NewsScan Daily, 9 March 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 9 March 2004 ("Above The Fold")
***********************************************************
NewsScan Daily is underwritten by RLG, a world-class organization
making significant and sustained contributions to the effective
management and appropriate use of information technology. NSD is
written by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas, [email protected].
***********************************************************

"ABOVE THE FOLD"
       Encyclopedias Have Become Dead Weight
       Japan Moves on Data Theft
       Yahoo Increases Focus on Local Advertising
       Kazaa Raids Get Green Light
       Porn: Trash Into Cash
       Cyberboozy Surfing by Kids

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Worth Thinking About: The World

ENCYCLOPEDIAS HAVE BECOME DEAD WEIGHT
     Asked how the family encyclopedia is being used, one California high
school senior replied, "Sometimes my mom uses it as a coaster" -- a typical
from teenagers in the age of the Internet, as well as a sign that the age of
the multi-volume encyclopedia is receding into history. Encyclopedia sets
were once a status symbol of upper-class educated households, and in the
1980s installment plans were created to make $1,400 reference sets
affordable for poorer families. But encyclopedia companies Colliers and Funk
& Wagnalls are now long gone from the business, and the companies that
survived the shakeout (Britannica, World Book and Grolier) have business
plans now focused on the Web. Still, teachers and librarians worry that
young students can easily get overwhelmed by the vast amount of information
on the Internet. One librarian makes her students complete book-based
research before going to the Web, and says: "Half of them want to jump on
the computer and are not even sure what they want to look up." Maybe so, but
one California mother points out: "The kids are so computer literate that it
would seem almost foreign to them to use a book." (AP/Washington Post 9 Mar
2004) 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42602-2004Mar9.html?nav=headl
ines

JAPAN MOVES ON DATA THEFT
     Concerned about high-profile incidents where customer data has been
stolen, the Japanese government has stepped in. Japan's Ministry of Economy,
Trade and Industry has drawn up a draft set of guidelines that will require
Internet service providers to secure data by appointing security managers.
(Daily Yomiuri 3 Mar 2004,rec'd from John Lamp, Deakin University)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20040303wo05.htm

YAHOO INCREASES FOCUS ON LOCAL ADVERTISING
     To increase its share of the local advertising market, Yahoo has
introduced a new software tool called SmartView that's designed to let
people quickly find local restaurants, movie listings, ATM machines or other
services. Yahoo executive Paul Levine says, "Consumers are hungry for local
information and, overall, the Web has only scratched the surface of
providing it." Yahoo's ads will be sold through its online advertising
company Overture and SBC Communications. Industry analyst Greg Sterling of
the Kelsey Group notes, "This is an enormous potential market," because
online search has become "a utility to find anything and everything." (San
Jose Mercury News 9 Mar 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8142073.htm

KAZAA RAIDS GET GREEN LIGHT
     Australia's federal court has dealt a blow to locally based
file-sharing network Kazaa, allowing music industry lawyers and
investigators access to material seized in raids on the company's
headquarters. The court dismissed an application by Kazaa owner Sharman
Networks to have the civil search orders that permitted the February 6 raids
stayed, ruling that major record companies should be allowed to examine
documents and computer files taken in raids on Sharman's offices and the
homes of several executives of the company. (The Australian 4 Mar 2004,
rec'd from John Lamp, Deakin University
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,8866918%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,
00.html

PORN: TRASH INTO CASH
     It could be called high-tech's dirty little secret. Some of the Web's
most innovative and profitable entrepreneurs are online pornographers, who
for more than a decade have been among the first to exploit such new
technology as video-streaming, fee-based subscriptions, pop-up ads, and
electronic billing. In fact, porn is one of the most profitable online
industries, and it's venturing into such new fields as wireless services and
digital-rights management. One Internet porn entrepreneur started her
business by posting to the Internet some photos she'd retrieved from a trash
bin: "Technology turned trash into cash. That's a lesson other industries
can learn." (USA Today 9 Mar 2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-03-09-onlineporn_x.htm

CYBERBOOZY SURFING BY KIDS
     Alcohol company sites are offering a "cyber playground" for young
people, according to a new study by Georgetown University's Center on
Alcohol Marketing and Youth. About 700,000 underage people visited alcohol
company Web sites from July through December to do such things as play video
games and download music, and Jim Harris, the center's director, says,
"These alcohol Web sites are a virtual cyber playground with no adult
supervision. If a liquor store were this ineffective in policing underage
visits, the community would be up in arms." In rebuttal, the Distilled
Spirits Council in Washington says the study is a publicity stunt for
fund-raising purposes: "The Federal Trade Commission has reviewed our ads
and said they were directed to adults, that our Web content is directed to
adults, and that 99.9 percent of them had age verification in place, in
addition to having responsible drinking messages throughout." The executive
editor of Beer Marketer's Insight magazine says, "I don't know how you keep
people off a Web site. What do you do? Take a credit card?" (AP/Los Angeles
Times 9 Mar 2004)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/ats-ap_technology11mar09,1,5069562.story?c
oll=sns-ap-toptechnology

