Web Round-Up W/E 21/11/97

The Internet recently faced what was perhaps its biggest test to date. The world logged on in anticipation of Judge Hiller Zobel’s announcement of the fate of Louise Woodward. His decision was to be posted first on the Internet and disseminated from there. In theory then, anyone in the world was allowed access to the news as it was announce in its original form. Only the Internet could provide this. However, in keeping with the farcical nature of the court case itself, the promise of the Net’s ability to deliver quickly withered. A power-cut in a neighbouring area of the court rendered their email server useless and the surge of traffic to the various sites caused many of the connections to be blocked resulting in a frustrating “the server may not be accepting connections or may be busy” message. The net result of this, if you’ll pardon the pun, was that CNN and Sky News broadcast the decision before most Websites had managed to remove the ‘awaiting decision’ messages.

Although the Internet cannot be held responsible for a power-cut, the sum of all the problems experienced during the days leading to the decision highlights the present weaknesses of the Internet and should confirm beliefs that the Net is simply not designed to cope with the demand for information that it is currently (and increasingly) experiencing.

…Microsoft has a weighty bundle of problems to deal with at the moment. It seems that electronic world and its cyberdog are turning against the software giant as the corporation comes under increasing criticism of its anti-competitive tactics. Microsoft is currently wrestling with the US Justice Department to prevent a $1m a day fine wrought by the Department to prevent Microsoft Internet Explorer being included with Windows ’95 as standard. As well as this the Bill Gates’ empire is facing the wrath of America’s consumer crusader Ralph Nader who is bravely mounting an anti-Microsoft awareness campaign to prevent what he sees as a “zero-sum mentality” which will relentlessly and aggressively continue until it controls the world. Given the nature of capitalism and its recent oligopolisation this is not as unlikely as it may first sound. Add to the fray a battle with Netscape Communications which has managed, so far, to cling on to two-thirds of the Internet software market, and also a displeased rival in the form of Sun Microsystems (probably Microsoft’s only significant competition) president and you can see how Gates is in the firing line.

…British Telecom is promising faster access to the Internet via digital signals sent down ordinary copper telephone lines. The ‘digital access technology’ will allow telephone lines to have two digital and two analogue lines. This will be a significantly cheaper method than the expensive ISDN lines. BT anticipates the service, Home Highway, will cost £100 to be installed and then will be “slightly more” than the current £26 per quarter rental.

A few NetBites:

• Richard Branson’s Virgin plans to branch its already expansive wings even further by moving into electronic shopping. Virgin Megastores will be the first online selling its usual CDs, books, videos and computer games. Predicting that “banks as we know them will very likely disappear,” Branson said that his travel and finance services would be the next to follow.
• Former editor of NME and Q has turned his hand to football to launch a football newspaper which is electronically delivered to your home every morning. Football365 is apparently not a Website. It will look like a newspaper and will be downloaded to your PC daily once you subscribe. The paper will draw on Press Association, local newspapers and fans as the sources for its material. David Tabizel, one of Football365‘s creators is understandably annoyed with comments that simply creating an online presence is enough: “People aren’t interest in the technology; content is what they want,” he says. He’s right. Let’s hope it works.