Thursday
31st May 2001
YAHOO REMAINS TOP SEARCH
ENGINE
According to a report released
today by WebSideStory's
StatMarket, Yahoo remains
the world's top search engine and has barely shifted its position in the
last 2 years despite concerted attacks by many other search engines including
LookSmart, Alta Vista and Excite. StatMarket reported that Yahoo is still
used for 38.75% of all US searches and 41.5% of all searches worldwide. In
the USA it's followed by MSN (15.9%), Google (11.3%) and AOL (7.8%) - and
outside the USA, by Google (13.9%), MSN (12.9%) and AOL (5.4%).
Two years
ago WebSideStory reported that Yahoo held a 43.5% share of the search
engine market. At that time it was followed by Alta Vista (10.5%), Excite
(9.9%) and Infoseek (7.6%), with MSN and AOL very far behind and Google almost
unknown. The inference of the report - if accurate - is that Google, MSN
and AOL have all managed to acquire their current position over the last
24 months by cannibalising the markets of the previous leaders rather than
Yahoo, which remains firmly entrenched in the number one position.
Wednesday
30th May 2001
ASIC TO INVESTIGATE ONE.TEL
COLLAPSE
The Australian Securities and
Investments Commission (ASIC) said today that it will launch an investigation
into junior telco One.Tel
after the company was placed into administration with estimated debts of
$180 million. The company's two largest shareholders - James Packer and Lachlan
Murdoch, who invested close to AUD$950 million into the company between them
and appear to have lost the lot, said that they had been "misled" about firm's
true cash position and were angry about it. One.Tel - which began life in
1994 as a reseller of Optus mobile phone services - raised $125 billion when
it listed on the Australian stock exchange in 1997 intending to create its
own independent telecoms network. In July last year, though, many investors
were agog when the firm announced a $291 million loss but paid the two chief
executives (Jodee Rich and Brad Keeling) $8.7 million in performance bonuses.
Mr Rich had repeatedly insisted that the firm would break even by May this
year, and earlier this month had forecast a $75 million surplus by the end
of the financial year. However by May 17th investors learned that a rights
issue to inject $132 million in cash to keep the firm afloat was being
considered; Mr Rich and Mr Keeling were removed from the board; and due diligence
proceedings unearthed that One.Tel was in fact in a much worse position than
had been assumed. Trading in the firm's share was suspended several days
ago, and the company's 1400 staff are now awaiting news of their fate.
Tuesday
29th May 2001
WEB SITES NOT DEDUCTIBLE:
ATO
According to a report in today's
Australian newspaper, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) is considering issuing
a ruling which would eliminate tax deductibility for the costs of establishing
a web site. The Australian reported today that the ATO has already issued
a draft ruling which states that "the costs of setting up a website when
commencing a business are considered to be of a capital nature and not deductible
or depreciable." Under this ruling, Australian businesses would only be able
to claim a deduction for the cost of operating a web site, but not for
the cost of setting one up. The move has incensed industry groups who
are pushing for full deductibility in the year the expense is incurred, the
Australian says. They argue that any business can deduct the cost of producing
a printed brochure but - under the ruling - would be unable to do the same
for an online brochure. A final decision on the matter by the ATO's Rulings
Panel is not expected until next month.
Monday
28th May 2001
AMAZON PRIVACY SWITCH "OK"
WITH FTC
The US
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ruled
today that a decision by Amazon last September to alter its privacy policy
and share customer data with other firms was OK - but only because Amazon
had yet to actually do so. Rejecting petitions from
Junkbusters and the
Electronic Privacy Information Centre
(EPIC) filed last December, the FTC said Amazon's decision to alter its data
privacy policy in September 2000 to allow it to share customer data such
as names and e-mail addresses with other companies unless a customer specifically
requested otherwise didn't violate US Federal privacy laws. Amazon's earlier
privacy policy had stated that it didn't share personal data at all, but
gave consumers the choice of opting out of any data sharing should it occur
in the future. The petitioners had asked the FTC to rule on whether the move
violated a US federal law prohibiting deceptive or unfair trade practices.
