the boo wrap-up (standard)
"By all accounts, Boo was a company that got carried away. It's not just that it bought flat-screened monitors, wristwatches and expensive airline tickets for the staff, but that it got carried away by its own story. Boo was so convinced it was changing the world of e-commerce that it overlooked the truth that working technology matters more than fancy features. In the end, Boo is a testament to the unglamorous idea that panache will only take you so far."
( Wednesday, May 31, 2000)

salon redesigns
mignon continues her salon tradition of ripping off other people's designs, with this gloss.com-inspired color block thing. it's better than what they had before, but it misses the point of the original gloss look, which was pretty good when it was first done.
( Wednesday, May 31, 2000)

great american goes dotcom (wired)
i just hope riffage doesn't change the place more than just adding the webcams. if the booking changes i will be so overwhelmingly bummed. the great american is my favorite venue in the city. bottom of the hill is the only place that comes close in terms of sound quality and intimacy.
( Wednesday, May 31, 2000)

ticketmaster buys ticketweb (wired)
so much for competition.
( Wednesday, May 31, 2000)

inside den
"Whenever I stepped outside of my extremely narrow working group (me and the guy who brought me in), any spending or hiring number I suggested was almost automatically doubled, followed by comments such as: "Spend the money! It's not yours, after all, and they've got tons of it!" Almost every person I met there, including superiors, talked actively of keeping side-jobs open "if and when this thing goes down in flames." In my infrequent walks across the office floor I'd constantly eavesdrop on advanced discussions -- some among people hired just that week -- about launching competing companies."
( Wednesday, May 31, 2000)

how bitter is polly esther?
"So exactly how angry and cynical is Havrilesky?

"Clad in blue jeans, a T-shirt and a zip-up sweater, the tall, thin writer with long brown hair sits down for lunch in Los Angeles's funky Silver Lake neighborhood, where she now lives, and grins with amusement."
( Wednesday, May 31, 2000)

boo bargains (standard)
someone in the office mentioned these numbers this morning, and we all had a good laugh about it. maybe because the current burn rate means the money in the bank will last two years or so.
( Tuesday, May 30, 2000)

inside whole foods
"Such an anti-activist attitude puts Whole Foods at odds with many of its customers, who believe that organizations like the UFW and Earth Island represent important forces for social justice and ecological well-being. People shop at Whole Foods not just because it offers organic produce and natural foods but also because it claims to run its business in a way that demonstrates a genuine concern for the community, the environment and the "whole planet," in the words of its motto."
( Tuesday, May 30, 2000)

more about boo
from someone who was there.

(link from both judith and denise)
( Friday, May 26, 2000)

booty caller id
because when booty calls everyone answers
( Wednesday, May 24, 2000)

pkware founder dead (tribune)
(courtesy carl)
( Tuesday, May 23, 2000)

(fucking) designers (standard)
"We had to fire Sony the other week," says Gene Na, a founder of Manhattan Web design firm Kioken. "They weren't listening to us, so we let them go."

"What the client sometimes doesn't understand is the less they talk to us, the better it is. We know what's best."

I hate designers who talk like this. They obviously are in this for their own self-aggrandizement. Prima donnas like Na will find themselves shuttling coffee around during the next recession, if they're lucky.
( Tuesday, May 23, 2000)

wireless city guides (standard)
(SFhipster will soon be available via AvantGo, too)
( Tuesday, May 23, 2000)

options underwater? (standard)
"That has caused employees at some of these firms to re-evaluate their options, quite literally. "In the last eight weeks, our candidate flow has increased exponentially," says Becky Stein, who heads the consumer Internet practice at recruitment firm Russell Reynolds. "People are suddenly returning calls and are willing to talk.""
( Tuesday, May 23, 2000)

this is so meta (nyt)
"The need for more and better talent coming into the business has been around for two to three years now," he added. "It's not a shortage of people interested in advertising; we just want to be sure we're getting the best-qualified people."

(yikes)
( Tuesday, May 23, 2000)

carl goes insane
"Next thing I know I'm wandering around South Park in nothing but a Guru.com bathrobe muttering about VRML and hypertext narratives. At first it's taken as some sort of publicity stunt, but my complete lack of irony when referring to "online community" clearly indicates that I'm a danger to both myself and others."

This is maybe the best Carl column so far this year.
( Sunday, May 21, 2000)

fishbowl life (nyt)
"Part of the appeal of logging on to these sites, I began to realize, was that it fulfilled an innate human desire for shared experience. The tag line of the German "Big Brother" site -- Du bist nicht allein! -- cut straight to the heart of it. You are not alone! I was bonding with an unseen crowd of fellow watchers.

