Flux
Net Gain: Despite the posturing of cranks and fools (see page 80), the online revolution is still posting record growth figures - around 14,000 people a day are joining online services, according to the Information & Interactive Services Report (www.brpinc.com). By early fall, there will be close to 10 million users of consumer online services. That doesn't even factor in the Net. And if you think Net growth has reached a plateau, you haven't been at the same cocktail parties as the VCs: they invested US$47 million in Net-based ventures in the first quarter of 1995, compared with $42 million for all of 1994. Why? Maybe it's the buzz from a recent survey that reported spending on the Web up 35 percent over a half-year period, with another 70 percent increase expected in the next six months (more info at www.umich.edu/~sgupta/hermes/).
Polls about Polls Should Frighten the Pols: According to a survey conducted by the Verity Group, the Republic should just disband and get it over with. The study found that 57 percent of consumers would rather use interactive TV to vote directly on legislative issues than trust their Congressional reps.
Real Dumb: Maybe AI needs a new image. A recent issue of Business Week points out that more than 70 percent of the Fortune 500 use artificial-intelligence technology such as database marketing, agent software, or voice recognition, but the moniker "AI" carries such a stigma that no one will admit to using or selling AI software.
Strictly Business: Remember the euphoria about how no one can control the Net and how authoritarian countries will crumble under the Net's information-wants-to-be-free mentality? Well China, for one, isn't taking this crap lying down. The China Internet Corporation, a subsidiary of the official Chinese news agency Xinhua, recently announced that it would eliminate newsgroups, ftp sites, and the like that are "not related to business." This followed a dictum from China's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications directing all Internet providers to restrict access to "undesirable" political discussions. Memo: Sex, Entertainment, and even Big Ideas can all be clothed in the robes of business.
Speaking of Government Action: Just in time for summer, Iran banned the sale of seedless watermelons. Why? Well, seems those godless melons, bereft as they are of reproductive mechanisms, "promote homosexuality and asexuality." (We also hear that the eunuch fruit threatens Iran's annual fundamentalist cleric watermelon seed-spittin' contest.)
Unclear on the Concept: The US Postal Service has been talking to Microsoft about becoming a service provider on The Microsoft Network. Doing what? Selling stamps online, sources say.
They Left Their Heart: The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has had its share of bittersweet victories in the past year, has decided to flee Washington, DC, and head back to San Francisco, the spiritual and physical home of many of its members. After fighting valiantly against the Clipper Chip, the EFF took a compromise position on the Digital Telephony bill, a move that prompted many to claim the organization was infected with the dreaded Inside-the-Beltway disease. "Over the years, EFF has had an ambivalent relationship with Washington," the EFF press release admitted. Good to see it has resolved the conflict.
