J-Walk Blog: October 24, 2002 Archives

24 October, 2002

Friend Greetings: Another Scumbag Company

You've probably received dozens of e-mail greetings cards. You know: "XXXXX has sent you a greeting card! Click here to read it!!"

I'm sure many of those sites are perfectly legit. But now, thanks to the seedy marketing tactics of Friend Greetings, users will probably learn to view all such companies with suspicion.

Click on the Friend Greetings link in your email, and you may be in for more than you thought. You'll be invited to download an ActiveX control in order to read the message. And if you do, you give this company permission to send an email to everyone in your Outlook address book (read more).

Here's an excerpt from their click-through EULA:

This License Agreement (the "Agreement") is a legal agreement between you and The Permissioned Media, Inc. By downloading, installing, accessing or using the FriendGreetings Software or any products or software from Permissioned Media (hereafter collectively referred to as the "FriendGreetings"), you agree to the following terms and conditions. IF
YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH SUCH TERMS AND CONDITIONS, DO NOT DOWNLOAD, INSTALL, ACCESS OR USE FRIENDGREETINGS.

1. Consent to E-Mail Your Contacts. As part of the installation process, Permissioned Media will access your MicroSoft Outlook(r) Contacts list and send an e-mail to persons on your Contacts list inviting them to download FriendGreetings or related products. By downloading, installing, accessing or using the FriendGreetings, you authorize Permissioned Media to access your MicroSoft(r) Outlook(r) Contacts list and to send a personalized e-mail message to persons on your Contact list. ...

This is not a virus, per se -- just a very sleazy marketing tactic.

Posted on 24 October, 2002

Corporate Graffiti = $50 Fine for Microsoft

Not everyone welcomes Microsoft's MSN butterfly campaign. New York Tells Microsoft to Get Its Butterfly Decals Out of Town. Microsoft insists that it acquired the proper permits that allowed them to strew their butterfly trash on the streets of New York. The city disagrees. A single summons was issued, with a $50 fine.

According to Vanessa Gruen, director of special projects for the Municipal Art Society, "It's illegal, and they're going to get a lot of publicity for it."

She's absolutely correct. After all, I'm writing about it, and you're reading it!

You can read more at Slashdot.

Posted on 24 October, 2002

The MickeySoft Corporation

Yesterday, it was announced that Walt Disney Company and Microsoft have joined forces. They'll combine their marketing wizardry to launch a family-friendly Internet service (i.e., a co-branded MSN service) to try to overpower the behemoth known as AOL (story here).

"It's a real coup," Gates said, sharing a stage in the autumn-tinged park with Eisner and a pair of extras in Mickey and Minnie Mouse suits. "We're going to gain a lot of share here," Gates said. "We're going to make a lot of consumers happy."

AOL's parent company is Time-Warner, a key Disney competitor. And Disney has more than a passing interest in delivering its entertainment products to the masses who own a computer -- product neatly secured by DRM technology provided by Microsoft.

Prediction:
Future Disney DVDs that you rent or purchase will feature a 2-3 minute ad for Microsoft. And knowing how these guys operate, the "skip" button will probably be disabled during the ad.

Posted on 24 October, 2002

Getting a Jump Start on This New XML/Office Thing

So far, virtually all of the hype about the upcoming Office 11 centers on its XML-related features. If you use Office XP, you may not even realize that this version of Office already supports XML.

Microsoft's MSDN site has an article titled XML and Microsoft Office, published more than a year ago (August, 2001). If you're curious about how XML relates to the MS Office products, this article may clear things up a bit. But then again, who knows? Things may work completely differently in Office 11.

Posted on 24 October, 2002

Naming the Next Version of Microsoft Office

MS Office 11 is due next year. What will it be called? Office XP Version 2? Office 2004? Or will Microsoft replace "XP" with some new letters?

SlashNot, the SlashDot parody site, recently ran an item titled Microsoft seeking two letters cooler than X and P. An excerpt:

We've been playing with some combinations, you know, things like GT, VX, TR, SL, and so on. But we're not there yet. There's 676 combinations, and we're considering everyone of them. Except FU. So that's 675 combinations that we're considering. And PU, that's not going to make the cut. So 674.

FWIW, Microsoft should probably eliminate the following letter combinations: AC, AC/DC, and NE. Here's why.

Posted on 24 October, 2002

Amazon Sales Rankings, by Jungle Scan

If you use amazon.com, you've probably noticed that each item for sale is accompanied by a sales rank. But you may not know about JungleScan -- an independent (and free) service that keeps a database of historical sales rankings for items at Amazon. In addition, it provides a place to discuss these items.

Output is in the form of a chart, but you can also access the raw data. As an example, here's a chart that shows the past 90 days sales rank for one of my Excel programming books.

All Amazon items are not in the JungleScan database. If you'd like to track an item that is not already tracked, you can submit to JungleScan.

Posted on 24 October, 2002