"But the draw was more complex. Given the Net's vast number of unregulated feeds, there was always the chance that, racing through such a lawless frontier, I'd see something illicit: sex, rage, unfiltered joy. Despite being part of an audience of spies, at any turn, I alone might witness an accidental moment. That was something television couldn't offer, because -- and here's a rare complaint -- there's just too little of it these days."
( Saturday, May 20, 2000)

why new hampshire usually sucks (nyt)
"A Republican senator [Judd Gregg of New Hampshire] has singlehandedly blocked the United States from paying $368 million that it owes the United Nations for four difficult peacekeeping missions, infuriating the Clinton administration and some of its allies."

and many citizens of these united states. i remember reading once that every country that was fractured had the word "united" in its name.
( Saturday, May 20, 2000)

live free or die! (nyt)
"This year, when the vote on repeal came up in the House in March, the speaker of the overwhelmingly Republican body, Donna Sytek, who is noted for controlling party line votes with an iron hand, decreed a "free vote" in which the representatives should vote their consciences.

"The measure passed 191 to 163. While its main sponsor, James Splain, a Democrat from Portsmouth, is regarded as one of the most liberal legislators in the House, the measure was also backed by a number of conservatives.

"The possibility of executions carried out in error weighed heavily in the debate. One Republican representative, a lawyer, argued that economics fundamentally skewed the system of justice, leaving high numbers of poor blacks and Hispanics awaiting execution.

"There are no millionaires on death row," the representative, Anthony DiFruscia, said."

Is it at those times like these that I am proud to come from New Hampshire. The fact that a conservative legislature can change its mind on something this important is vital to how this country is supposed to work.
( Friday, May 19, 2000)

michelle redesigns
this is rather snappy. i like the customizability of the new home page. it's things like this that make me want to learn more coding skills. actually, it just makes me want to hire someone else to implement cool things like that for me while i sit and drink arnold palmers while playing nba live 2000.
( Friday, May 19, 2000)

bits of boo (standard)
"Court-appointed liquidators in London said Friday that they've received 63 inquiries from parties interested in buying all or part of the failed sportswear retailer. Mick McLoughlin, a partner at KPMG Corporate Recovery in London, the firm appointed to oversee the liquidation procedure for Boo.com, says he is "very hopeful" that the outfit will be sold, perhaps as early as next week."

By "outfit" I wonder if he means the full ensemble of clothing available at Boo. I'm just sorry that the business plan in Doonesbury isn't already functioning: online liquidators of failed sites' merchandise. Then I could get some extra pairs of sneakers.
( Friday, May 19, 2000)

boo bankrupt (nyt)
"But it was also clear that the founders were excessively ambitious. The company established its headquarters on swanky Carnaby Street in London, with satellite offices in New York, Paris, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Munich. The staff expanded from 40 initially to more than 400. Employees routinely flew first class and stayed in five-star hotels, according to a former staff member. Many were given laptops and Palm Pilots for home use, according to this person, and the company used Federal Express to send regular mail.

"They had very little spending restraint, to put it mildly," said Noah Yasskin, an analyst at the London office of Jupiter Communications, an Internet research firm."
( Friday, May 19, 2000)

hope for the suburbs (nyt)
"Adding to suburban houses has been a national pastime since America's first suburbs were built. Usually, the houses are left picture-perfect in front, while sprouting casual additions in back. The Markows had already added in the rear, and Garofalo liked that their intervention wasn't seamless: The horizontal ranch-style dormers in the back didn't match the lines of the original split level. Aiming for gothic eccentricity rather than classical unity, Garofalo built on the irregularity. Taking the mismatched roofs as a point of departure, he developed the existing set of discordant dormers into a choppy topography of cresting gables. He folded and hinged the sloping planes into a set of butterfly roofs."
( Thursday, May 18, 2000)

i heart coffee
"When you embark on a mate hunt, you want to be alert and looking your best. So why do four out of five people surveyed continue to lean so heavily on the bar as their one outlet for meeting people? Obviously, drinking lowers people inhibitions and gives them the courage to start a conversation with a stranger. But wouldn't it be better if everyone were drinking something that filled them not with false confidence but sharpened wit(s) and a twinkle in their eye?

"Like, for instance, a nice cup of coffee?"
( Thursday, May 18, 2000)

den trawler (la times)
"DEN was slated to be big, to be huge, to take over," Gersh said in an earlier interview. "We were going to change the world and we were going to get rich quick."

