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Talk between Yahoo and Hollywood content company Live Planet has fueled speculation about a possible collaboration creating Yahoo TV. The search engine that's always looking to expand has been talking with Live Planet about acquiring production and technical talent. Though neither side would comment, those in the know say it's the sort of groundwork you do if you plan to operate a TV station. Live Planet is backed by stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. It is the company behind the upcoming "The Runner" on ABC and the online screenwriting contest "Project Greenlight." The parallels between the companies are what makes a possible teaming-up all the more likely. New Yahoo chief Terry Semel is good friends with Gordon Crawford, whose Capital Research backed the venture capital firm that got Yahoo started. One of Crawford's close peers, David Siminoff, is a Live Planet backer and his wife, Ellen Siminoff, is a senior vice president of entertainment and small business at Yahoo.
Study: The world is not ready for e-books
While two-thirds of internet users are aware of e-books, they’re not very likely to go out and buy them. So concludes a recent study by market researchers Ipsos-NPD and the NPD Group. Just 3 percent of survey respondents reported that they are "very likely" to buy an e-book. Twenty percent are "somewhat likely" to buy one, while the majority—45 percent—are not very likely to purchase e-books. And 32 percent say they’re not at all likely to buy an e-book. Seventy-seven percent of consumers believe that e-books should be cheaper than hardcover books and paperbacks. According to the researchers, consumers are assuming that publishers would save money on paper, printing and distribution, when in reality, the cost of handling electronic content can be quite high, at least in terms of infrastructure. Consumers aren’t shy about buying print books online, though. About half of online shoppers have done so. Overall, online book sales accounted for 7 percent of all book sales in 2000, up from 5 percent in 1999.
Hackers invade SETI@Home and spam away
Aliens invaded SETI@Home, sort of, when hackers wormed their way into the program over Memorial Day weekend. SETI@Home is a distributed computing project, meaning that it puts consumers’ computers to work when they would otherwise be idle. SETI@Home’s mission is to crunch data gathered by the world’s biggest radio antenna in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Hackers broke into SETI@Home’s database, lifted tens of thousands of email addresses, and barraged the addresses with spam during Memorial Day weekend. The hackers obtained the addresses by intercepting messages sent between home computers and SETI@Home servers. The messages, full of misspellings, informed recipients as to how the hackers had obtained their email addresses. According to SETI@Home officials, no personal information beyond email addresses was taken. The software on the SETI@Home server has been patched up and will no longer send out email addresses. The SETI@Home project has 3.1 million users.
Battered Priceline.com offers a new service
"Name your price" travel site Priceline, once figured to be heading towards the dot.com dustheap, is showing signs of life. Yesterday it announced the launch of a new service, offering users the chance to save as much as 40 percent on rooms at resorts. As Priceline defines it, a "resort" must have tennis courts, a spa or gym, at least one swimming pool, a variety of food and drink options, and golf course access. While financial woes have forced Priceline to ditch some services, such as name-your-price groceries and gasoline, the resort room sales are the second travel service it has launched in the past six months. Priceline’s "last-minute" travel service, which made it possible to book flights as late as 6 p.m. EST on the day before travel, debuted in March. Also despite its problems, Priceline recently posted better-than-projected earnings, and says it will turn a profit next quarter.
Sex.com launches manhunt for cybersquatter
Sex.com proprietor Gary Kremen has upped the ante in the search for the man who illegally used his web address for five years. Sex.com will pay $50,000 for information leading to the capture of Stephen Michael Cohen, who hijacked the web address by forging documents. Cohen is believed to be on the lam in Mexico. In November, a judge ruled that Cohen would have to return the address to Kremen and pay him $65 million in damages. Kremen has control of Sex.com now, but the $65 million, and Cohen himself, have yet to materialize. Sex.com posted the notice of the reward, which can be split if several parties provide reliable information, on Wednesday. So far, Kremen says that no serious sources have come forward, other than a bounty hunter who told him he ought to offer more than $50,000.
'June 1' virus hoax targets the gullible
Call it natural selection for the internet age: A recent virus hoax has prompted thousands of people to make life hard on themselves by erasing a useful Microsoft Windows file. The email warns people about a "virus" called sulfnbk.exe. Supposedly, this virus is lying dormant on users’ hard drives and will awaken today to wreak havoc. In the usual hysterical language, the email tells people of sulfnbk.exe’s dangers, and advises them to delete the file from their hard drives. The email spreads because it demands that its gullible recipients warn as many people as possible. Trouble is, the file isn’t a virus at all but a benign Microsoft Windows utility, which explains why anti-virus software doesn’t detect sulfnbk.exe. When the file is deleted, users can no longer work with Windows’ long file names. Confusing the issue further, experts think the hoax may have arisen when some well-intentioned naïf downloaded a real virus, which infected the sulfnbk.exe file, leading the victim to believe that sulfnbk.exe was the virus.
June 1, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
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