However, the FTC ruled that it didn't - simply because Amazon had yet to
share any data with others. Amazon welcomed the FTC ruling but EPIC said
it was considering filing a lawsuit or appealing to Congress on the
matter.
Friday
25th May 2001
AD INDUSTRY PROPOSES "OPT-OUT"
FORM
The US online advertising industry
- coming under increasing pressure over its covert data profiling practices
and the mooted introduction of new privacy laws to curtail it - announced
today that it had engaged Arthur Andersen to develop a new self-regulatory
"opt-out" system. Under its proposed
"Network Advertising
Initiative" (NAI), consumers who wanted to protect their privacy
would be able to bar major US online advertising companies from secretly
spying on them by filling in a single "opt out" form. This would prevent
the companies building databases about a particular consumer's online behaviour
- including their browsing habits, search preferences and buying patterns,
all of which may later be shared with or onsold to third parties. The NAI
has been suggested by the online ad industry as an alternative to mooted
new US legislation where an "opt-out" stance would be presumed and consumers
would have to actively consent to being profiled to allow this type of covert
background surveillance to occur. Nonetheless, the NAI model - very much
like new privacy legislation due to come into force in Australia later this
year - proposes no significant penalty for any member who flouts the
rules.
Thursday
24th May 2001
FBI ARRESTS 90 IN ONLINE
FRAUD CRACKDOWN
The FBI arrested 90 people
in the USA yesterday in a crackdown on online fraudsters who are estimated
to have duped 56,000 victims of as much as $117 million through a variety
Internet scams. The arrests were part of an operation code-named Operation
Cyber Loss and authorities warned that more may follow. Amongst the frauds
busted were a 3-year old San Diego-based scheme which promised an Internet
service that was never delivered and bilked an estimated 3,000 investors
out of $50 million; another where an estimated 46,000 consumers paid $295
each to access a non-existent Internet shopping mall, losing around $14 million
in the process; and a third scheme where 400 investors were promised a guaranteed
4% return but saw $13 million of their money disappear instead. The
investigations were initiated through information gathered at the year-old
Internet Fraud Complaint Center
(IFCC), a joint operation between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime
Center which takes online complaints from consumers and companies, analyzes
the information to find common threads and distributes the leads to law
enforcement agencies. The IFCC received 36,000 complaints in the last year
and passed on more than 30,000 to police after it found they were valid.
Wednesday
23rd May 2001
NET NOT UNIVERSAL IN
BUSINESS... YET
According to a new study by
Diners Club TrendTrack, 16% of Sydney and Melbourne business travellers
have yet to use email; 19% have yet to use the Internet; and 7% have yet
to use an ATM. (And in what must be disturbing news for publishers, fully
33% of the same market had yet to read a business magazine). However, these
levels of penetration are still significantly higher than those for the general
population where 47% have yet to use email; 46% have yet to use the Internet;
and 18% have yet to use an ATM. The same survey also found that about 79%
of business travellers now use email at least once a week, 68% use the Internet
at least once a week and 69% use an ATM at least once a week. The research
was based on a sample of 380 business travellers and 251 members of the general
population. A "business traveller" was defined as someone who spent more
than six nights a year away from home on business.
Tuesday
22nd May 2001
DEFACEMENT HACKS OVERLOAD
WEB SITE
Security site
Attrition.org announced today
that it will cease keeping copies of defaced web pages in its archives -
simply because an enormous increase in successful hacking and defacement
attacks on web sites in the last 12 months has overloaded its staff. The
volunteer-run site, which has been reporting web site hacks and keeping copies
of defacements for the last 6 years, said that the recent growth of hacking
incidents had led to a chronic work overload. Attrition reported that on
several days last month, for example, more than 100 web sites a day were
defaced by vandals. This was three times the total number of defacements
for 1995 and 1996 combined. The site will, however, continue to keep statistics
on site hacks and continue to provide commentary and articles on high profile
defacements, significant trends and "other activity that warrants attention".
