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METAFORIX MAIL Volume 1, Issue 34 March 27, 2001 Our cityscape
icon has morphed into a fabulous postcard. It makes an eye-catching addition
to your bulletin board or refrigerator door. CONTENTS AT A GLANCE: ON
MY MIND: Paying for Less Than I Used to Get for Free ON MY MIND [From the Editor] iThe Demise of the Freebie Pat Salzer is a web site consultant and a perceptive observer of Internet trends. We've corresponded a bit about a topic she considers hot and important: the end of many free services on the Web."Advertising rates are down and many advertising-supported services are either scaling back or starting to charge fees," Pat says. "This is another turning point in the evolution of the Web." Pat's Web-based e-mail account is one example. It used to be free. Now, Pat finds herself "paying for a little less than I used to get for free." Although she feels uncertain about just how things will shake out, Pat raises a number of provocative questions: - Is it going to be a lot harder for people with limited resources to have a Web presence? - Will a new geek culture spring up? - Will there eventually be two Web cultures, one for love and one for money? Pat would prefer the latter outcome. She misses the Web the way it used to be, despite the fact that it is much easier to earn a living on the Web now than it was before. The reduction in advertising revenue is not entirely bad, from Pat's point of view. "It could cut down on some of the real junk on the Web." The disappearing junk, however, is not likely to include porn, which is "profitable and mostly not free." The Web "could become just another marketing medium," a prospect that does not delight her. Pat is even more concerned about the "pay-for-placement" model that is becoming an increasingly common feature of search engines. "Until recently, the Web was sort of an equalizer." Now, when your search query returns hundreds or thousands of results, it's a good bet that the hits at the top of the listed floated there on a sea of money. One story Pat tells concerns Arlo.net, the web site of folk musician and singer Arlo Guthrie. The site was created and continues to be run by Pat's "friend and personal Web guru," Dave Downin. At the beginning, Arlo.net was a fan site, but now it is Arlo's official web site. "A couple of years ago, in an interview, Arlo reflected on the origins and growth of the site. He remarked that Arlo.net was just as easy to access through a search engine as any major corporate web site. Arlo has had his ups and downs in the music business, so I think this struck him as a marvelous thing. He is in a very good position to appreciate a medium that lets him reach out directly to the people who still want his music, even though it's no longer commercially popular enough to be heavily promoted by a major label." Music is not the only art that would suffer if Pat's predictions come to pass. "Essays, poetry, and all kinds of information could be harder to find if they can't be put into a profitable bundle." Pat believes "it's not so much that corporate interests want it that way, as that they can't imagine any other reality." Pat is unwilling to embrace such a "dire scenario." She hopes "there will always be a true geek who'll create a better search engine that's free - at least for a while." As the wired population grows, though, "the majority will gravitate toward the commercial and heavily promoted services." Perhaps this trend will spawn a "second wave of the geek culture that ran the Web until very recently." Pat claims not to be "an authority on anything" -- just someone who is "passionate about the Web and thinks about it a lot. Way too much, some people would say." It's hardly necessary to note that I am not among them. I correspond with Pat at psalzer@ureach.com. You can e-mail her at that address, as well. Cordially,
Lois C.
Ambash, Editor
MEDIA "Profits
and the Press" Last week, publisher Jay Harris of the San Jose Mercury News resigned after parent company Knight Ridder ordered major cost-cutting at the paper in an effort to raise profits. Harris, a highly respected newspaper executive, chose to resign rather than sacrifice quality journalistic quality to higher profit margins. NewsHour media correspondent Terrence Smith convened two journalists and a media market analyst to discuss how the Harris resignation reflects the conflict between profitability and content. With advertising revenues down, newspapers are under pressure to respond by reducing content, consolidating regional editions, and cutting staff. Panelist David Yarnold, executive editor of the Mercury News, pointed out that during the discussion in the newspaper business, the "constituency for profits" is Wall Street, while the "constituency for quality" is readers. To access the panel dicussion in video, audio, or transcript form, go to: www.pbs.org/newshour
Access previous issues of Metaforix Mail by date by visiting our archives. Or use the search box on any page of the Metaforix site (www.metaforix.com) to search by keywords. INFORMATICON Disability Visibility "This is the paradox of visibility, another of disability culture's great concerns: now you see us; now you don't. Many of us 'pass' for able-bodied -- we appear before you unclearly marked, fuzzily apparent, our disabilities not hanging out all over the place. We are sitting next to you. No, we are are you. As the saying goes in disability circles these days: 'If we all live long enough, we'll all be disabled. We are all TABs -- temporarily able-bodied.' We are as invisible as we are visible. And it only in often having to claim the rights that are due to us, to gain the access we are equal to, to enter the public space we are guaranteed, that we uncloak ourselves, turn 'passing' into 'outing;' turn discreditability into discredit . . .; it is in no less than a civil rights frame that we become fully visible.""Becoming Visible: Lessons in Disability." Brenda Jo Brueggemann et al., College Composition and Communication, February, 2001 Guest Columnists and Interviewees Wanted! Metaforix
Mail seeks your opinions on how information technologies are (or are not)
changing your world of work.
CYBERSPEAK "The 21st Century Equivalent of Rifling through the Trash" Computer forensics is a new and growing branch of traditional police forensics whose goal is to preserve evidence of computer-based crimes for eventual use in court.In the early days of business computing, employers who suspected foul play would make after-hours forays onto employees' hard drives, using what they found there to help them follow an old-fashioned paper trail. Nowadays, when many more documents are stored electronically than on paper, investigators follow a digital trail. According to Thomas Talleur, managing director of KPMG's forensic technology services group, forensic investigators can "resurrect e-mail messages from a computer that hasn't worked in years, or establish a time line of crime from the hard drives on 15 separate laptops." But these kinds of services are labor-intensive and very costly -- so few companies can afford to perform them in house. The need to locate, preserve, and document evidence of crimes like credit-card fraud and corporate espionage -- not to mention presidential pecadillos or political shenanigans -- has led to the development of a new market niche within information technology. Computer forensics companies are hired on a case-by-case basis to marshall the necessary evidence, educate attorneys on the nuances of electronic clues, and provide solutions designed to improve security for the future. As Talleur points out, "Corporate criminals don't always tell the truth. Their computers, however, usually do." Source: "IT Autopsy," CIO Magazine, 3/1/01.
The Patient Advocate Foundation The mission of the Patient Advocate Foundation is to serve as a mediator between critically ill patients and their insurers, employers, and creditors. It offers a broad array of consulting services and publications designed to help patients and families cope with cancer and other chronic illnesses.The Foundation's site is a repository of resources and suggestions for navigating the multiple bureaucratic mazes that all too often accompany the physical discomforts and disruptions of the illness itself. Clinical trials, insurance appeals, debt counseling, job discrimination, and legal assistance are among the areas covered on the site. If you are coping with the upheaval of serious chronic illness -- your own or that of a loved one -- PatientAdvocate.org may be a source of help and hope. To visit this site, go to: www.PatientAdvocate.org
Please note that the links contained in Metaforix Mail are current as of the time of publication. Some of them may no longer be operative at the time you access past issues.
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Volume 1, Issue 33 March 20, 2001 |
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