"Gersh told the remaining employees Wednesday that they could continue to work without pay in hopes DEN could get new funding."

This is what Carl describes as the CEO telling the employees they ran out of quarters to feed the meter. We will see a lot more of this over the next year or two.

(link by way of denise)
( Thursday, May 18, 2000)

boo go bye-bye (standard)
"Swedish co-founder Ernst Malmsten said he wished boo, one of Europe's top-funded Net startups, had reined in the costs.

"We wanted everything to be perfect," he told The Financial Times. "My mistake has been not to have a counterpart who was a strong financial controller."
( Thursday, May 18, 2000)

cadillac falters (nyt)
included solely for this excerpt:

"If Cadillac's luxury lineup is bemusing, most people in the automotive industry consider its advertising of recent years a disaster. Cadillac executives turn apoplectic when reminded of 1997's "Catera Duck" campaign with its tag line, "The car that zigs." Now playing in prime time is Cadillac's new theme, "The power of &."

"It says absolutely nothing," said Mr. Grace, of Interbrand."

of course, i might not agree with that assessment.
( Wednesday, May 17, 2000)

car sharing in the usa (nyt)
"No, it's not mine," said Mr. Wagner, who started the world's first successful car-sharing program in 1987, in Lucerne. "Owning a big piece of metal -- that is Iron Age. It is much better for the environment -- it is much more cool, you know -- to rely on a number of transportation modalities: the bus, the train, a fleet of shared cars."

This is one of those ideas that the Bike Coalition has been proposing as one piece of a transportation plan for San Francisco and the surrounding communities. It's something that I would much rather be a part of than actually owning a car.

When I had my Honda Civic, the only days I drove it were in the rain and to move it for street cleaning. Besides, I can't afford a TT Roadster on my own. Maybe Lance and I and one other person can split the use and ownership of one.
( Wednesday, May 17, 2000)

why lefthanded? (nyt)
"The question of what causes handedness is interesting as a matter of curiosity and pure science. It is hard to think of another behavioral difference so observable and so fundamental that has not been explained.

"But there is also a practical reason to want to know the answer. Left-handedness is closely identified with mental illnesses like schizophrenia and language difficulties like dyslexia and stuttering. If scientists knew the connection, they might be better able to deal with the problems."
( Tuesday, May 16, 2000)

more dot com pink slips (standard)
""We are reorganizing the company today as part of our new strategy of evolving CarOrder from a startup to a mature company," wrote President Brian Stafford in a memo to employees."

Which says to me that they had never considered being anything more than a startup that would either go public or get bought out. Which means that they're only in it for the money.
( Monday, May 15, 2000)

pixelon's scam (standard)
this is funny. i think it's extra funny because until this happened i had never even heard of pixelon. god, what greed will do to people's judgement.
( Monday, May 15, 2000)

nicole.
i met this woman at the very last vivid party. i think her photographs are really good, and her self-portraits have been making me like the web again. it's also been making me want to do something new on my site, too.
( Monday, May 15, 2000)

the sf-ny commute (standard)
I've known people who have done this commute, and I've read other articles about those people who fly hundreds of thousands of miles a year. We live in a culture which gives bragging rights for being a masochist, for wearing the hairshirt of work as an outergarment. No thanks, not anymore.
( Monday, May 15, 2000)

who owns your genes? (nyt)
"After months of fevered research, the scientists at Aaron Diamond discovered why Mr. Fuchs and another man with a similar experience were immune. The men had inherited a gene that results in a blocked porthole into white blood cells, preventing the virus from slipping in. The investigators went on to isolate the gene, discover how it worked and learn how many other people have it.

"On May 2, the research center was awarded a patent for a test to identify people who have the H.I.V.-resistance gene, allowing it to share in any profits from the test."
( Monday, May 15, 2000)

what happens when japan goes online (nyt)
"The use of the Internet here has started more as a social thing that in the end is going to have enormous implications," said Jiro Kokuryo, a professor at Keio University's business school, who specializes in e-commerce and information systems. "It is changing people's point of view and empowering them to challenge traditional ways of doing things."
( Monday, May 15, 2000)

fox news gets with the program
"Personal online diaries — or "cyber journals" — seem to be popping up all over the Web."

