Ad Wars

A BLOODY ONLINE AD WAR is brewing, a war that pits rabid, anti-advertising types against the advertising industry, which plans to wreck your favorite web sites by transforming them into garish, screaming billboards that drown out all content. 

The first assault on your senses came from c|net, which recently rolled out huge, intrusive ads on just about every article page.  

Then CNN started testing banner ads that feature full-motion streaming video (and require downloads if you don't have the right software). 

Last week, the Internet Advertising Bureau approved seven new standard ad sizes, including tall "skyscraper" ads designed to fill in that space to the right that is often left blank on web sites. 

Tough times in the tech sector are forcing web sites to be more accommodating to advertisers, which generally means serving advertisers at the expense of you and me. 

The problem is that web advertisers are trying to replicate that nirvana of advertising: television. Advertisers have grown used to force-feeding a passive public garbage ads pitching undesirable products that TV viewers don't really want to see -- but will watch anyway. Turning off your brain is what TV is all about. 

The web is different. If banner ads or other kinds of ads actually contain products or messages of interest, people will click it. But if visitors don't care about the message -- no matter how big and intrusive, no matter how loud and distracting -- they'll ignore it and go away. 

Also: Fellow technology newsletter author Chris Pirillo -- a.k.a. "The Lockergnome" -- is actually holding his first-ever conference in Silicorn Valley -- a.k.a. Iowa -- and inviting all his subscribers. He's already lined up some first-rate speakers (including Yours Truly) and sponsors (including Microsoft). The conference, like Chris's popular newsletter, is for hard-core PC enthusiasts who want to have fun. Register now, and save $75 on meals, etc.! I'll see YOU in Iowa! : ) 

Follow-Up
I wrote about the "Jail Cam" in Mike's List 4, which is a web site featuring live web cams in the Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff's Office Madison Street Jail. They've added a fourth camera -- this one pointed at the women's holding cell. Watching the jail cam is the next best thing to actually getting locked up in the slammer. 

Also: I whined in previous issues about Hollywood's conspicuous lack of imagination and guts, complaining that they're recycling every cheesy little baby-boomer-childhood TV show into even cheesier big-budget movies. The most recent insults to our collective intelligence? One of my Hollywood spies tells me Owen Wilson and Eddie Murphy will star in a movie remake of "I Spy." Meanwhile, I've heard that Warner Brothers is planning a movie regurgitation of the 1960s Mel Brooks TV comedy, "Get Smart."

In a related story, the Associated Press says the Farrelly brothers (creators of "There's Something About Mary") will make an original Three Stooges Movie. I think the Brothers Farrelly each deserve two fingers in the eyes for even suggesting such a rotten idea. Why don't they just do Marx Brothers remakes without the Marx Brothers? Or get a new lead guitar player for the band, "Santana." 

Reader Web Site o' the Week
The Word Spy maps new-word coinages from a spectacular variety of sources. I really like this site, and not just because Mike's List Reader and The Word Spy Editor, Paul McFedries, has picked up two of my coinages ("disk spamming" and "potrepreneur"). If you want to learn incredible, funny and very useful new words, check out The Word Spy!

Get YOUR web site on the high-traffic Mike's List Reader Links page. HERE'S HOW! 

Mike's List o' Crazy Gadgets
Ask Corporation showed off its "Scotty" solar Palm Organizer charger at Macworld/Tokyo last week, according to the Japanese magazine PC Gaz. The company is reportedly planning a Visor version. 


Pilot Corp. is working on a ballpoint pen that digitally records everything you write with it, and zaps that data to a nearby mobile phone or pocket computer via Bluetooth short-range wireless technology. It should be on the market by the end of 2002. Here's an interview with Yasuyuki Kazaoka, manager of Pilot's Product Planning Division, by AsiaBizTech, in which Yasuyuki yammers on about the pen. 

Mike's List o' Wacky Web Sites
"Dear Aunt Nettie" tells it like it is (and was)! A self-proclaimed 19-century Internet pioneer, Aunt Nettie dispenses advice on technology and "whatever she feels like." 

Here's a web site with guaranteed low traffic: It's the Luddite Reader! Imagine that -- a web site packed with articles for people who despise technology -- and are therefore unlikely to own a computer or turn to the web for reading material. 

Mike's List o' Numbers
33% - The percentage of the total time Americans spent online in January at web sites owned by the government-approved merger of AOL Time Warner. (Media Metrix)

6% - The percentage of total time Americans spent online in January at web sites owned by Microsoft, a company former Attorney General Janet Reno said has a monopolistic "choke-hold" on the Internet. (Media Metrix)

Mystery Pic o' the Week

What is it? Send YOUR guess to [email protected]. I'll publish the name of the first person who gets it in the next issue of Mike's List. 

Will Microsoft Survive the Immunity Challenge?
By Mike Elgan
Bill Gates is stranded in a Washington D.C. courtroom, pitted against government attorneys and seven appellate judges. Will he get voted off the Island? Will he be forced to eat crow, form secret alliances, and play more silly games to win immunity? 
Winmag.com

Hype and Anti-Hype
By Thomas L. Friedman
"The Gartner Group consultants have developed a useful concept to describe the hype around new technologies, which they call the 'hype cycle.' As a new technology — like the Internet — is triggered, the hype curve soars upward until it reaches a peak of inflated expectations. Then it sinks almost straight down into a trough of disillusionment, as the less successful players drop out."
The New York Times

Fine Lines
By Andrew Sullivan
"The salient question behind the "drug" war, then, is not simply the usual libertarian-authoritarian conundrum. It's much simpler: What is the criterion that makes one drug the object of a "war" in which millions are incarcerated for illegal use and another drug the object of a vast marketing machine through which millions are regularly sold to and hooked?"
The New Republic

Nutella Finds Gnutella Hard to Swallow 
By Boris Grondahl
"The German unit of the Italian maker of popular nougat treat Nutella has forced the owners of the domain names Gnutella.de and Newtella.de to stop using their sites, partly from concerns that the peer-to-peer technology the sites promote will damage the company's global image."
The Standard

DVD hacking sets Hollywood reeling 
By Doug Mellgren
"In the basement of an old farmhouse deep in the Norwegian countryside, a 15-year-old computer geek named Jon Lech Johansen pecked out the finishing touches on a piece of programming that had been keeping him busy after school and homework. The program he assembled ... would rattle Hollywood, unleash lawsuits, mobilize demonstrators in his defense and have him hauled in for a night of questioning by Norwegian police. It enables you to copy movies off a DVD disc onto your computer ... (and) .... send the movies onto the Internet. ... why pay $3.99 to rent Hollywood's latest blockbuster when you can see it for free without leaving your home? And why buy a DVD player if your home PC can do the job?"
Associated Press