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Anticipation over the movie “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” is reaching a fever pitch. For people who just can’t wait for its premiere tomorrow, pirated copies of the movie are already popping up in file-swapping networks such as LimeWire. But those files are mostly fakes, according to an analysis by CNET News. CNET downloaded several of the supposed Potter flicks, and once it played them, determined that some were simply trailers and others were mislabeled movies. In theory, it’s possible for pirated Potter copies to be available, since the movie has already made its United Kingdom debut. Media Force, a company that fights internet piracy, will not reveal whether it has encountered actual copies of the film, saying only that many supposedly downloadable first-run films turn out to be pornography.
AOL won’t warn gay chatters of STD risk
A couple of years ago, a syphilis outbreak among gay men in San Francisco was traced to a single America Online chat room, SF M4M, a.k.a. San Francisco Men for Men. Despite the fact that doctors have pretty much determined that this is how the disease spread, AOL says it will not post any warnings about such dangers in the chat room or anywhere else in its network. The men, it turned out, were locating potential sex partners by chatting them up online and arranging to meet. The head of San Francisco’s public health department, Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, has been entreating the ISP to educate its users as to the potential risk of meeting partners this way. He feels that AOL should at least consider doing so, since it has volunteers regularly patrol selected chat rooms for inappropriate material, such as explicit language. AOL has responded by saying it is already working with the Centers for Disease Control on developing sexual health advisories. Meanwhile, gay web sites and clubs have campaigned about the dangers of the chat rooms as well.
Though hard-hit, Yahoo rolls out more services
Leading portal Yahoo is about to undertake a restructuring that will eliminate roughly 13 percent of its entire staff. At the same time, it announced a couple of new services meant to both bring in more money and compete with chief rivals MSN and AOL. Not surprisingly, the company blames its firing of 400 staffers on the slump in ad sales, combined with the recession. The company has been almost frantically laying on fee-based services for both consumers and corporations in an effort to have significant revenue sources other than advertising. The latest such services include paid ads in search results and high-speed internet access. To sell DSL access, Yahoo has paired up with SBC Communications. The co-branded DSL and dial-up connections will be offered, at least initially, in the 13 states that SBC serves. Subscribers likely will be expected to log on via a modified Internet Explorer browser that features Yahoo links. Separately, through a partnership with search site Overture, formerly known as GoTo.com, Yahoo will allow advertisers to pay to have their ads displayed among search results.
Instant messaging surges in popularity
Instant messaging has grown wildly in popularity in the past year, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, particularly in the workplace. In September, people at work spent 4.9 billion minutes exchanging instant messages, more than double the number from September 2000, when workers racked up a mere 2.3 billion minutes. At-home instant messenger usage increased 48 percent in the same period of time, to 13.6 billion minutes from 9.2 billion minutes. The ranks of individual users grew as well. There were 13.4 million at-work instant messenger users in September 2001, compared to 10 million in September 2000. At home, there were 53.8 million IM users in September, compared to 42 million in the same month last year. The leading IM software is still AOL Instant Messenger. As of this September, 41.7 million people used the AOL client from home, 21 percent more than last year, and 8.8 million used it at work. No. 2 was Microsoft’s messaging software, with 18.5 million people using it at home and 4.8 million at work. Yahoo’s IM application was in third place, with 11.9 million users at home and 3.4 million at work.
Napster falls off Lycos 50 list
In terms of popularity, Napster had a good run, but it looks like it has worn out its welcome. Once-phenomenal music-swapping service Napster has plummeted from the Lycos 50, the list of the 50 most popular user searches online. For 88 consecutive weeks, Napster was at or near the top. But no more. In the week ending Nov. 10, Napster was No. 51. The site went off-line following the recording industry’s successful legal challenge against it for facilitating the piracy of music files. While Napster was supposed to relaunch as a subscription-based service this fall, that hasn’t happened yet. As a result, it has been supplanted by other upstart music-swapping services. For example, Kazaa was No. 40 for the week, and Audiogalaxy was No. 49. Napster was also forced out by season-specific searches: Thanksgiving and Christmas were the No. 3 and No. 4 search terms. Additionally, the 7.5-ton “daisy-cutter” bomb, the world’s biggest non-nuclear explosive, made its debut appearance in the listings at spot No. 11.
November 15, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
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