24, Categories: software

Get ready for yet another battle in the European Parliament cloakrooms over the future of software patent law. Back on June 22, the parliament's legal affairs committee voted to allow...

Meg Makes Nice

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 24, Categories: e-commerce, eBay

After months of complaints from its sellers, it's clear that eBay is finally paying more attention. On Thursday night, CEO Meg Whitman extended some olive branches, drawing big cheers...

A Cautionary Departure from eBay

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 24, Categories: eBay

John Battelle got an e-mail interview with Louis Monier, the director of eBay's advanced technology group who just left to join Google, which looks increasingly to be a rival to...

Yet Another eBay Marketplace... and Another... and...

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 23, Categories: Amazon.com, e-commerce, eBay

Whatever sellers may criticize eBay for, and they always do and always will, they can't accuse it of standing still. Today, as its annual eBay Live! members conference cranks...

Intelligent Ringtones on the Way?

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 22, Categories: wireless

Doree Duncan Seligmann of Avaya Labs, in a panel at Supernova 2005, says the communications network company is looking at an interesting idea: intelligent ringtones. They needn't merely serve as...

Sky Dayton's New Flight Plan

Posted by: Heather Green on June 22, Categories: wireless

Sky Dayton paid a visit to BW last week to chat about his new venture SK EarthLink.

The Rise of Distributed Business

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 22, Categories: Innovation, Power of Us, Social Software, Web 2.0

I've seen John Seely Brown's talk on "innovation ecologies" a couple of times now, including today at Supernova 2005, and I think I'm finally coming to understand it. The idea...

More Fun with Google Wallet

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 21, Categories: Google, PayPal, e-commerce, eBay

Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li has some interesting thoughts about what Google might do with the online payment system it's supposed to be working on. I'm not so sure many...

Please, Not the Plant Billboard Again

Posted by: Heather Green on June 21, Categories: Curmudgeonly

Ford's "living billboard" made of plants makes this writer think of a similar, soon doomed one that dot.com Garden.com had for a while on Route 101 in Silicon Valley.

Podcasting Off the 'Pod

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 21, Categories: podcasting

A hint of where podcasting may be heading, at a Supernova 2005 panel: "I've been thinking for awhile that the future of podcasting is not on the 'Pod but on...

Ray Kurzweil's New Book

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 21, Categories:

If you thought Ray Kurzweil's last book, "The Age of Spiritual Machines," which talked about a time when human and machine cognition would blur, was really out there, his new book is really, really out there. Delightfully so.

The World's in Color--So Is Innovation

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 20, Categories: Internet, Social Media, Social Software, Web 2.0

I'm attending a workshop at the Supernova 2005 conference in San Francisco, and apparently I'm not the only one getting a little annoyed at Janice Fraser's presentation. It's not that...

Mark Hurd's Self-Education in the HP Way

Posted by: Peter Burrows on June 20, Categories: Transitions

Hurd has also arranged to lunch with three former HP executives--former CEOs John Young and Lew Platt, as well as former chief operating officer Dean Morton--in coming weeks.

Target: Apple

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on June 20, Categories: Gadgets

Is there really room in the market for yet another digital music player? Stereo maker JVC seems to think so. The company just announced it in July will begin selling...

The Power of Us, Indeed: A Goldmine from Readers

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 19, Categories: Innovation, Internet, Power of Us, Social Media, Social Software, Web 2.0

Like few other stories I've written, The Power of Us has unleashed a torrent of ideas and Web sites from a surprisingly diverse set of readers. And unlike most previous...

Bad News for Newspapers

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 18, Categories: digital media

On the face of it, a new survey from Nielsen//NetRatings doesn't look that bad for newspapers. According to news coverage, the survey appears to show that about a fifth of...

Google Vs. PayPal?

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 18, Categories: eBay

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google plans an electronic payment service that may compete with eBay's PayPal. If that's true, I doubt Google would be dumb enough to...

The Power of You

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 16, Categories: Internet, Power of Us, Social Media, Social Software, Web 2.0

We've gotten lots of comments from readers, nearly all insightful, about our recent cover story, The Power of Us. As you might expect, the comments are now an integral part...

Tech's Fifth Wave

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 16, Categories: Innovation, Power of Us

Michael Copeland and Om Malik have an interesting article on what they call the fifth wave of computing in the new issue of Business 2.0. It's a very different but...

Style Points for the New Guy at HP

Posted by: Peter Burrows on June 15, Categories: Transitions

So far, new boss Mark Hurd seems more in step with the gestalt that made HP famous.

Blogs Without Borders

Posted by: Heather Green on June 15, Categories: blogs

Reporters Without Borders lists winners from an online vote of 60 blogs deemed to defend freedom of expression.

Demise of Wi-Fi cafes?

Posted by: Heather Green on June 14, Categories: wireless

Are cafe owners disillusioned with Wi-Fi or not? One industry player, quoted in many news articles on the subjects, says no.

How to Blog Without Getting Fired

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 14, Categories: blogs

Electronic Frontier Foundation just released two papers that explore legalities of blogging -- and which could help some bloggers not to get fired.

Apple Intel: The Hidden Impact

Posted by: Peter Burrows on June 13, Categories: Personal Computers

This partnership might even help the PC industry get over its nearly terminal case of Dell Envy.

