Web Shorts

Univision and AOL in content alliance
Leading Spanish-language broadcaster Univision has joined forces with AOL Time Warner’s AOL internet service to boost both companies’ use by Hispanics in the U.S. Visitors to Univision.com will be able to use AOL email and instant messaging. And AOL ads will appear on Univision’s networks, including cable unit Galavision and its forthcoming Telefutura network. The deal could help Univision.com make significant inroads in the race to be the dominant Spanish-language web site in the U.S. According to observers, Univision could be up for a merger, considering that chief rival Telemundo was just acquired by NBC for $2 billion two months ago. AOL’s deal with the company makes it a contender for scooping up Univision.

Poll: Americans are afraid of online crime
Most Americans have very little confidence in the government’s ability to guard against attacks on the internet, according to a recent poll by the Information Technology Association of America. Just 17 percent of respondents report having complete faith in the government’s ability to stop cyber attacks, with 54 percent saying they have “some” faith and 17 percent saying they have very little faith. Seventy-four percent of Americans think that their personal information is wide open to theft or misuse, the same percentage that express concern over the possibility of online attacks on key internet infrastructure points such as telephone networks. Thirty-five percent of Americans say they’re very concerned about the internet and computer security, with 36 percent saying they’re somewhat concerned.And 78 percent are very or somewhat concerned that personal data the government holds about them could be stolen.

NORAD to let kids ‘trace’ Santa’s travels online
Santa disbelievers, take notice: The U.S. military will take to the web to track the Christmas Eve flight path of Jolly Old Saint Nick himself. The North American Defense Command will track Santa Claus’s location on a multilingual web site, www.noradsanta.com, as he and his sleigh make the gift-delivery rounds. Tracking starts at 7 a.m. on Dec. 24 and goes on until 2 a.m. Dec. 25. The site will also display snapshots of Santa caught on webcams at landmarks across the globe. NORAD’s standard duties, of course, include operating air defenses for the U.S. and Canada. But, in true “yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” fashion, NORAD has been tracking Santa’s path by radar since the late 1950s. The web site is a relatively new innovation, however; it went live in 1998.

Last, last, last rites for DrKoop.com health site
DrKoop LifeCare, the medical and health information web site founded back in 1998 by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, has been euthanized after a long battle with the dot.com downturn. The company is filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, meaning that it will liquidate all its remaining assets in order to pay off its numerous creditors. Soon, DrKoop.com will cease operations entirely. DrKoop.com was, at one point, a garden-variety high-flying internet company; its shares traded as high as $45 on the Nasdaq despite an apparently shaky business model. DrKoop, in addition to running ads, was supposed to blend readily accessible medical information and news with e-commerce. But the bubble burst, and the company found itself severely short of cash, since its e-tail efforts never really took off.

Surfers flocking to ‘Lord of the Rings’ web site
As anticipation grows over “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first film installment in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, traffic to its web site, Lordoftherings.net, has soared. The movie version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic novels opens Wednesday, and according to Nielsen//NetRatings, for the week ending Dec. 9, traffic to Lordoftherings.net jumped 58 percent. Some 263,000 unique visitors came to the site, up from 166,000 in the week ending Dec. 2. The average visitor lingered at the site for three minutes. Fifty-four percent of site visitors were male. According to Nielsen//NetRatings analysts, the site has been attracting a significant number of visitors since the first of the year, developing something of a loyal fan base of repeat visitors.

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