Tuesday, October 24

Erik Baard of the Village Voice looks at AOL and adult content in "You've got porn." According to sources at Penthouse and an anonymous AOL employee, AOL has explored the possibility of offering adult content in the past.

EarthLink and Japanese Nifty will share content and access points to allow them to better compete with AOL, which is seeking to expand its service in Japan.

Jonathan Lebed, the teenager accused by the SEC of manipulating stock prices, managed to keep about half a million dollars in profits . Lebed paid a $285,000 fine, but did not admit guilt in manipulating stock prices by posting false statements on stock message boards.

RMI.NET announced that it will be a test company for Time-Warner's open cable modem access plans.

Cogent is building an all-data, all-fiber backbone business.

Wireless

Avogodro is a new startup that aims to help mobile users move data between their computer and wireless devices.

The W3C has issued a draft of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for mobile phones.

Tech Dirt has photos of way out Japanese cell phones from the CEATEC show.

If you think the stock market will be bad in October, you're just a superstitious silly person

The Meta Group looks at likely consolidation in the DSL industry.

Sign of the times: PlanetRX is planning a 1-for-8 reverse stock split. The move is designed to prop up the company's stock price, which has slipped so low that the firm faces delisting from Nasdaq.

Juno has obtained a $125 million line of equity credit so that it can keep giving away what most companies can't make money selling.

Bookmark site Backflip is changing its focus to cell phones, seen in this ON24 video that traces the company's history to the present.

Deja.com is for sale. Originally called DejaNews, the site provides a Web interface to Usenet and an answer to the perennial question "is there an archive of this newsgroup." Deja later added a product rating service. The Usenet and rating divisions are being sold separately.

Catchy domain names aren't selling like they used to. It's also true that a preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.

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Friday, October 27

Hackers broke into Microsoft's network, the company discovered on Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft became aware of the problem when they detected passwords being emailed to a site in St. Petersburg, Russia. The hackers are believed to have had access to the company's network for three months. Microsoft won't say what the intruders did, but one source believes that "blueprints" to recent versions of Windows and Office.

AOL passed the six million member mark, having added six million members in the last year. [Geez. I was an AOL member back when they passed the one million mark. BTW, nothing changes. People were complaining about busy signals back then, too. - Leslie]

CNET has a lukewarm review of AOL 6.0. One unwelcome change in the software is the inability to set a custom web page. All surfing starts at AOL's page.

Interspeed, a maker of DSL routers, is mulling a sale of the company following disappointing earnings.

Microsoft agreed to settle complaints with the FCC that advertising for WebTV failed to disclose applicable toll charges and over-promised on the set-top box's ability to view all Internet content. The Wall Street Journal article looks at WebTV's flagging market position and attempts to reposition the product in the wake of low-cost PCs and add-on TV devices such as TiVo.

Salon's Peter Sussman has a review of Eudora's MoodWatcher feature. (Hint: he thinks it's a piece of %?!&$.)

L-mode is a new Japanese land line phone that offers the Internet surfing and email of the mobile I-mode.

Dot-com-ing down to Earth

Nick Mamatas of the Village Voice ponders where Internet video fits into the traditional media landscape, a la McCluhan.

A new study finds that executives at Internet companies are four times more likely to have criminal records or unsavory affiliations compared to executives at traditional companies.

Fortune magazine looks at the beleaguered Internet market in "Dot-Coms: What Have We Learned?"

BusinessWeek's "That Dot-Com Job May Not Look So Sexy Now" examines the new reality of stock options in a down market.

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