Sponsor's Message

As I scanned the newswires this morning, vainly searching for an interesting new topic or event on which to base today's commentary I was bored to tears by the "sameness" of what I found.

In a nutshell, here's what I saw: the recording industry continues to whine about its woes, Australia is considering a media-levy to offset losses due to piracy, a handful of security/hacker stories, more warmed up coverage of the Sun/Microsoft Java battle, and more problems with HP's wireless keyboards.

It seems that tech-news publishers are also finding it difficult to hunt down some excitement and have therefore turned to covering weapons-related stories.

Today we find that The Register, Wired, and the BBC have all opted to provide some coverage of guns, bombs, warships or fighter-planes. Now you have to know that the tech-news industry is running out of story ideas!

Readers Say (updated irregularly) On the List... - Mike Maxnet deals with flak... - Brett Have Your Say

This is what we in the biz call "a slow news day".

So, as a result of this, I'll offer you a pot pouri of little tid-bits that have come to my attention in recent days.

First-up, MaxNet seem to be copping more flak for hosting spammers.

As well as the now infamous Lymree.co.nz incident, MaxNet have been associated with spam from bargainkiwi.co.nz and I've received a report that what appears to be another of their hosting clients, onthelist.co.nz has spammed local website owners.

It seems to me that, at the very least, MaxNet ought to be properly educating its clients against spamming or they're going to find themselves ex-communicated from large sections of the rest of the net.

And speaking of OnTheList.co.nz, do we really need yet another incomplete web directory? And how do they get away with calling themselves "the most prestigious New Zealand Business Directory"?

But hey, if you're prepared to stump up between $10 and $50 per month, you too can have your website listed alongside some others.

So what do you get for your up-to $600 a year?

Well you get a website that has some entertaining spelling and grammar errors, bad incompatibility with some non-Microsoft browsers, a ranking system that is open to abuse, an online directory that seems to tell porkies about how many sites it contains (this page claims there are 18 entries under "Computers and Internet --> Publications" but clicking on the link displays only 5), etc, etc.

Of course I could insert a plug for my site survey service here but I wouldn't dare do something so mercenary :-)

Come on guys. Don't send unsolicited commercial email, and don't waste your money trying to sell people listings on yet-another-web-directory.

And just who are the people behind this little venture?

Well you'll find their details here.

I'm all in favour of people trying new ideas and having a go -- but this is just silly.

If you're going to invest in an online venture then why not do your homework and come up with a really new, exciting, innovative idea? Just copying the tired old online web directory formula isn't going to get you anywhere -- especially when your attention to detail is somewhat less than perfect and you use unsolicited commercial email to promote yourselves.

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