All over the Net there are companies spending huge amounts of (usually other
people's) money in an attempt to discover the magic formula that will enable
them to turn visitors into profit.
A few, such as eBay and
Yahoo have managed to achieve
this lofty goal -- but the vast majority are still scratching their heads.
The question that must be faced at this time is -- will the Net ever become
a sensible place to try and make money?
So far it's been found that there's no money in Web-based publishing, advertising,
big-budget Net-only retailing, and a mass of other models which have simply
failed in their attempts to draw money out of the wallets of scrooge-like
Web-surfers.
Just how will business overcome the "its on the Web so it must be free"
mindset that pervades the Internet community?
If you think you know -- why not
share your thoughts with Aardvark readers.
Who Needs A Faster PC?
I see that PC sales are in a slump and there's growing concern about the
reduction in demand for the new faster chips -- but is it any wonder?
The fastest machine in Aardvark's computer-room is running at a little more
than 600 MHZ and it spends 99.9% of its time idling. Even the most heavily
stressed machine here only ever feels slow when I'm encoding video footage
into an MPEG or fractally compressed format -- so why would I want to spend
money to buy a newer, faster computer?
This is a growing problem for PC makers -- the old ones are more than fast
enough to keep everyone except the heaviest game-players and number-crunchers
happy.
It strikes me that what the industry needs is a new "killer-app" that places
huge demands on a computer's processing power, thus forcing an upgrade to
a better, faster processor. But what will that killer-app be?
Request For Information
Okay, tomorrow's the first Friday edition of Aardvark Daily for 2001 and I'm
in dire need of material for the Lighten Up section.
Trawl through your bookmarks (yes -- those hundreds of sites whose URLs you've
filed away but never revisited) and send me the funniest, silliest or just
plain worst stuff you've found during your surfing sessions.
Don't be selfish now -- learn to share! :-)
Aardvark Weekly, Have You Got Yours?
Yes, it's still trickling out -- but the Aardvark Weekly subscription list
has grown enormously over the past two weeks which has required a bit of a
change to the back-end here so there's still going to be a few who haven't
received the latest edition. My apologies.
If you want to subscribe, just
drop me a note and I'll put you on the list.
As always, your feedback is welcomed and...
Did you tell someone else about this website today? If not then do it
now!
