Here's a temporary no sign in link. Nice article. I think this is the first time I've seen the very obvioius bandwidth problem spelled out so clearly in the press.There are technical drawbacks to popularity. Mr. Epstein's Web site started out as a link through Slate, but he withdrew from Slate when he started getting too many viewers.
"I had to keep buying more and more bandwidth to accommodate them," he said. "It's like having a lot of visitors to your house. You have to keep building new roads to get them all there. I didn't want that many people in my house." Clearly we are past the hype if people can understand this. Merely aggregating the most viewers is not going to work, and worse, it's actually a bad thing. That's what TV and radio are for. The web is more personal (just because it is, or because of network topology, or because of the economics of that topology - take your pick.) But the focus in the press (like this Times article) is still so much about the money. Why is that? People do all sorts of things that don't earn them money, why can't having a web site be one of these things. Nobody talks about finding a business a plan for having a telephone conversation with a friend. Yet if you have a website people think you are trying to make money somehow. Strange. I guess this was just the way it was hyped for so long.
I agree the article was tediously fixated on the bottom line, but I'm always amazed by people's resourcefulness in finding ways to turn a buck. Online tipping accounts with amazon! Incredible!
maybe its about money because its on the business page.
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- jim 7-09-2001 7:40 pm
I agree the article was tediously fixated on the bottom line, but I'm always amazed by people's resourcefulness in finding ways to turn a buck. Online tipping accounts with amazon! Incredible!
- tom moody 7-10-2001 5:50 pm [add a comment]
maybe its about money because its on the business page.
- dave 7-11-2001 1:05 am [add a comment]