Attrition's
statistics
show that between August 1999 and mid-May 2001, web sites running Windows
NT or Windows 2000 accounted for 61.3% of all site defacements - though according
to UK site Netcraft,
Microsoft's web products account for only 20% of all web servers.
Monday
21st May 2001
IBM BREAKS HARD DRIVE
BARRIER
IBM
announced today that it has developed a new technique which will increase
the storage capacity of new hard drives by around 25% immediately, and by
as much as 400% within the next few years. The company began quietly shipping
the new drives 3 weeks ago, they said, but delayed an official announcement
until today. According to a company spokesperson, the company's scientists
had found that by introducing a thin layer of ruthenium onto the disk surfaces
in hard drives they could increase data storage capacities from the current
20 Gb/inch2 to around 25.7 Gb/inch2 without increasing
production costs. IBM forecasts that further refinements in the process -
officially known as antiferromagnetically-coupled media (AFC) - could see
storage capacities rise to 100 Gb/inch2 by 2003. This would allow
desktop drives to reach 400GB storage levels, notebooks 200GB, and one-inch
microdrives around 6GB within the next few years. Other hard disk manufacturers
are expected to follow IBM's lead.
Friday
18th May 2001
AUSTRALIA RANKS 2nd FOR
eBUSINESS
According to a new study by
the
Economist
Intelligence Unit and Pyramid Research, Australia ranks as the second
most "eBusiness ready" country in the world after the USA. The study, which
ranked 60 countries worldwide on a variety of criteria including connectivity,
background business environment, ecommerce adoption, the legal and regulatory
framework, supporting eservices and social and cultural infrastructure, placed
Australia ahead of the UK, Canada and Norway in its list of the 5 most advanced
countries on Earth. Of Australia's Asian neighbours, Singapore placed 7th,
Hong Kong 13th, Taiwan 16th and Japan 18th. India, however, ranked 45th despite
having a world-class cadre of software programmers and a booming hi-tech
outsourcing industry; and China ranked 49th, even though it boasts one of
the world's fastest-growing Internet populations. The study's authors said
that this was because widespread poverty, illiteracy and infrastructure
inadequacies are preventing e-business from gaining critical mass in both
nations at the present time.
Thursday
17th May 2001
AUSTRALIAN MOBILE COSTS
TIPPED TO RISE
The cost of using GSM satellite
mobile phones in Australia may rise if a proposed 150% increase in annual
licence fees is approved in next Tuesday's Federal Budget. According to news
reports appearing today, the Federal Government is considering raising the
mobile spectrum licence fees charged to telecommunications companies by a
whopping 150% - from the current $7.2 million pa to $17.97 million pa. These
fees are set annually and usually only rise with inflation. Not surprisingly,
the Labor Party immediately attacked the move with communications spokesman
Stephen Smith saying that "while Optus, Telstra and Vodafone - the three
carriers that currently use this spectrum, will initially have to bear this
additional cost - it is inevitable that these higher costs will be passed
on to Australia's 10 million GSM consumers in the form of higher mobile phone
prices." The ALP also accused the Federal Government of "rorting" taxpayers,
saying that the increase in the licence fee would net the Government an extra
$120 million over four years - which is almost $40 million more than the
$81 million in outlays the Government had promised earlier this week to boost
mobile phone coverage as part of its response to the Besley inquiry.
Wednesday
16th May 2001
NEW .BIZ DOMAIN GETS
GO-AHEAD
The
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers (ICANN) today approved the new .biz address suffix -
the first new top-level domain released in 15 years. Unlike the increasingly
crowded .com domain space, use of the new .biz suffix will be restricted
exclusively to commercial use and will not be available for personal or
non-commercial purposes, ICANN said. Pending final approval by the US Department
of Commerce, the new suffix is expected to go live in October this year.
