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Most workers won’t have access to constant television coverage of the upcoming conflict in Iraq. News agency Reuters hopes to capture that audience with a new streaming video service debuting on its web site. Reuters Raw video will carry free, unnarrated images from Iraq, breaking news and government briefings. The idea is certainly smart but not quite innovative. During the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, CNN.com, Yahoo News, MSNBC.com and ABCNews.com offered similar services, which at times crippled the sites with the accompanying surge in traffic. ABCNews.com last week initiated a subscription video service with much the same purpose. Last fall Reuters relaunched its web site hoping to attract those who do not subscribe to the service’s proprietary terminals.
French site promotes presidential pretzel protest
The French don’t approve of an Iraqi war, but a food fight? That’s a different story. One week after U.S. lawmakers rechristened French fries as “freedom fries,” France fired back. A French web site urges war protesters to purchase bags of pretzels to be sent en masse to President Bush. Bush, you may remember, made late-night monologues in January 2002 when he gagged on a pretzel, fainted and fell off his couch. Visitors to www.bretzelforbush.com can buy snack bags to be shipped to the White House for seven euros ($7.56), one of which goes to charity. So far more than 250 bags have been sold. “We think that to oppose the war is not to be against the American people, but simply against the politics of the Bush administration,” the site says.
New pacifist approach: Make worms, not war
Even if you’re rabidly anti-war, don’t open a message with the subject line “Say Not War.” A new worm is playing on the sympathies of peacenik recipients, attaching itself to an email spreading via Microsoft Outlook’s messaging application programming interface. Wanor.A spreads via Outlook address books and deposits copies of itself into file-sharing application folders, according to antivirus software vendor Trend Micro. The desktop icons and start menu are hidden and a message reading “Not War: Not Blood For …” and “Not War, Say Not War” pops up if the worm runs at least 20 times.
Study: More than 10% of tech workforce gone
More than half a million workers were laid off after the tech bust of 2001 and 2002. Industry trade group AeA released a study Wednesday that found that the sector’s work force had fallen by 10 percent from January 2001 to December 2002 to 5.15 million. Manufacturing took the hardest hit, losing 415,000 jobs, or 20 percent of its workforce. Communications services jobs decreased by 9 percent to 1.33 million. Software services was one of the only areas to record an increase, with a 4 percent rise. Software and computer-related services jobs fell by .4 percent. Total high-tech services jobs dropped 4 percent. Though the AeA report did not include specific numbers for companies, industry leaders Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Dell and Hewlett-Packard were likely included.
Priceline extracts itself from Hotels.com
Priceline has subbed Travelweb for Hotels.com. The discount internet travel company paid $8.5 million Tuesday to join several major hotel chains as a Travelweb equal partner. Though Hotels.com will remain Priceline’s foreign hotel source, Travelweb will supply lowestfare.com. Hotels.com is very unpopular among major hotel chains, with the two competing for the business of individual operators of national chains. Priceline has been expanding lately. The site added retail sales to its selection on lowestfare.com, which mainly serves as a customer bid hub for airline tickets, car rentals and hotel rooms. Travelweb aims to open a booking site in April. Also this week, USA Interactive agreed to a $3.3 billion merger with Expedia. USAI was already the site's majority owner and also owns Hotels.com.
March 20, 2003© 2003 Media Life
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