E-Commerce Times backs off its article on AWLD:
Today the E-Commerce Times published a revised version of its article featuring Activeworlds.com entitled "A Glimpse into the Future of E-Commerce" By James Hollander.
ecommercetimes.com
The revised article contains a note pointing out the discrepancy between the 300,000 registered users claimed by Activeworlds and the 14,000 - 16,000 actual paid users. It also completely eliminates any mention of major companies such as Amazon.com and CDNow as either cooperating or having adopted the Activeworlds technology.
The article also contains a note referring readers to its corrections page for information received after publishing of the article. This page states:
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Feb-4-99 In our story titled "A Glimpse Into the Future of E-Commerce," we erroneously reported that large online retailers like Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Beyond.com had opened shop on ActiveWorlds. In fact, the stores were built by ActiveWorlds.com as "affiliate" sites of the mentioned online retailers (although the stores appear to be owned and operated by whichever name appears on their marquee).
The E-Commerce Times contacted Rick Noll, ActiveWorld's CEO before publishing the article and asked for his review and input regarding any possible inaccuracies that may have crept in inadvertently. Mr. Noll declined to point out any inaccuracies, while another spokesman for the company, who was cc'd on our request, pointed out a slight typo of @Mall instead of @Mart, and indicated that the rest was, indeed, accurate.
There also seems to be a major discrepancy between the number of registered users reported by ActiveWorlds in their original press
release, and the feedback we have received from our readership. The company claims 300,000, while others point to a figure of
14,000-16,000 active users. The discrepancy is currently noted in the story.
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