Each weekend we highlight the most relevant stories Wired News has covered. To find out what's coming up, click over to The Calendar of E-vents.
Toy story: Media Metrix declared Toysrus.com the "Top Toy Site" for the week of 28 November -- but the offline toy giant was nowhere to be found in online creditor NextCard's "Top Ten eHoliday Retailers" during November. Proof again, said one expert, that "when it comes to gauging e-commerce, no one can agree on what to measure, or even on how to do it."
Given that, you may or may not care that Media Metrix also reported that traffic to e-commerce sites in the first week in December was up 44 percent over the same week in 1998.
Smut trends: A firm that filters X-rated sites for big corporate customers said Web-porn's growth is leveling off -- still growing at about 40 percent annually, but heading south fast. Seems a saturated market is forcing sites to find new niches to exploit if they want to get noticed.
What we really meant: More than 1,000 InfiNet subscribers received letters from the Virginia ISP, saying records showed they were overusing their "unlimited" accounts. How can this be? Well, on the Internet, it turns out, unlimited is a relative term.
Click for me: Backers of Arizona's plan to offer an online voting option alongside traditional paper ballots said it will increase participation in the process. Sounds good to the several other states that are studying the concept -- but not everyone is convinced.
Meanwhile, Sam Donaldson, ABC's longtime political hound, said he's fallen in love. With the Internet. In fact, Donaldson has become such a true Net believer, he's asked Disney's Go.com network to make a daily production of his current thrice-weekly webcasting gig.
Halt, thief: An entrepreneur named William Craig had an intriguing idea -- take live signals from Toronto TV broadcasters and stream them live on a Web site framed by his own advertising. But the broadcasters weren't too impressed with Craig's savvy, calling his venture a blatant copyright infringement. They told ICraveTV.com to shut down, or else.
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Everybody aboard:__ Saying "we must connect all of our citizens to the Internet, not just in schools and libraries, but in homes, small businesses, and community centers," President Clinton announced he'll tour the country next spring to drum up support for efforts to bridge the so-called "digital divide." In July, the Commerce Department published a report that said racial minorities are not as connected as whites.
The real thing: Psuedo.com founder Joshua Harris said he's negotiating to sell a minority stake in the company to a strategic partner -- possibly a major media player -- in a deal that could value the company at roughly US$200 million. Apparently the big guys think there's a place for "TV You Won't See On TV" -- material ranging from programs about the future of business to space to girl power.
In need of WTO: China's chief minister of foreign trade and investment predicted his country would become an official member of the World Trade Organization by mid-2000. China has already reached agreement with the United States on membership in the WTO, which is seen as crucial to China's telecommunications and Internet infrastructure.
No sale: Tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, billy clubs -- these remnants of the WTO's visit to Seattle found their way onto eBay. And off. EBay quickly pulled the plug on the stuff, citing its policy of not carrying weapons and concerns about the ownership of the items.
Make an offer: The auction portal Auctionpatrol.com put itself up for sale -- on eBay. With a starting bid of $10,000, Auctionpatrol.com president Paul Hale reckoned that an auction site was the best place to sell his auction business. As of midweek, the bidding was up to $21,000.
Net-centric: Five hours of tube-time for a show about the Internet? In Germany? Makes sense to the people who put it on. "I wonder why there is no show like this in America yet," said one of NBC GIGA's hostesses.
Two more examples of the Internet's growth in Germany: First, AOL and the reigning top Net access service, T-Online, are locked in a fierce battle. AOL trails in users right now, but asserted confidently that a superior business model -- and tennis legend Boris Becker -- will give the edge in the long run.
And second, the German Film School said that beginning in March it will offer digital filmmaking courses, with graduates earning the title "digital artist." To get the school off the ground, its founder, Bernd Willim, will charge tuition and hook up with some high-powered corporate sponsors -- both taboo in German education.
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Shooting blanks:__ Scientists said new research indicates that infertile men may be passing on the gene for infertility. Sounds strange, until you're reminded that genetics are about diseases passed on in families, not individuals.
Genes were in the news in Iceland, where the government faced a decision on whether to sell rights to the country's gene pool to the Swiss drug company Roche Holding. Turns out it's easier for researchers to isolate genes in a homogenous population, such as Iceland's -- where they can pick out diseased genes more easily -- than it is for them to study a more varied population.
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Listening in:__ Israeli researchers said a flawed algorithm in digital GSM phones made by companies such as Motorola, Ericsson, and Siemens -- and used by well over 100 million customers in Europe and the United States -- makes it theoretically possible to intercept calls. But experts said not to worry. Yet.
Some people were surprised to find out that such a story came out of Israel. But thanks to the work of Adi Shamir -- and the fact that such work doesn't require huge resources -- the country is actually a hotbed of cryptographic research.
Let's make a deal: The government and state attorneys general filed their latest legal brief in the Microsoft case, arguing that US District Judge Thomas Jackson should rule that the company ran afoul of antitrust law and mete out appropriate punishment. What exactly that punishment should be wasn't stated, with the plaintiffs calling simply for an "appropriate remedy."
Hot stocks: Andover went public, selling four million shares for $18 each, the top of its expected price range. The company, whose network of news and discussion sites such as Slashdot.org have become a hub for the open source community, netted $72 million through W.R. Hambrecht's Dutch auction service, OpenIPO.
Another big IPO success was VA Linux Systems, which sells servers and workstations that use the Linux operating system. In the first few hours of trading it was up a whopping 800 percent, providing a nice potential payoff to those open-source developers without whom Linux wouldn't exist -- and who missed out on the Red Hat IPO earlier this year.
Striking back: A free speech activist defaced a government site in retaliation for Australia's new Web censorship rules, marking the second such attack on the agency charged with enforcing content ratings. The new law prohibiting overly sexually explicit, violent, or offensive content is set to go into effect with the new year, despite continuing confusion and controversy about how it will really work.
Netical Center: Britain's National Health Service, which serves 90 percent of the UK's population and acts as the country's largest HMO, unveiled an online service designed to provide the public with general health information, and help reduce hospital patient overload. Critics, however, said it could lead to misdiagnoses among Web surfers.
That's the week that was. For information on ongoing goings-on, click over to The Calendar of E-vents.
