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Now that the assets of onetime leading technology industry magazine The Industry Standard have been sold, its web site, TheStandard.com, has gone dark. The site quit posting fresh content last Tuesday, the day after International Data Group bought the magazine’s assets for $1.4 million in an auction in San Francisco. The web site’s parent company, Standard Media International, had been running under Chapter 11 bankruptcy for several weeks. The magazine ceased publication in August, a victim of declining ad revenue. The company had hoped to be able to find a new owner that would keep the magazine and the web site alive. But as Jonathan Weber, the editor in chief of The Standard, wrote in a Sept. 25 message to readers on TheStandard.com, “things did not turn out that way,” adding, “It has been a privilege to serve you, and to join you in seeking to understand one of the most fascinating business stories in history.”
Oops. Crosshairs snipped from airport web site.
Crosshairs that were designed to show future improvements at Boston’s Logan Airport have been removed from photos on the airport's web site, following their easy connotation as targets for attack. Nearly two weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the red crosshairs were taken off aerial views of Logan Airport on the web site's "Massport: Planning for the Future" section. The graphic began as two red lines forming a cross and ended with a red circle flashing on top, similar to the graphic used by pilots for firing on a target. Officials from the Massachusetts Port Authority knew right after the attack that the graphic could be considered insensitive to safety concerns but did not eradicate it immediately since they were tied up with security issues. The terrorists who crashed jets into the World Trade Center towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field in Pittsburgh originally flew out of Boston.
Excite@Home officially files for Chapter 11
As expected, portal and broadband ISP Excite@Home has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company announced its move late Friday afternoon. Majority shareholder AT&T will acquire its broadband ISP business, which has some 3.6 million subscribers, for $307 million. Excite@Home will manage the broadband business until the sale is finalized. Additionally, AT&T plans to hire many of Excite@Home’s 1,600 workers. Initially, Excite@Home announced that it would focus on its broadband business and try to sell its Excite portal/search engine, which was hurt by the downturn in advertising sales. But no buyer materialized, and the company continued to bleed cash. The Excite portal will remain alive as long as Excite@Home is in bankruptcy, but the company might scrap it eventually. The company was created in 1999 when Excite, then a premier internet brand, merged with broadband service @home, but the broadband and portal businesses did not blend together as hoped.
Pop band Simply Red sells virtual concert access
British pop band Simply Red is giving its fans backstage passes, internet-style. With software that comes packaged on Simply Red CDs and DVDs, fans will be able to watch live and prerecorded concerts online. The 3D animation software will let fans “fly” into the concert. It will also let them pick their camera angles or watch the show from backstage or the wings. The program lets users fashion a sort of virtual arena, where they can “book” seats to webcast concerts. While the software itself is free, users will have to pay to download audio and video. The software was produced by a New Zealand company called Virtual Spectator, which has also powered graphics and software for the America’s Cup and the PGA Tour. The Simply Red package marks its first foray into music.
German dot.com takes on banner blockers
One German internet company is fed up with consumer software that blocks banner ads. So it has decided to get even by developing server software that can detect banner-blocking software such as WebWasher or AdSubtract. The company, MediaBEAM, offers users of banner-blocking software a choice: Disable the software and view the banners, or pay to access a web site’s content. MediaBEAM officials concede that banner blockers haven’t been a huge problem, but the company wants to send a message, given that internet ad revenues are down. MediaBEAM, which offers online services such as free telephone messaging, says it will start marketing the banner-blocking-blocking software, which is to be called AdKEY, by the close of this week.
October 1, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
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