] I'm building a secure, online, peer-to-peer, encrypted,
] redundant bet-processing system with an offshore data
] warehouse. Ordinary companies would hire a team to put
] this together; I'm working with one guy. Getting the
] system up and running is a three-step process. First,
] eliminate all those incriminating little pieces of paper.
] Instead of writing down a wager, the operator will enter
] the bet onto an online form. The whole transaction will
] be encrypted by a browser and sent over the Net to a
] server running in an undisclosed country where the laws
] are more liberal than they are in the US. Essentially,
] the system acts as a market maker, matching up people who
] want to take different sides of a sports bet.

Make your own economy.

Wired 11.12: CodeFellas

] Search-engine giant Google recently made a $30 million
] offer to buy Friendster, the hot Sunnyvale online dating
] site that lets users meet and date friends of their
] friends.
]
] Friendster spurned the proposal, choosing instead to
] accept $13 million in fresh investments from venture
] capital firms, according to two VC insiders familiar with
] the events.

Mercury News | 10/31/2003 | Friendster spurns Google

] Reed, who is serving as the exchange's chairman following
] the recent resignation of Richard Grasso, has been
] discussing the plan for about two weeks, according to one
] stock exchange director. It would involve one board of
] independent directors that would preside over the
] exchange's compensation, regulatory and audit committees,
] and another that would be made up of chief executives of
] securities firms and listed companies, who would look
] after the exchanges marketplace issues, the Times
] reported.

Yahoo! News - NYSE Chief Considers Forming 2 Boards-NYT

] Network Solutions, a full-service provider of domain
] names, Web sites, and e-mail services, today announced
] that it is now accepting pre-orders for its new Next
] Registration Rights service. Next Registration Rights is
] a unique new service that automatically obtains the
] registration for a currently registered .com or .net
] domain name if the current domain name holder fails to
] renew, or affirmatively deletes, the domain name during
] the subscription period. Network Solutions is the first
] retail registrar to accept advanced orders for the
] service that is scheduled to "go live" in October 2003.

What is the story with this one? It looks as if VeriSign is trying to milk its monopoly over .com/.net in every way it can possibly think of.

Even though VeriSign pretty much has complete control of com/net, their growth is pretty flat, hence their stock is performing like shit. They are losing more margin on domain hosting/sales, because more and more people are registering with or switching to other registrars.

] Once the new Network Solutions service goes live, only
] one individual or organization can receive a Next
] Registration Rights subscription for a currently
] registered domain name. In the past, there was no
] control over how many people backordered a domain
] and therefore no one person could be assured that
] they would be able to register the domain when it
] became available.

In short, for $39 a year, you can have VeriSign sit on top of the records for .net/.com, and if the holding registrar gives up the domain you are interested in, they snag it. Sounds simple, but its not possible to compete with Network Solutions here, because they control .net/.com the master records.

] Another benefit of Next Registration
] Rights is that it can serve as an insurance policy for
] current domain name holders by protecting against
] losing a domain name registration that is allowed to
] inadvertently expire.

... or another way to extort some bucks out of people.

Network Solutions® Introduces Next Registration Rights Service

] Although details remain scarce, the Sony service as
] described will be closely tied to the company's consumer
] electronics and proprietary copy protection technologies.
] The company did not provide information on pricing or
] business models, although Stringer did describe it as a
] download service.

CNET | Sony to launch Net music service

This is the week I said we'd roll our own DSL. On the surface it looks like a daunting task, but it is actually not that hard at all — if you can get past the many regulatory loopholes. But why would you even want to do such a thing? Well maybe DSL isn't available in your area. Maybe you want a significantly cheaper alternative to a T-1 line. Or just maybe you and the kid down the block want to play networked games at warp speed. Well here is how to do it.

-----

Ready for round 2? :)

Yep, I miss the days of thousands of independent ISPs.. Those days need to come back. I keep thinking that whenever I see posts here referencing the old open vs. controlled architecture for the Internet debate. The likelihood of all the worst case scenarios happening - ie. the "DRM Internet" - goes up as the diversity of players in the Internet Service game goes down.

Roll Your Own DSL Roll Your Own Roll your own DSL

flynn23 wrote:
] So the bottomline here is that Memestreams could easily plug
] into a lot of toolsets used in the KM universe (mailing lists,
] BBS's, content management, change management, etc) as a
] reputation engine to help drive up utilization. You get the
] benefit of working with a B2B market, in a very legitimate and
] hot sector, and you're solving a very real problem with
] adoption of that sector. Bling Bling!