Nice to see that Fox has found people writing online, some five years after that trend started. It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't some bitter guy complaining about something that happened three years ago on a friend's site. I mean, three years, come on.
( Friday, May 12, 2000)

concussions (nyt)
"Fifteen years ago, athletes like Lindros shrugged off concussions as minor injuries. Football players derisively called them "dings" or "getting your bell rung." Only in recent years have scientists begun to understand what happens to the brain when it is severely shaken: how one concussion, if not given time to heal, can make an athlete more vulnerable to other ones, and how multiple concussions can lead to permanent brain damage."
( Friday, May 12, 2000)

is that all? (standard)
"What if the Internet's killer app is something other than e-commerce?"
( Wednesday, May 10, 2000)

fashionista! (standard)
"But once they got online, they found a host of problems, some more significant than the aesthetics of a trash can. For example, the obscurity of startups limits editors' and writers' access to the industry they cover, and a constantly shifting line between business and editorial can make a slippery slope of journalistic ethics. Not exactly known for their high journalistic standards, fashion editors and writers seem like an unlikely group to complain about the latter point. But as other editorial staffers continue to join Internet startups in droves, fashion dot-commers are heading back to print magazines for stability, brand-name status and comparatively clear ground rules."
( Wednesday, May 10, 2000)

the value chain (standard)
"Even the terminology – b-to-c and b-to-b, and other variations like c-to-c – gets in the way. Separating the world based on who's selling and who's buying doesn't translate in any meaningful way to the real world, where what actually occurs is a complex set of interactions, sometimes called the "value chain." The value chain includes b-to-b processes like manufacturing and distribution, as well as the b-to-c activities of marketing, retailing and consumption."
( Wednesday, May 10, 2000)

veal pens now larger than cubicles (wired)
"A few years ago, Fisher recalls, a typical Silicon Valley cube might have measured 8 feet by 8 feet. No more. Now cubes are more likely to be half or two-thirds that size. In some cases, companies are ordering cubicles as small as 5 by 6, or 30 square feet.

"In fact, according to recommendations from the University of California Cooperative Extension, a calf should be allotted a minimum of 35 square feet, possibly 30, in structures known as "superhutches.""
( Wednesday, May 10, 2000)

more isp consolidation (standard)
best merged with a bunch of other little isps, then was acquired by verio. now verio is being bought by ntt.

as long as they continue to give me shell access i'll deal with their now-horrendous technical support and customer service.
( Tuesday, May 9, 2000)

the pill at 40 (nyt)
Almost every woman I've dated in the past four years has been on the pill, if I remember correctly. This is easily one of the most important inventions ever, especially in terms of its impact on society.
( Tuesday, May 9, 2000)

goldrush.com, oilstrike.com (nyt)
"Henry David Thoreau dismissed arguments that the extreme exertions of many gold prospectors gave them a moral right to their riches. "It is not enough to tell me that you worked hard to get your gold," he wrote. "So does the Devil work hard.""
( Tuesday, May 9, 2000)

handbags!
every indie-rock girl really should have one of these.
( Monday, May 8, 2000)

happy? (nyt)
"Lately the pursuit of happiness has become a mainly private activity. Americans take mood drugs to fire up the happiness circuits of the brain and go to the gym to release happiness endorphins. Phrases like "job satisfaction" and "personal growth," by which we assess our careers and marriages, have become part of the language, while terms like commonweal, and even citizenship -- in which there lingers a residual sense of public good and private obligation -- sound archaic."
( Sunday, May 7, 2000)

Like You, I Am Unhappy, Outraged Even, With the Decline of True Love in Society (nyt)
"Since 1930, when scientists started accurately measuring true-love levels, we have been losing it at a rate of 4 percent a year. In the past 20 years, those years since the act, the rate of loss is at 11 percent per year. Appalling."

(by david eggers)
( Sunday, May 7, 2000)

the love lab (nyt)
Part exploration of a (perhaps) troubled marriage, part exploration of the differences between east and west coast attitudes.
( Sunday, May 7, 2000)

what do people talk about in therapy? (nyt)
"Q: And this is a recent development?

"KRAMER: I don't know, I think there's always a temptation to believe it's a recent development. But the role of the therapeutic space as a refuge from this tendency to value very exactly every person and activity in the culture seems very much in sharp focus at the moment."
( Sunday, May 7, 2000)

selena! (nyt)
"Here's an aging superstar, who, at 37, is one postgame ice bag away from becoming a cryonic experiment and only yesterday skipped the final practice before Game 1 with back spasms, and he's talking trash?"

