Wired News – What happened.
In Redmond Bill G. elevated Steve Ballmer, a Harvard buddy and Microsoft original, to the presidency. All employees – including those at the new 32-acre satellite campus in Silicon Valley – report to Ballmer, who quarterbacked the launch of Windows 95. Gates, operating from his fabulous Lake Washington bunker or new digs in Switzerland, will focus on the road ahead.
Y2K Scolding The SEC lectured US public corporations on their apparent inability to tell stockholders what, if anything, they're doing to avert Y2K problems.
DIY Dough … Latest proof that a high stock valuation is a license to print money: In the midst of August's market sag, Jeff Bezos & Co. paid $173.2 million in Amazon.com shares for price-tracking company Junglee and $86.6 million for address-book developer PlanetAll.
… And Let It Rise Webcaster Broadcast.com (née AudioNet ) made IPO history, going out at $18 and rocketing up 249 percent – a first-day record – to a close of $63…. Next up: Jim Clark's Healtheon (see "Doctor Stock").
Cable Guy Paul Allen's stock ship has long since come in. That's why he had $4.5 billion in change to buy Charter Communications, a cable-TV company. Add Charter to an April buy, Marcus Cable, and you have, in addition to a $7.2 billion investment and 2.4 million subscribers, the start of a big-bandwidth empire.
Back at the Hall of Justice Before retiring to the strategy den, Gates was ordered to give a deposition as part of the Great Internet Explorer Antitrust War. Microsoft's legal team asked US District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson – a hard nut – to dismiss all charges because the company's browser plans predate Netscape's launch. That issue may be moot: The case will likely hinge on how MS played rough with partners by trying to cut exclusive IE deals.
Like a Media Virgin Out of the digital woodwork came teens Mike and Diane, who announced the webcast of a tender moment: their very first poke. Media frenzy ensued. Soon enough, the "Our First Time" couple was unmasked as break-seeking actors. Reporters raged at the deceit. Yes, scribes, it was a con job. And we're quite shocked – at your innocence.
Sweating It The National Climatic Data Center reported that July was the world's toastiest month in at least a century and that 1998 has been the hottest year in the last 600. Al Gore seized on the report as evidence of global warming. But the jury will be out until Greenland hosts Carnaval.
Selling It Speaking of Brazilian events: Investors and protesters alike ran wild when the nation's telecom monopoly Telebras was split into a dozen pieces and sold off. The sale netted US$19 billion from a host of foreign firms, including MCI (which outbid Sprint for long distance carrier Embratel). Demonstrators, unconvinced they'll benefit from globalization, clashed with police outside Rio's stock exchange.
CDA '98 Halloween: H2O hit the theaters just as another sequel played in Congress. The Senate passed an antismut bill by Hoosier Republican Dan Coats targeting com-mercial sites that publish material "harmful to minors." Get ready for the inevitable: an online bookseller charged for peddling Lolita.
Something Different The iMac exploded the beige-box desktop-design orthodoxy and marked Apple's attempt to forge into the low-end market. A flood of prerelease orders and a third consecutive quarterly profit proved that Steve Jobs's reanimation is working.
A Banner Year
Who's advertising online? An August report from InterMedia Advertising Solutions showed 100 percent-plus growth from 1996 to 1997 among all major industries. Leading the pack: the technology industry. Leading that sector: Microsoft, which outspent runner-up IBM $30.9 million to $18 million in 1997.
Online Ad Spending by Industry
| Industry | 1997 (US$ millions) | 1996 | % increase
| 1. | Computers/software | $275.3 | $122.0 | 125
| 2. | Financial | 42.0 | 10.9 | 286
| 3. | Telecom | 32.6 | 19.3 | 69
| 4. | Media/advertising | 29.7 | 11.1 | 168
| 5. | Automotive | 24.4 | 9.4 | 160
| 6. | Direct response | 20.8 | 8.1 | 157
| 7. | Local guides | 18.5 | 5.0 | 267
| 8. | Retail | 16.3 | 4.2 | 290
| 9. | Travel | 11.6 | 4.1 | 181
| 10. | General services | 9.2 | 2.9 | 222
Source: InterMedia Advertising Solutions InterWatch report
Blast Off Ever vigilant, the US State Department halted Sea Launch, a commercial satellite venture led by Boeing, for fear that the company had passed sensitive information to its Russian and Ukrainian partners. Less vigilant, the US Air Force witnessed a Titan 4A rocket carrying a $1 billion spy satellite explode just after takeoff.
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