The competitors: Windows Live Search, Yahoo! and Google. I was looking at some really nice maps of Washington, DC, last night on Live Search. I’m not totally up to speed on the latest advances in mapping technology, so I wondered if Live Search had totally leapfrogged the competition with this stuff, or if I could do the same thing on the other map sites. Here’s what I found: This is the best view I could get of the Jefferson Memorial on Yahoo! Google is able to zoom in quite a bit closer. But Live Search can do this! Thank you, Bill Gates! The killer feature (obviously) is that Live Search gives you an oblique view into the scene, instead of just a flat, looking-straight-down view. Plus the image resolution is a lot better. Final Ranking: Live Search Google Yahoo! Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Internet
Why Craigslist Doesn’t Have Text Ads
The privately held Craigslist has been approached about installing text ads on the site, and the potential revenue is “quite staggering,” [CEO Jim Buckmaster] said. But, Buckmaster deadpanned, “No users are suggesting we run text ads.” — Associated Press Craigslist is an exception to the rule that a lot of Internet companies talk about putting users first, but when it comes down to a tradeoff between what users want and a boatload of money, they go for the money. Read more →
CatsThatLookLikeHitler.com
As for Hitler, he comes in for a lot of criticism — much of it justified, in my opinion — but at least he did something with his life. He didn’t just sit around laughing at pictures of cats, like a simpleton. — Harry Hutton Read more →
Thomas Mann: Patron Saint of Bloggers
In the case of Mann and his diaries, what strikes one most is that he obviously felt that absolutely everything that happened to him was worthy of being recorded. . . . [The diaries] give the impression that Mann was thinking ahead to a studious future which would exclaim after each entry: ‘Good heavens, so that was the day when the Great Man wrote such and such a page of The Holy Sinner and then, the following night, read some verses by Heine, that is so revealing!’ — Javier Marias, Written Lives Read more →
Sun Microsystems Circles the Drain
Sun Microsystems Inc. said co-founder Scott McNealy will give up the job of chief executive to the No. 2 person at the company, Jonathan Schwartz, a historic transition for a computer maker facing stiff pressure to cut costs and boost revenue. — The Wall Street Journal So long, funny man! Read more →
Medical Front Office Ass
The job ads on the right were dropped into a business article I was reading last weekend. Evidently the job titles get truncated after 24 characters, which is probably a bad idea, given the unintended consequences . . . Read more →
Into the Digital Abyss
The Globe and Mail reports that a “small but determined group of computer geeks [is] trying to translate open-source software into African languages, in an effort to reach the continent most isolated by the digital divide.” Read more →
What Would Jesus Download?
According to a survey commissioned by the Gospel Music Association, only 10 percent of born-again teens believe that copying CDs for friends and unauthorized music downloading are morally wrong . . . Read more →
Prescription Drugs by Email!
I get about 200 emails a day — 90 percent junk — and 90 percent of the junk is targeted at human weakness, weariness, disappointment, regret and self-loathing. Read more →
Christmas Wishes
After my son got close to 50 items on his Amazon Xmas wish list, I said it might be helpful to add a comment to the stuff indicating which things he wanted the most. Now most of the items include one of the following three comments: favorite extreme favorite!!!!!!!! very extreme favorite!!!!!!!!! With varying numbers of exclamation points . . . Read more →
Dogfood
The netscape.com domain, which is owned by AOL, has replaced its Netscape-Enterprise servers with AOLServer. Repeat: netscape.com no longer runs on Netscape servers. Also: netscape.co.uk now runs Apache, while in France, netscape.fr runs Microsoft-IIS. Read more →
Convergence
Kmart Files Chapter 11 Amazon Posts a Profit Read more →
Disband Man
Former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale is disbanding his venture firm, the Barksdale Group, after two years of operation. Many of the firm’s investments received favorable publicity mentions, none actually made any money, and some are defunct. This guy is the kiss of death . . . Read more →
Why Is Everybody So Happy?
This is a story about customer satisfaction in the Internet age. Today’s Good Morning Silicon Valley brings this provocative item: Problems with Webvan? Mercury News reporter Joelle Tessler would like to talk to former Webvan customers dissatisfied with the company’s service. If that’s you, please drop her an e-mail at jtessler@sjmercury.com Is this for real?! Well, there’s one way to find out . . . From: Paul Epps Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 2:35 PM To: jtessler@sjmercury.com Subject: webvan Are you preparing an article on dissatisfied Webvan customers? How do you know they’re dissatisfied before you’ve talked to them? Who can the *satisfied* Webvan customers talk to? I’m in no way affiliated with Webvan, nor was I a customer, but this doesn’t seem fair. Apologies in advance if I’ve misread your intentions. From: Tessler, Joelle Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 2:39 PM To: Paul Epps Subject: RE: webvan I… Read more →
N-Tear Development
And there was sadness round, and faces bowed, And woman’s tears fell fast, and children wailed aloud. — William Cullen Bryant, “The Old Man’s Funeral” On any software project, the development time and cost, as well as the amount of weeping and gnashing of teeth, will increase geometrically with the number of abstraction layers. That’s why it’s called “n-tear development.” Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
Leaving Silicon Valley
Notes from the Rainbow Hotel Casino, Wendover, NV: Belongings in a U-Haul in the parking lot. I liked the Bay Area, but it was indifferent to me. I sold online ads for an Internet company. I wore shorts to work and still made a lot of money. Then in October, the executives called a meeting and told us the company was closing. We had an hour to leave the building. I was really sad. I got another job selling ads for LookSmart. But LookSmart wasn’t as smart as it looked. In January, they laid off 30 percent of the staff, including me. There was good news too. I could always find 12 friends to go bowling on a Friday afternoon because they didn’t have jobs either. Now I’m going B-to-C. Back to Cleveland. Read more →