However, domain registry
NeuLevel - in partnership with
Australia's MelbourneIT - will begin allowing companies to register an interest
in acquiring .biz suffixed domains from May 21st. Trademark owners will be
able to apply to reserve .biz domains from May 21st to July 9th; and then
other businesses with existing domain names will be allowed to apply for
.biz domains until September 25th. After this "pre-registration" window closes,
though, the new domain will then be open to anyone. Pending the success of
the .biz process, ICANN intends to introduce several more suffixes in the
near future - including .info, .pro, .name, .coop, .aero and .museum
Tuesday
15th May 2001
WINE PLANET TO CLOSE
FRIDAY
Loss-making Australian wine
retailer Wine Planet will
close on Friday after losing $7 million in the half-year to December 31st
and even more since, eliminating another Australian "dot.com" etailer from
the map. The troubled company, taken over last Friday by Foster's Brewing
subsidiary Cellarmasters, will be delisted from the ASX at close of trade
tomorrow and cease its online operations by week's end. The company's corporate
wine supply business will be sold off and its technology will be rolled into
Foster's European wine club business. Fosters had originally bought a 25%
stake in the etailer in February 2000 for a reputed $49.5 million only a
few months before the dot.com crash. In late March this year it began acquiring
the remaining 75% of shares it didn't already own at 35c each - a 50% premium
above Wine Planet's average share price at the time - after seeing the value
of its investment drop by close to 85% in little over a year. Sources blamed
the collapse on an unviable business model which had the web site competing
purely on price against traditional brick and mortar retailers.
Monday
14th May 2001
AUSTRALIA WARNED OF GROWING
DIGITAL DIVIDE
Income and education - not
race and gender - are the major dividers of the Information Age, a conference
in Adelaide was warned today. At a seminar convened by Community Information
Strategies Australia (CISA) and the South Australian Council of Social
Services (SACOSS), attendees were told that within 2 years around 71%
of Australian households would be connected to the Net. But the 29% of households
that would miss out would be those on incomes of $24,000 or less. This would
deprive almost one third of the population of the savings in time and money,
expanded education opportunities, employment and health information and some
social interaction (through email and chat rooms) that come from ready access
to an online connection. And unless a concerted effort was made by governments
and the community to prevent what amounted to entrenched discrimination against
the poor, attendees were warned that Australia risked developing a 21st century
"underclass" which lacked "the money, the training and the opportunities
that others take for granted."
Friday
11th May 2001
33% OF AUSTRALIAN HOUSEHOLDS
NOW ONLINE
One third of Australian households
now have Internet access and 53% have at least one computer on the premises,
according to new data from the Australian
Bureau of Statistics. And during the last year 47% of all Australian
adults accessed the Net - either from at home or at work. Families with dependent
children were most likely to have computer and Internet access, the ABS report,
while single people were least likely to have Net access at home. The ABS
found that the number of homes with Internet access grew by 793,000 (about
52%) in 2000 in comparison with 454,000 (or 42%) the previous year. Growth
in home computer use was also higher in 2000 than in 1999, where the number
of households with a computer grew by 439,000 (13%) last year, up from 284,000
(or 9%) in 1999. The ABS also report that most popular online activity in
Australian households last year was email or online chat, which was used
by 68% of home surfers. General browsing and finding work-related information
were also popular activities. 26% of home users also went online to find
information about products and services
Thursday
10th May 2001
EMAIL MARKETING LIKELY
TO INCREASE
In what may be bad news for
anyone already deluged by spam, the volume of email marketing looks set to
increase markedly over the next 4 years according to a new study by
eMarketer. In a new consumer
survey, eMarketer found that approximately 30% of US online consumers said
they'd like to receive permission-based e-mail once a week. "With traditional
telemarketing costing anything from US$1 to US$3 per contact, direct mail
costing $US0.75c to US$2 for each letter and the average email message costing
less than $US0.01c, there's really no contest" a spokesperson said. Furthermore,
emarketer found that the response rate for permission-based email marketing
is still high compared with banner ads - anything between 2 and 10 times
greater. Accordingly, they report that US marketers plan to spend US$2.1
billion on email campaigns this year - double the amount spent last year
- and that this is likely to increase by the same amount for the foreseeable
future until consumers become "burned out" and response rates decline.
