Boo.com died. While their “cutting edge” design is often cited as the reason for their failure, the real question one must ask is how they blew through 120 million bucks in 6 months, and what they needed 300 employees for. Clearly it wasn’t to fulfill orders.
Lawrence Lessig spoke on the threat posed by AT&T; and the MPAA at the WWW9 conference in Amsterdam. Lessig is a useful tonic for the optimistic/naive people who believe that if we on the Internet are “left alone” by the government, problems will sort themselves out. The big corporations have a strong agenda designed to make sure that they keep turning a profit, and they won’t let the Internet get in the way of that.
Ken Layne offers a poignant obituary for United Press International, a once proud newswire that fell into dysfunction, and eventually into the hands of the Moonies.