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The post-Steve Case era began Monday at America Online, where AOL chief executive Jonathan F. Miller began a new round of shakeups. In an expected move, longtime AOL executive Ted Leonsis, the company’s vice chairman, has been tapped to head the team that oversees the company’s core internet offerings. This group will help implement the new AOL vision, which will return to the walled garden approach of years past. Miller also tapped Danny Krifcher as a new senior manager reporting directly to Miller. Krifcher had run the strategy-development process. The company has undergone several rounds of layoffs as it attempts to rein in spending and make up for a huge drop in online ad revenues for the coming year. AOL’s business affairs group, whose aggressive dealings are under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, has been dismantled. In other AOL turmoil news, the company’s new vice president of brand marketing, Leonard Short, has dismissed AOL’s longtime ad agency, Interpublic Group’s Gotham. America Online reportedly spends almost $1 billion per year on marketing. It had retained Gotham for eight years.
IM infection rate could be high in '03
The new year has brought with it a new warning for computer users: This could be a bad one for viruses. Anti-virus company Sophos Pic predicts that worms spreading through instant messaging systems will multiply quickly this year. Sophos expects more executable email-aware worms and IM viruses because they can cause the most damage. The company did not indicate whether any particular IM service was most vulnerable, but the most popular is America Online’s AIM, with Microsoft and Yahoo versions also widely used. The so-called “Backdoor Trojan” will also increase in 2003, Sophos predicts. Such viruses allow hackers to implant devices operated by remote control. The frequency of new viruses, which now number about 80,000, has actually decreased since 2000. That year there averaged about 800 to 900 new ones per month, while over the past two years there have been 600 to 700. The company points to a rise in anti-virus software, as well as a more informed public, as reasons for the recent decline. Sophos says that the level of viruses released should remain about the same this year, but warns that the email and IM types spread more quickly. Nine of 10 viruses spread that way last year.
Study: Workers find their news online
A new study by Market Facts finds that the internet has become the dominant source of breaking news during the workday. Thirty-five percent of respondents said that they go online to access breaking news when they are at work, compared to 25 percent who use newspapers. Magazines (21 percent), radio (17 percent), broadcast television (6 percent) and cable television (3 percent) were the other most-common methods. The internet is the most accessible, and perhaps least visible, mode of monitoring the news at work. A recent study from the Pew Institute found that more than two-thirds of American workers now have internet access at work. The Market Facts survey also found that broadband users are more likely than dial-up customers to use streaming media to monitor breaking news. Those surveyed said that they use the internet at work mostly to keep up with personally relevant information, such as stock quotes or local news.
At the gym, protecting privates from the public
The debate over whether cell phone usage can be linked to cancer has been around for as long as the phones themselves. But a new phobia has arisen, accompanying new cell phone technology, at a chain of Hong Kong gyms. Physical, owners of nine health clubs, worried that gym goers could employ a new type of cell phone with picture-taking capabilities in the company’s locker rooms. So officials have banned the cameras from the locker room in order to protect clients’ privacy. Use of such devices could have resulted in very public battles over very private pictures, and Physical didn’t want its muscle-bound clients to find themselves or their bodies too compromised. Several other Hong Kong gyms are considering similar bans; one of the nation’s casino chains is also considering enacting one.
January 15, 2003© 2003 Media Life
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