Wednesday
9th May 2001
US ONLINE RETAILING STILL
GROWING
Despite the dot.com shakeout,
online B2C sales in the USA grew by 66% last year to US$45 billion and are
expected to grow by a further 45% this year to US$65 billion, according to
the
Boston
Consulting Group (BCG). In a survey of 550 online retailers, BCG
found that travel sites did best in 2000 with an estimated US$13.8 billion
worth of sales - a figure expected to grow by another 50% in 2001. But other
high-growth categories over the coming 12 months include toys, clothing,
and home and office goods, while sales growth in books and computer products
is expected to flatten or slightly decline. BCG also found that customer
acquisition costs for B2C retailers fell over last year from an average of
US$38 per customer in 1999 to US$29 in 2000 as online traders reined in their
marketing budgets. All the same, BCG report that the most profitable Net
retailers are likely to be the online arms of shopping catalogue firms (72%
are profitable), followed by brick-and-mortar retailers (43% profitable).
Internet "pureplays" are still the least likely to be in the black at the
present time with just over 1 in 4 (27%) reporting profits.
Tuesday
8th May 2001
SOUTHERN CROSS TO TREBLE
CAPACITY MID-MONTH
Australian Net users who've
been bedevilled recently by slow access speeds may see some relief on May
15th when the Southern Cross cable trebles its capacity from 20 Gb/sec to
60 Gb/sec. The 30,500km cable - which connects Australia with the USA via
New Zealand, Fiji and Hawaii - was opened in November last year and quickly
adopted by many ISPs seeking a competitive alternative to Telstra's high-priced
services. However, demand for bandwidth has risen so steeply that the Southern
Cross consortium announced today that they've been compelled to bring forward
the planned capacity increase ahead by 6 months. Further upgrades to 80 GB/sec
(in September 2001) and to 240 GB/sec (in mid-2002) are now being planned.
The cable has a maximum capacity of 480 GB/sec.
Monday
7th May 2001
CYBERTERRORISM ATTACKS
RISE 50%
The number of cyberterrorism
attacks in Australia has risen to 15,000 reported incidents this year - a
50% increase on the 10,000 attacks reported during the entire 2000 calendar
year, according to Unisys security director Ajoy Ghosh. However the
real number may be far higher, he said today, since less than 2% of computer
system attacks were reported usually outside the victim organisation. The
level of online fraud also appears to be increasing, with VISA and Mastercard
admitting they lost a combined $US2.8 billion ($5.3 billion) through fraud
originating on the Net in 1999 - a figure the companies expect to rise to
$US5.6 billion by 2002. Nonetheless, Mr Ghosh said, the most damage in cyberspace
was carried out by organised criminals, political or religious zealots and
nation states rather than vandals and opportunistic criminals - and while
the matter tended to be sensationalised the press, the total volume of online
fraud was still minuscule in terms of the total volume of business being
transacted.
Friday
4th May 2001
TV ADS MORE MEMORABLE THAN
DIGITAL ONES
According to a new study of
British consumers by the Chartered Institute
of Marketing (CIM), consumers are far more likely to remember television
advertisements than new media ads. CIM found that only 6% of those surveyed
said they saw no TV advertising in an average week, against nearly 75% who
said they never saw digital TV advertising, mobile phone ads or web banners.
Further, consumers said that ads on TV were more likely to make them respond,
while only 1% or 2% percent said they'd respond to a digital TV ad or a banner
ad. Meanwhile, a new study by
Statistical
Research (SR) has found that while pop-up ads are 50% more likely
to be noticed on the net than banner ads, they're also 100% more likely to
be resented by viewers. SR found that 62% of those polled said that pop-ups
interfere with their reading or use of a web page, but only 32% said banners
affected their Internet browsing in the same way. Interestingly, SR also
found that advertisers using pop-ups are now less likely to be seen as industry
leaders than they were a few years ago when pop-ups first appeared.
