Amazon.com will peddle PCs and biz books
Despite criticism that previous expansions have been a drain on its core business, Amazon.com has announced it will be expanding again. The company plans to  introduce two new online stores by the end of the year. One will vend personal computers and the other will sell business books. The new units are part of the e-tailer’s ongoing effort to turn a profit within the next year or so. The business-book branch will be aimed at institutional buyers such as businesses and schools. Amazon executives predict that business-book sales will fatten its bottom line by as much as $150 million over the next two years. The e-tailer is more circumspect about its new computer store—it has not publicly projected how much money PC sales can generate. Online PC sales have not been a strong line of business of late, thanks to market saturation, low margins and stiff competition. The online PC store will be a subset of Amazon’s electronics division. Amazon launched as an online bookseller in 1995; since late 1998 it has expanded into a number of other areas including hardware, kitchen supplies and electronics.

Napster strikes deal to sell big labels’ music
Music-file-swapping site Napster has taken another step toward becoming a subscription-based music network. It has signed a deal to use a fee-based music service that three major record labels are building. MusicNet is a venture between Warner Music Group, EMI Recorded Music and BMG Entertainment, with the cooperation of RealNetworks. The record labels have warned Napster that their partnership hinges on the strength of Napster’s filters. If Napster is still facilitating the unauthorized trading of music files, the MusicNet deal is off. But Napster’s filters have become almost watertight in recent months. In May, users were sharing a tenth as many files as they were in February. And Napster’s user base has fallen as well, from 1.57 million in February to 840,000 in May. Sony and Vivendi are developing a rival music network, Duet. Those two record labels are working with Napster rival MP3.com.

Nevada legalizes internet gambling, sort of
The Nevada legislature has passed a bill to legalize internet-based casinos. Lawmakers approved the law on Monday. But the measure is not wrinkle-free: First, Nevada’s Gaming Control Board must establish regulations controlling internet gambling. Minors would be banned from the sites, as would gamblers in states where casino gaming is forbidden. Also, casinos would have to pay a stiff licensing fee of about $250,000 a year in order to launch online gambling. And then there's the minor problem that the Department of Justice says that online gambling is not legal in the U.S. Because of this, the ultimate decision on online gambling in Nevada likely could be made by courts. Internet gambling would bring the state of Nevada billions of dollars in revenue. Industry observers calculate that internet gambling, as facilitated by offshore companies, was a $1.5 billion industry last year. An earlier version of this online gambling bill died in the state legislature.

Guggenheim museum launching art dot.com
In a move that might appear a bit quixotic given the poor business climate for internet companies, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is starting a for-profit dot.com. The foundation is touting Guggenheim.com, which will launch this fall, as a fusion of free enterprise and high culture. The site will highlight the visual and performing arts, as well as travel and architecture. Original digital art will appear on the site, as will news and facts about the foundation’s vast collection. The site’s founders insist that there is a market for this sort of highbrow content. While the content has not been finalized, much of it will be free. The site’s revenue will come from advertising and sponsorships, subscriptions and syndication, and e-commerce. The e-commerce side of the venture is likewise vague, but Guggenheim.com officials say it will go beyond the standard T-shirts and coffee-table books that populate museum gift shops. Guggenheim.com is a collaborative effort on the part of the Guggenheim museums in Bilbao, Berlin, Venice and New York City, as well as marquee art museums in Austria and Russia.

Survey: People beat up on their computers
Cruelty to computers is rampant, according to a survey by U.K. PC maker Novatech. One out of four of the 4,200 survey respondents report having physically attacked a computer out of frustration. Such attacks, according to computer-repair experts, can take place anywhere--at home, at work, on the road or in a hotel room. Broken keys are one symptom that a machine has been hit or even kicked. The most serious kind of common attack is a sharp rap to the hard drive case, which can effectively kill the drive if the attack comes while it’s spinning, or "thinking." The survey respondents say that several factors were likely to turn them against their machines. Sometimes they get frustrated when they send a sensitive email to the wrong person or when porn sites pop up at inopportune moments. Also, PC abusers tend to vent their rage upon their machines when they lose a document or get articles of clothing caught in the CD-ROM drive drawer.

Cops collar boys over kiss-and-tell site
Two 18-year-old seniors in Chappaqua, N.Y., have been arrested for operating a web site that documented the sexual exploits of dozens of girls at a local high school. Police say at least 16 boys had access to the site, which was protected by a password set up through Yahoo Geocities until it was shut down last week. The site included biographies of about 40 girls, including personal information like telephone numbers and addresses, as well as sexual gossip about some of them. The Westchester County District Attorney's spokesman David Hebert equates the site with threats of violence posted online. "We've certainly seen situations in which students have used the internet to communicate threats, and that's not that dissimilar from what may have occurred right here because harassment is to some degree a threatening communication," he told the local paper. The two seniors were released without bail and are due in local court on June 14.

June 6, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

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