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Internet portal Yahoo plans to charge people for using its instant-messenger service to make phone calls. Domestic calls made through Yahoo Messenger will now cost two cents a minute; international call charges will vary. Yahoo is charging in part because it retooled its partnership with internet phone service Net2Phone earlier this year. Net2Phone now sells minutes to Yahoo wholesale. Voice chat over Yahoo Messenger will still be free of charge for now. Charging for phone services is one instance of how the company is attempting to cash in on many of its formerly free services as its advertising revenue sags. For example, Yahoo now charges users for checking their email, news and stocks by telephone. Both the phone and chat service were unavailable for several hours yesterday afternoon and evening, thanks to a power outage that disrupted several personalized Yahoo functions, including Yahoo Messenger.
ABC.com hawking clothes from 'The View'
The day when interactive TV and e-commerce converge may be drawing a little closer. In Wednesday’s episode of ABC’s daytime gabfest "The View," the co-hosts will model apparel from J.C. Penney while on-air promotions during the segment, titled "Out of the Closet," steer viewers toward ABC’s web site. Visitors to ABC.com can click on a photo gallery of the clothes, which will link to JCPenney.com, to buy, say, the same blouse that Star Jones is wearing. The hosts, ranging in age from 69-year-old Barbara Walters to 27-year-old Lisa Ling, will model generation-appropriate garments for summer events such as graduation ceremonies and picnics. The e-commerce gambit will be promoted in ABC’s email newsletters and in oversized ads across the web sites of ABC parent Walt Disney.
MusicMatch launches a subscription service
MusicMatch, a company that makes software for saving and playing music files on computers, has announced that it is launching a subscription music service. The service, called Radio MX, will cost $5 a month or $50 a year. Radio MX, which will become available in beta form on Monday, is based on MusicMatch’s specialized function that lets users make custom radio stations that play music by genre. By the end of the summer, Radio MX will make it possible for users to download songs. The company says that users will be able to click on songs on the playlists and save them to their hard drives. MusicMatch is hardly alone in offering a subscription music service. RealNetworks has a music network deal with three of the major record labels, and Microsoft has also introduced an online broadcast service. MusicMatch has 18 million registered users. If the company can get even a small percentage of its user base to pay, it could bring in decent revenue.
Internet.com launches CyberAtlas division
Internet.com has officially launched its CyberAtlas Research Division. The CyberAtlas Research Division shares a name with CyberAtlas, the long-established research and information web site and newsletter, which has 40,000 subscribers. Internet.com first acquired CyberAtlas back in August 1998. CyberAtlas will publish studies analyzing the internet and information technology. The division is headed up by Pat Fusco, who doubles as managing editor at internet.com's ISP--Planet.com. Three reports from the newly relaunched CyberAtlas are already available online.
Study: Online shoppers still ditching carts
Even as online shopping experience grows, consumers are still bailing out of the process in serious numbers, costing e-commerce sites some serious dollars. According to a new study from Zona Research, as many as half of all e-commerce transactions that are started are never completed. These aborted transactions may cost e-commerce companies as much as $25 billion a year, says Zona. The study refers to situations in which shoppers don’t actually purchase the goods they have selected while browsing an e-commerce site. Web site malfunctions and slow-loading pages are among the main reasons that people drop their transactions. In fact, 82 percent of all abandoned transactions can be traced directly to slow-loading web pages. Graphics-intensive sites in particular can be slow to load, frustrating the average online shopper. And e-commerce sites haven’t done much to alleviate the problem--load times have increased by more than 20 percent since last year. The study notes that the problem is not limited to people who dial up to go online--high-speed connections through DSL and cable modems can also deliver slow results. And sometimes transaction pages simply fail to load.
Oxford plans institute to study the internet
Great Britain's venerable Oxford University, a place of learning that dates back to the 12th century, has announced its intention to establish an academic institute devoted to the internet. The Oxford Internet Institute will conduct research and generate public policy guidance on the internet’s relationship to society. Possible areas of study for the institute include the enforcement of international laws, privacy and how national borders relate to the web. The institute is being set up for $22 million. Most of that funding comes from the Shirley Foundation, which was established by Stephanie Shirley, one of the U.K.’s wealthiest women. The 800-year-old university hopes the institute will place it at the vanguard of debate about the internet. The Oxford Internet Institute will be a university department within the Social Sciences division and will be based in Oxford's Balliol College.
May 8, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
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