Yep, I pretty much agree with you.. This particular line of thought has been around since the beginning of the project. Tom did the search plugin for OSX awhile back, shooting at the "agumented memory system" thing, sort of like Steve Mann has in his heads up display. The ability to take notes, mark resources, etc, and be able to pull then up at will based upon keyword searches. Different from what you were talking about, but I'm sure its clear how these things play in the same space..

From the tech side: I think alot of these ideas will be easier to pursue when we impliment a web services API. Expect the blogger and metaweblog APIs to get supported, but there will be more. I want every function that exists in the site, to be available for use thru an API. For MemeStreams to be useful in the enterprise, it would have to be able to tie in very directly with existing infrastructure. Web services is how that will happen. And to _really_ make it work for enterprise uses, we will need to have a more decentralized architecture, and probably will need to be able to OEM our technology so that it can operate completely _inside_ the enterprise.

On the biz side: A shitload of research would need to be done, analysing what the enterprise wants & needs, before it makes any sense to really push into that space. Think MBA type thoughts, and it becomes clear that we are _not_ ready to push into any space with the word "enterprise" in it. And honestly, there are _very_ big players in that space right now. Look at how much buzz has been around the blog in the enterprise lately. Having an idea that can make money in the enterprise is one thing.. Having a way to produce & market that idea is another, and its more important. We don't have that peice, and its not an easy peice to get. I think we will be able to get other peices first.

The focus of things is on personal web publishing & interaction, and will likely stay there for awhile. (There are revenue models there too) We will be able to make the site compelling for the average web user who wants to publish "whatever" and discuss it, long before its going to be really tasty for business enterprise uses. Currently, we have the luxury of low operating costs, so I think we should continue to drive in that direction for awhile. If we aim directly for enterprise users, I think we are going to shoot right over what will become the center of our user base, that being the average end-user.. Ie, the type of fo... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

RE: A business model for Memestreams

] pajamacore writes "It's worth noting that 20 June 2003 is
] GIF Liberation Day, the day on which US Patent 4,558,302
] expires. The patent describes the LZW compression
] algorithm used in .gif files. That said, maybe the prices
] of image editing applications will drop slightly when
] corporations don't have to pay fees to Unisys."

I find it amusing that Slashdot posted a troll as a story. Noone is going to drop prices, they are just going to have one less expense and be happy about it. Free software is going to be the cheif benefactor as far as end users are concerned. Troll.

The insightful question to ask would be, what will Unisys do in the next few days? Something similar to what RSA did when RSA expired? That being, toss the patent into the public domain a few days before it expires, turn the whole thing into a big press marketing event, give away some tee shirts, build brand, etc. One way or another, mention of the patent expiring will wind up in every tech mag in the planet, because gif is used all over.. If they do nothing those articles are all going to be "haha!", "gif patent expires, helps open source", and "Unisys loses gif revenue". If they do something smart they can get whatever their thing is talked about in every tech mag on the planet at once for free as a consolation prize..

Slashdot | GIF Patent Prepares to Expire (Troll)

] U.S. securities regulators put a further onus on
] financial firms to keep records of their business this
] week, this time focusing on the increasingly popular form
] of communication known as instant messaging.
]
] The National Association of Securities Dealers informed
] its roughly 5300 brokerage-firm members Wednesday that
] they must retain their IM records for at least three
] years. Under federal law, every securities firm doing
] business with the U.S. public must be a member of NASD.

PCWorld.com - Companies Told to Store Employee IMs

] SCO Group has upped the ante in an amendment to its
] suit against IBM, seeking more than $3 billion in
] damages for alleged copying of proprietary Unix
] intellectual property into Linux.

] SCO seeks at least $1 billion in damages from IBM's
] alleged breach of its contract with SCO; another $1
] billion for breach of the Unix contract signed by
] Sequent, which IBM acquired in 1999; and another $1
] billion for unfair competition. SCO also seeks more for
] misappropriation of trade secrets and punitive damages.

Hey kids! Its time for fun with numbers!

In SCO's last 10-Q, it claimed roughly $35M of earnings for the last six months.. So, lets just say they do $70M a year. That makes this suit the equivlant of aprox 42 years of earnings at SCO's current rate. [Insert Douglas Adams joke here]

SCO suit now seeks $3 billion from IBM | CNET News.com