ISOCNZ Is Set Free!
Most exceptional of these events was the recapturing of ISOCNZ by a small but focused group of "movers and shakers" who managed to oust the lime-lighters who had previously converted the organisation and driven it off the rails.

There's little point in me going into detail as to what happened and why because the issues, players, ploys and outcome will be covered in adequate detail by the other local news providers.

However, I think it is worth stating that the Internet community and industry owes a huge debt of gratitude to those who committed a huge amount of their own time, effort and money to this initiative and who have managed to free ISOCNZ from being hijacked by a small faction of individuals driven by self-interest. Congratulations on a job well done to: Joe, the Davids, Lin, Alan, Dean, Simon, Chris, Peter, Stephen, Rob, Jenny and too many others to list.

Battle Of The Titans
INL have made a lot of noise recently about the imminent launch of their new supersite which will bring together content from a mass of publications so as to create what could be NZ's foremost content-focused website.

The site launches tomorrow with a bit of a hoo-ha, however, needless to say, I've been sent no information, nor even an invitation to the launch -- if there is one. For some reason, INL don't seem to know that Aardvark even exists -- one day they'll catch up with the rest of the industry I guess ;-)

No doubt they'll be touting to become "NZ's Home Page" in the same way as just about every other news and portal site currently is. It will be very interesting to see if they have an adequate understanding of how this industry, culture and community thinks and works. I certainly hope they're doing a better job of designing the new website than they have of their corporate site at 4 www.inl.co.nz which consistently crashes my copy of Netscape (after a minute or so), requires a horizontal screen resolution of at least 1200 pixels if you're not to end up with a scroll-bar along the bottom of your browser window, and will gladly eat all your bandwidth forever and forever as it reloads its graphics over, and over, and over....

So, what will the NZ Herald and NZoom do to counter this new pretender to the title of "NZ's Hot Content Spot" I wonder?

We wait with bated breath.

Meantime, look out for my review of the new INL site -- if they ever bother to tell me where it is ;-)

Why e-Tail Is Doomed...
I'm hoping my head will have cleared a little by tomorrow -- when I'll be publishing a feature that explains why NZ's Flying Pig and many other e-tailers are doomed to fail unless they make some major changes.

All over the Net, major, well-funded e-tailers are finding it impossible to turn a profit -- why is this? What are they doing wrong? What has happened to the huge promise that Net-based shopping offered to investors, retailers and customers?

All will be revealed here tomorrow.

As always, your feedback is welcomed.