Web Shorts

Internet traffic triples every year
Traffic on the internet is tripling every year, according to a report by Larry Roberts, one of the fathers of the medium. What’s more, traffic will continue to triple each year through the end of the decade. Roberts, who is now with Caspian Networks but worked on ARPANET, the internet’s precursor, says the internet has tripled in size each year since its commercialization in the mid-1990s. The growth does vary from month to month, with the summer and winter being somewhat slower and more dominated by corporate traffic, but growth still balances out to about triple. Traffic actually quadrupled, however, in the period between April 2000 and April 2001. Roberts found that net traffic has grown in spite of the economic slowdown and other reports that show traffic stabilizing or shrinking slightly.

British Airways takeover ads on NYTimes.com
British Airways is running a dramatic sort of online ad on the web site of The New York Times. How it works: When visitors click on whatever business or travel article they’re looking for, the web page flips sideways and morphs into a promotion for the airline, bearing the message “Fly Flat, Fly Free.” The message lingers for about six seconds, then the web page rights itself and melts into the article the reader had clicked on. At that point the page still features British Airways’ banner and skyscraper ads. The Fly Flat campaign, which uses dynamic HTML, or DHTML, will run for a total of two weeks. Users will encounter it once per session at NYTimes.com. Agency.com subsidiary I-traffic is behind the campaign.

New ‘Wallace and Gromit’ toons will be released online
Wallace and Gromit are coming to life on the internet. The endearing stop-motion cartoon characters created by Nick Park, who is also behind the movie “Chicken Run,” will star in “Wallace’s Workshop,” a series of 12 new short films on the internet, in which Wallace’s goofy inventions will be showcased. The new exploits of the dotty inventor and his dog will be posted on the web site of Park’s production company, Aardman Productions, later this year. Aardman won’t charge for access to the minute-long movies, which will maintain the same loopy sensibility seen in previous “Wallace and Gromit” episodes such as “The Wrong Trousers” and “A Grand Day Out.” Park is no stranger to the internet. His “Angry Kid” online series debuted in May 2000 and has been downloaded more than seven million times.

Homestore.com workers sacked over accounting
Where does the fuzzy accounting stop? Seven people who worked for real estate web site Homestore.com have resigned or have been terminated in conjunction with a probe into the company’s accounting practices. Specifically, accounting for online ad revenues was apparently a bit questionable. Because the value of some bartered promotions in the first three quarters of 2001 was somehow misstated, ad revenue may have been inflated by anywhere from $54 million to $95 million. The company says outright that the firings were punitive. Eventually, more heads may roll over the mislabeling, and the company is reviewing its books for both 2001 and 2000. HomeStore runs the web sites HomeBuilder.com and Realtor.com.

Enron employees take to eBay
As anyone who hasn’t been hiding under a rock for the past month knows, the bankruptcy of energy-trading giant Enron left the retirement accounts of thousands of its former employees virtually worthless. Now, maybe because they need the money, many former Enron workers have taken to selling their Enron-branded corporate goodies on auction site eBay. A little digging around on eBay turns up more than 500 pieces of Enron detritus stamped with the big-E logo, such as golf balls, Swiss army knives, Christmas ornaments and T-shirts. As of Thursday afternoon, a sterling silver key ring with an “E” charm, made by jeweler Tiffany, was attracting bids of more than $200. Company case studies and business reports are also fetching top dollar.

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