*****

FLASH CARD
     "Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, 'We've always done it
this way.' I try to fight that. That's why I have a clock on my wall that
runs counter-clockwise." (Grace Hopper)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: THE WORLD
     Robert Gilpin, an emeritus professor of public and international
affairs at Princeton, writes:
     "The world economic and political system is experiencing its most
profound transformation since emergence of the international economy in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The end of the Cold War, the collapse
of the Soviet Union, a stagnant yet enormously rich Japan, the reunification
of Germany and its consequent return as the dominant power in Western
Europe, and the rise of China and Pacific Asia are influencing almost every
aspect of international affairs. Changes originating in earlier decades have
also become more prominent; these developments include the technological
revolution associated with the computer and the information economy and the
redistribution of economic power from the industrialized West to the rapidly
industrializing and crisis-riven economies of Pacific Asia.
     "The worldwide shift to greater reliance on the market in the
management of economic affairs, and what many call the 'retreat of the
state,' are integrating national economies everywhere into a global economy
of expanding trade and financial flows. However, it is the demographic
revolution that will have the greatest long-term significance. The
extraordinary population decline in the industrialized world and the
explosive growth of population in China, India, other parts of Asia, and
elsewhere in the developing world will continue to significantly alter the
global distribution of economic and, of course, military power.
     "These developments are having important consequences for the lives of
us all. There will be many winners as global capitalism refashions almost
every aspect of domestic and international economic affairs. There will also
be many losers, at least over the short term, as international competition
intensifies and as businesses and workers lose the secure niches that they
enjoyed in the past. Economic globalization presents both threats and
challenges for the well-being of peoples everywhere. If individuals and
societies are to adjust intelligently to the challenge of global capitalism,
it is imperative that they understand the principal forces transforming
international economic and political affairs."
                                  ***
See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691092796/newsscancom/ref=nos
im "The Challenge of Global Capitalism: The World Economy in the 21st
Century," by Robert Gilpin With Jean Millis Gilpin -- or look for it in your
favorite library. (We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to
adult literacy programs.)

SUBSCRIPTION INFO FOR NEWSSCAN DAILY:
     To subscribe or unsubscribe to the text, html, or handheld versions of
NewsScan Daily, send the appropriate subscribe or unsubscribe messages
(i.e., with the word 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' in the subject line) to
the addresses shown below:
     Text version: Send message to [email protected]
     HTML version: Send mail to [email protected]
     NewsScan-To-Go: http://www.newsscan.com/handheld/current.html

TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT NEWSSCAN DAILY! Send them our little frog:
http://www.newsscan.com/newsscan/newscup.html

***********************************************************
Please visit the site of RLG, the great organization that makes NewsScan
Daily possible. (RLG has no influence over, nor any responsibility for, our
editorial content.) Created in 1974 as the Research Libraries Group, RLG is
a not-for-profit membership corporation of more than 160 universities,
national libraries, archives, museums -- and other institutions with
remarkable collections for research and learning. Its major initiatives are
long-term retention of digital materials, resource sharing among member
institutions, and improvement of researcher access to primary source
material. RLG supplies online research resources worldwide. Visit RLG at
http://www.rlg.org.

*********

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the TEXT version of NewsScan Daily, send an
e-mail message to [email protected] with 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' in
the subject line. To subscribe to our HTML version of NewsScan Daily, send
mail to [email protected], with the word 'subscribe' as the
subject. (Subscribing to the HTML version won't automatically unsubscribe
you from the text version; please unsubscribe yourself as explained above.)
Please note: To unsubscribe from an account to which you no longer have
access, send mail to at [email protected].

*********

We call our news section "Above The Fold" to honor the tradition of the
great "broadsheet" newspapers in which editors must decide which news
stories are of such importance that they should be placed "above the fold"
on the front page. The NewsScan Credo: Be informative, have fun, and get to
the point! See http://www.newsscan.com/, and send us mail: John Gehl
<[email protected]> and Suzanne Douglas <[email protected]>, or call
770-704-7517.

*********

Get a free 6-week trial subscription to Innovation Weekly, an executive
summary of trends, strategies and innovations in business and technology.
Send mail to [email protected] with the word 'subscribe' in the
subject line.

What customized news and information services do you need for your company?
Get in touch with us at [email protected] or call 770-704-7517 to talk
over the possibilities.

Copyright 2004. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
***********************************************************