Thursday
3rd May 2001
AUSTRALIAN DOT.COMs STILL
SHRINKING
Despite a steadily growing
domestic audience on the Net, the majority of Australia's listed dot.coms
are still shrinking and close to two-thirds of them are still very heavily
over-valued, according to industry analysts. During the last week most of
Australia's surviving listed technology stocks have had to report their latest
quarterly figures to the ASX . The news for most investors is not good, with
the majority reporting continued losses and steadily evaporating cash reserves.
Amongst the most heavily over-valued shares currently on the dot.com market,
according to analysts, are Sanity.com (shares at 19c with net asset backing
of 2c); Techstar ($2.30 for 2c); Iocom (14.5c vs 2c); and Clarity International
(45c vs 1c). Others that appear to be nearing the end of their cash reserves
include Smart Communications, Realestate.com.au, 131shop.com.au and Chariot
Internet. Even Kerry Packer's ecorp - which boasted earlier in the week that
it had "great cash flows" (and still has $87.5 million in the bank) - quietly
recorded a bottom-line loss of $20 million for the last 6 months, double
its previous loss. This week the ASX also handed out 20 notices to tech companies
asking for detailed answers about their solvency, cashflows and their chances
of meeting of prospectus forecasts.
Wednesday
2nd May 2001
SPEED, CLARITY MATTER
MOST
According to a new study of
Internet users by
Arthur
Andersen (AA), most people value ease of use, site speed and quality
content over elaborate graphics or animations - and do so by a factor of
more than 7 to 1. In a poll of 990 users carried out between March 30th and
April 3rd this year by Knowledge Systems & Research Inc, users were asked
to rate web site features on a scale of 1 (least important) to 10 (most
important). To the chagrin of many erstwhile web design studios, no doubt,
AA found that ease of use, site speed, quality of content and regular updates
all rated highly with users, scoring between 5.5 and 7.8 in the poll. The
least important attributes, AA found, were animation (less than 0.8), "fun"
(2.1) and general aesthetics (2.2). For online stores, AA found that users
rated easy order processing (6.8) and security procedures (6.5) as the two
most important attributes, followed by ease of navigation and access to customer
service. AA also found that most users (83%) will abandon a site if they
have to make more than 4 to 6 clicks off the front page to locate information.
Tuesday
1st May 2001
AUSTRALIAN NET GROWS BY
6,000 SITES
The Australian Net grew by
around 6,000 sites during April 2001, according to our monthly
Australian Internet Growth
Index. The AIGI showed an average nationwide increase of 5.6% in
the number of live web sites during the last month, a fall on the 8.2% we
recorded in March. And once again, growth was far from uniform - ranging
from almost nil in Adelaide and 2.3% in Hobart through to a strong 6.8% in
Perth and 7.2% in Melbourne. According to our estimates there are now slightly
more than 98,000 live web sites in Australia, up from approximately 5,000
at the start of 1996. The May 1st figures (with April 1st figures in brackets)
are as follows:
Australian
Internet Growth Index April 2001
(Figures Show Estimated Live Sites) |
-
Brisbane - 8,615
(8,221)
-
Sydney - 32,361
(30,587)
-
Melbourne - 26,422
(24,648)
-
Adelaide - 6,505
(6,505)
|
-
Perth - 6,712
(6,285)
-
Hobart - 2,674
(2,614)
-
Canberra - 8,076
(7,677)
-
Darwin* - 6,672
(6,291)
|
NB: The Darwin figure includes
rural Australian sites |
|
During April 2001 Australian
Cybermalls hosted 61,884 visitors, a fall on March's 67,984 partly
due to the shorter month, Easter and Anzac Day breaks. Our visitors viewed
268,992 page displays from our servers, which in turn consumed 12.43 Gb of
bandwidth. Our April 2001 traffic summary
can be viewed
here.
|
