Blue, sure can imagine you've had more than enough...you've sure tried to get through to them and haven't been able to...commending your effort. The (either) hypocrisy or ignorance displayed by case with his position on the school violence was sickening; and his statement wasn't on there long, probably you're not the only one noticed the kwinkydink connection to Chancellor. I still say, wonder if steve case himself even knew how long it stayed on there or what. A Company Head like him is almost like a politician in that he's a role model with overwheening power. Gets invited to WhiteHouse Internet conferences, sits on boards, makes statements and decisions, appears in front of the Feds, is quoted, etc. I wrote him once and got no answer, haven't tried again. (I still hold shares in AOL, not as many as I did though. I wouldn't call myself a Long anymore, though I've had the shares for almost a couple years; just waiting for the opportunity to profit and then get out if/when there's no improvement by not too long). It's interesting what you say about observing screeners toppling of Corporate Kings... I've seen it happen in lower levels of the corporate workplace than you were at, too. Any Head that isn't getting all information necessary won't be A Head for long. An executive of course must delegate, but the description of the letters you've gotten makes me have to wonder if any guidelines were even given to those given permission to make decisions they shouldn't be making. That Head of PF claiming to be only a franchisee thing or your letters answered anon by "Community Action Team" (that's so dopey Orwellian you'd think they'd be embarassed) might have been/be a structured disavowal/dispersal of responsibility set in place deliberately; that'd be typical wouldn't it.
But lately I did get to talk to some folks at Sea World about Bud's sponsorship of Stern and they've been hearing complaints about it from others they said...agreed it's not a good company image A-Tall but SW doesn't make any decisions for the parent Bud. I guess many yodels are Stern fans and beer drinkers, not that all beer drinkers are yodels, you know what I mean. Probly it's hard for Bud to resist those yeasty demographics. I haven't listened to Stern in a long time, high time to make another sponsor list and some more phone calls and emails I guess soon, huh. Agreeing with you about ISP's could be next going the way of the computer companies...did you know that AOLs either now or planning soon to offer free internet access overseas? As I'm sure you know, there are computer companies now who're giving away free computers AND internet access to folks who spend a certain amount $ shopping online and answer survey-type questions when asked. The ISP/Portals, & Coming Internetworks got to do something about getting the folks online who aren't online already, if they want to reach their Big Numbers that they'll need to survive from sales. Those like us who paid big bucks for a computer and learned what needed to be learned to get it operational on the internet... wanting it for stock research, news reading, research - or like lots of folks get it because the kids all need to become familiar with the Internet as it's in their future careers and then the parents find themselves getting interested in internet.... We're with these folks at the beginning of the Internet Product Cycle who are just about mostly on it by now, so the ranks of those willing to invest the time in becoming computer savvy and the $$ needed to do it are starting to thin out about now, wouldn't you say? Now, it's The Next Wave needs to be conquered....and the marketeers must know darn well that these are the Big Numbers of those folks who'll be much more interested in spending their time online shopping, answering surveys, and exploring banners than we ever are! These Bigs must also know darn well that many of these new folks won't be contributing much to web interest by writing for message boards and such. When this happens there'll be more readers compared to writers; might even be that posters might start to be getting paid in shopping points if not dollars to write just to keep the juice flowing online, huh. But the vast numbers of these new next-wave folks are what the networks will need for their audience of entertainment and shopping oriented internet programming. And they're not about to be bothered with computer complexities or being interested in why the browser froze up, etc. If faced with any internet problem, they'd pop in a video tape or turn the cable tv show back on and fuggedabouddit. I think that's why there's this delay in introducing the set-top-box thing in a big way...I expected it rolling out Bigtime by now, didn't you? Folks in the electronic stores told me they sell not too many of 'em but they don't know anything about 'em....got a puter at home to go online if they do. They also told me there seem to be more returns of those than from some other stuff they sell. Easy to imagine how they don't have the bugs out yet, and can't really introduce it in a big way til they do. Of course, when they do, Oh Yeah It'll Be Biggie Big. Ads on tv, previews in videotapes, blurbs in movie theatres, ads on radio. Well, We're On It, and sure to know it right when it starts to happen.
Yep about Big Blue, IBM does good business and They're Swelling Like The Giant They Are, too. Ultimately, any Co. that does Bad Business Will Fail... it's, like, Darwinism. Who will be the Internet Giant in 10 years? Probably a Conglomerate of What's Now. Some In, Some Out.
I think we have a pretty good idea of who'll probably be in and who's in danger of being left out-like with that T/Comcast/Media Group thing...huh.
909s 2U,
Joan |