Everything Old Is New Again in Tech

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 13, Categories: Social Media

Sure wish I had been able to make this event last week in Silicon Valley, an introduction of John Markoff's new book on the PC industry, that apparently turned into...

Is Social Networking Broken?

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 12, Categories:

Many social networking sites end up annoying their users with unwanted contacts and spam. Unless these problems are resolved, social networking sites' popularity could plummet.

The Way of Xen

Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 10, Categories: open source software

Here's an odd twist. Microsoft, the whale of software, is being bedeviled by a small fish, VMware, the pioneer of virtualization technology for PCs and PC servers. But, in turn,...

BW's IT 100 List

Posted by: Heather Green on June 10, Categories: companies

Pointer to the BW annual IT 100 list and articles.

My "Gigahertz-per-second" Mea Culpa

Posted by: Peter Burrows on June 09, Categories:

Brain cramps happen, and sometimes a price must be paid. Let me explain. I realized upon leaving work yesterday that I had inadvertently added the words "per second" to describe...

Amazon's Split Personality: So What?

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 09, Categories: Amazon.com, e-commerce

Nick Carr has an interesting piece on BusinessWeek Online today that suggests Amazon.com spin off its software business, which helps other merchants sell on Amazon's site. His argument: That business...

Why Wait for an Intel Mac?

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 08, Categories: Apple Computer

One of my favorite blogs, Make: Blog, points to Inventgeek.com's step-by-step instructions for creating your own Intel-based Mac (shown above), a year before Apple plans to come out with...

Back to the Oughts

Posted by: Heather Green on June 08, Categories: Digital Music

Meet the public domain. A free jukebox of pre 1926 popular songs from Turtle Services Limited.

How Innovation Really Works

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 08, Categories: Innovation

Mainly, it's not a chess game, notes Yahoo!'s Jeremy Zawodny. All too often, we media folks fall victim to overdramatizing competition among companies--yes, even BusinessWeek. :-) No doubt that competition...

Talking on Your Cell? Then Gesture!

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 07, Categories: wireless

Gestures recognition on mobile phones? Sure, why not. One University of Glasgow researcher believes his gestures technology could stop cell phone users from bumping into walls and reduce the number of phone-related car accidents.

"MacOS and WinXP, live together in perfect harmony?"

Posted by: Peter Burrows on June 06, Categories:

Paul McCartney couldn't have been thinking about the Mac OS and Windows when he penned the first line of his much-parodied "Ebony & Ivory". In the very remote chance he...

Otellini's Unrequited Hug

Posted by: Peter Burrows on June 06, Categories: Personal Computers

I just got back from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, where Steve Jobs laid out Apple's plan to base future Macs on Intel's microprocessors. All in all, it was another demo...

Is Apple Osborning Itself?

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 06, Categories: Apple Computer

Fed up with some frustrating aspects of Windows, I've been eyeing Apple machines, both laptops and the Mac mini. What to do now that Apple's planning to use use Intel...

Another Comparison Shopping Shoe Drops

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 06, Categories: e-commerce

Less than a week after eBay announced it would buy Shopping.com, another comparison shopping site has been snapped up. E.W. Scripps just said it's buying Shopzilla, known until recently as...

Hell Froze Over--Again

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on June 06, Categories: Gadgets

Call it "Hell Froze Over--The Sequel" Apple just announced the not-so-secret fact that it is dropping IBM's PowerPC chip architecture and going with Intel beginning next year. First, Steve Jobs...

Yahoo! Tries Yet Again in Auctions

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 05, Categories: e-commerce

Closing the Barn Door After the Horses Are Long Gone, Chapter 47: Yahoo! is doing away with listing fees for its auctions, AuctionBytes reported tonight. According to the auction news...

Can Steve Jobs Sell "Intel Inside" to the Mac Faithful?

Posted by: Peter Burrows on June 05, Categories:

If reports from CNET and the Wall Street Journal are true, Apple will announce a phased move from the PowerPC microprocessor to use chips from Intel Corp. in future Macs....

Splunk It

Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 03, Categories: software

I remember when the Google boys came to visit BW the first time, hopped up on ideas, pitching a new way to search the Web. Boy were they right. The...

Blogs on Ice: Signs of a Business Model?

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 02, Categories: blogs

Uberblogger Doc Searls once noted that blogs don't necessarily need a business model to be worthwhile. "Does your phone have a business model? How about your porch? Or your driveway?"...

Europeans can cash in on language know-how--in India

Posted by: Stephen Baker on June 02, Categories: Asia

Indian companies will be in the market for multi-lingual professionals, largely from Western Europe, says a report from Evalueserve.

eBay Goes Shopping.com

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 01, Categories: e-commerce, eBay

The news that eBay is buying Shopping.com came as a surprise to many folks. But maybe not to readers of my commentary back in January, after eBay's fourth-quarter profits missed...

The rise of the next networking giant?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on June 01, Categories: companies

A networking exec spins a vision of private equity building the next giant of the industry

Digital Radio and....Wi-Fi?

Posted by: Heather Green on June 01, Categories: Digital Music

KCRW head Seymour on the building battle between the new HD Radio technology....and Wi-Fi.

Open Source: Capitalist Tool?

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 01, Categories: open source software, software

That's the opinion, anyway, of Jesús Villasante, head of software technologies at the European Community's Information Society and Media Directorate General. According to a story on ZDNet Australia, Villasante accused...