I wish Selena Roberts would write some fiction for McSweeney's. I have a feeling it would be very good.
( Saturday, May 6, 2000)

tt roadster
i saw one of these last night on market street. the little spoiler on the back ruins the line, but overall this car is really beautiful. (i think it looks better than the coupe, actually.) i like the 6-speed double-H navigational scheme, too.

now if only i could talk the webbys into making sure my name comes up when they give away this car next thursday.
( Friday, May 5, 2000)

more money for boo (standard)
"Boo, the darling of the high-tech and investment media before the site launched, has new status as a favored whipping boy of journalists. Malmsten said he's getting used to the querulous press, but others on the Boo staff have been less keen to stick it out. Two finance directors, the marketing director, and the head of human resources, among others, have left the company in recent months. Malmsten blames Boo's high profile."

I would blame the fact that the site was hyped to death before it launched, the fact that it launched months late, the fact that its UI sucks, and the fact that it was trying to do too much too soon. The high profile comes from spending $25 million on advertising, and with the territory.
( Friday, May 5, 2000)

tanjentric @ the standard
read all about it!
( Thursday, May 4, 2000)

another fave goes away
I really liked working with this company. They apparently couldn't get another round of funding, even though they had the best gift site out there, and their fulfillment was really good, too. Violet's closing marks something, but I don't know how to describe it yet.
( Thursday, May 4, 2000)

boo in trouble (standard)
"What kind of startup employs 400 people before launch?" said the ex-staffer, who asked not to be named.
( Thursday, May 4, 2000)

footcam
such nice feet. it's almost more a catalog of shoes than a catalog of foot images, though.
( Thursday, May 4, 2000)

therapists
i don't pay that much for my therapist, but then again, i don't get the same benefits the hack gets in this two-page sequence.
( Wednesday, May 3, 2000)

happy fillerversary!
the joke in the last cartoon panel of the last page of this is fucking hilarious.
( Wednesday, May 3, 2000)

secret girl stuff
sigh.
( Wednesday, May 3, 2000)

hard to assimilate, or, no longer "turning japanese" (nyt)
"But as fellow students began to shun her and it became harder to make friends, she, like many other Japanese who have lived long stretches outside their country, gradually began to perceive that the sense of freedom that had become second nature abroad could be a major handicap back home.

"Before long, Miss Shima, who is a 21-year-old college student in Tokyo, was biting her tongue instead of speaking out, masking the fact that she spoke two foreign languages fluently and making her speech vague with the maybes, perhapses and other hedging expressions that pepper conversational Japanese."
( Wednesday, May 3, 2000)

advertising finds another outlet (wired)
Wells Fargo has announced new ATMs that will display advertising three times during each transaction, as well as headlines from MSNBC.com. Mention was made of allowing internet access and e-commerce opportunities. There was no announcement made of waiving any of the fees associated with ATM usage. Nor was there any indication as to why an ATM should be a place for anything other than moving money around.
( Tuesday, May 2, 2000)

corporations swear off soft money (nyt)
"One longtime Republican lobbyist predicted that more corporations would shun soft-money giving if they learned that competitors were doing the same.

"I think we are going to see a rush to the exit, if not a stampede," the lobbyist said. "People are beginning to say it does not make sense in the context of our budgeting and our giving."

Maybe this is the time to ban soft money. Congress won't do it on their own, for sure, but maybe it's something that could happen at the state level. Something to ponder.
( Monday, May 1, 2000)

architecture on internet time (standard)
"Still, what seemed fast then has become faster still, says Bridgers. And there are other differences. Technology companies that manufacture goods employ facilities directors who are fluent in the language of construction and design. By contrast, dot-commers are often neophytes, he adds.

"They don't understand that at its quickest, the design and construction industry couldn't work half as fast as they do," says Bridgers. "When your product is online, there are a lot of decisions to be made, but it's all in cyberspace. They're frustrated by the idea that in real life there's a time lag."

There was an article in San Francisco magazine a few months ago about dotcom millionaires wondering why they couldn't get their loft renos done in a month or less. Meanwhile, I waited fourteen to sixteen weeks for my table to show up.
( Monday, May 1, 2000)

party crashers (standard)
There a bunch of sites devoted to listing the week's dotcom parties, so people who weren't invited can invite themselves along. WholePeople's launch party had a bunch of crashers, most of whom were turned away at the door.

The new economy is just one big launch party, anyway.
( Monday, May 1, 2000)

ny apartment hunting online (nyt)
"Mr. Eychner, whose company has been selling in New York since 1982, said part of his job description is being a therapist. "Buying residential real estate, people really need to talk it through and they need to have someone holding their hand, an adviser who has been through the process," Mr. Eychner added. "There is no computer that is going to help you with a co-op board.""
( Monday, May 1, 2000)