Friday 31st
October 1997
YAHOO KING OF SEARCH ENGINES -
STUDY
According to research by
Relevant Knowledge,
Yahoo is now the most popular search engine on the Internet, closely followed
by Excite, Infoseek, Lycos and AltaVista. During September 1997 Yahoo received
an average of 14,584,000 visitors each day and more than 50 million page
views. Excite received 9,537,000; Infoseek 7,355,000; Lycos 5,549,000; and
AltaVista 4,977,000. Other important search engines covered by the survey
include HotBot, Webcrawler, LookSmart and Northern Light.
Thursday 30th
October 1997
ACCC WARNS OF 300 "SCAM" AUSTRALIAN
SITES
The
Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission (ACCC) has warned consumers that there may be as many
as 300 fraudulent Internet sites operating in Australia - and nearly all
of them are promoting some sort of pyramid scheme. The ACCC recently participated
in a 30-nation International Internet Sweep Day carried out by law enforcement
officials in the US, UK, Canada, Europe and Australia which detected over
1,000 suspect sites worldwide. The ACCC estimate that there are now 1.2 million
Australians using the Internet, and 108,000 of these are already using the
Net to shop. But it expects the number of Australian users to climb to 4.7
million by 2001 and for commerce to escalate to an even bigger degree, and
it forecasts that up to 3,000 consumers a week could be "ripped off" by scam
merchants within a few years unless the public is warned.
Wednesday 29th
October 1997
MORE UK BUSINESSES ONLINE
SOON
According to a research report
funded by British Telecom, 39% of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in
the UK have already established an Internet presence, and a further 29% intend
to develop one during the next 12 months. The report, the third in a series
of quarterly studies of the UK Internet market carried out by
Durlacher, found that 81%
of SMEs recognised that the Internet will be an intrinsic part of their
business's future and saw themselves as being online within twelve months.
The report estimates that the UK Web design market is currently worth over
$UK100 million and this is likely to continue to grow at 40 percent per
annum.
Tuesday 28th
October 1997
TECHNICAL SNAFU DELAYS
UPDATES
Australian Cybermalls
was hit by a rare technical snafu on Monday and Tuesday this week which prevented
updates to several of our sites including the daily news and daily
Dr Fun
cartoon. The problem has now been fixed. We'd like to apologise to
any of our visitors who were inconvenienced by this and thank you for your
patience. We'll have caught up with all back emails within the next 48
hours.
Monday 27th
October 1997
GEOCITIES LISTS MILLIONTH FREE
SITE
Geocities
- the company which gives away free space for individuals and small businesses
to mount web pages - announced that it had just accepted its millionth
"homesteader" last week, making the site the largest single community of
web pages on the Internet. The Santa Monica, California-based company - which
meets its costs through advertising sales - now delivers more than 464 million
page views per month and attracts more than 70 million individual web visits
every 30 days.
Friday 24th
October 1997
INTERNET CITY GUIDES RIVALRY HEATS
UP
The number of Australian "City
Guide" Internet sites will expand again shortly with the opening of
Sydney Sidewalk next Thursday
- a joint venture between Bill Gates and Australian publishing tycoon Kerry
Packer. The new site promises to offer visitors a comprehensive online arts
and entertainment guide to Sydney with eight separate sections for movies,
restaurants, events, music, clubs and pubs and other entertainment options,
all driven from a central database. The launch follows the recent unveiling
of Sydney City-Search by rival publishers Fairfax, who also operate a Melbourne
version as well. Sidewalk will seek local advertising support and doesn't
expect to break even for at least 12 months.
Thursday 23rd
October 1997
ISPS BYPASS TELSTRA WITH
SATELLITE
A New Zealand satellite Internet
link which allows Australian ISPs to reduce bandwidth costs by up to
75% and raise connection speeds to the US by between 20% to 40% is
being offered to Australian ISPs by The Internet Group (TIG), a NZ-based
ISP. TIG purchased bulk capacity from a US satellite provider earlier this
year and has been reselling bandwidth to other ISPs, allowing them to bypass
Telstra and the congested trans-Pacific cable. At least four other Australian
ISPs have taken up the offer, soaking up all available space on the link.
But a new satellite launched next year will make additional bandwidth available
and allow other ISPs to take part. According to TIG, a 1Mb link on the Internet
satellite costs $16,000 against the $55,000 currently levied by Australian
bandwidth wholesalers for the same facility and traffic volume.
Wednesday 22nd
October 1997
POWER COMPANIES: TELCOS OF THE
FUTURE?
United Energy, one of
Victoria's main power companies, foresees a future role as a niche
telecommunications provider according to its newly-appointed director of
telecommunications Steve Black. Speaking at the Intelec97
conference in Melbourne, Black said that United Energy had already obtained
a carrier licence and had struck a deal with AAPT to resell telecommunications
services. He also announced that the company's recent experiments with sending
voice and data calls down power lines had proven successful and the technique
could soon be used for high-speed Internet access. Consumers would need special
equipment installed at their homes and an extra card in their computer to
take advantage of the system when it becomes available, Black said, but the
trials had shown that the new method could provide reliable Internet connections
at 1Mb/sec at rates significantly cheaper than the current fees levied by
Telstra.
Tuesday 21st
October 1997
MICROSOFT SLAMMED FOR BROWSER
BUNDLING
The US Justice Department
(USJD) announced yesterday that it will ask a US Federal Court to impose
$1 million a day in penalties against
Microsoft for alleged
anti-competitive behaviour in the Internet browser market. The USJD allege
that Microsoft violated a 1995 consent decree by trying to use its leverage
to require PC manufacturers to license and distribute Internet Explorer along
with Windows95. "Forcing manufacturers to take one Microsoft product as a
condition of buying a monopoly product like Windows95 is not only a violation
of the court order - it's just plain wrong" US Attorney-General Janet
Reno said. Microsoft have denied that they're in breach of the 1995
agreement, which sought to bar Microsoft from abuse of its market power.
Nonetheless, the company's stock dipped 5 points in heavy trading on Wall
Street following the announcement, while shares in
Netscape rose 4.5 points.
Monday 20th
October 1997
AUSTRALIAN ISP FINDS NETSCAPE STILL
KING
Microsoft may own the desktop,
but its battle for dominance and ultimate ownership of the Internet may take
slightly longer than first thought. Leading Queensland ISP
Global Info-Links has found that
more than 65% of its user base still prefer
Netscape Communicator over
Internet Explorer, even though the organisation has been promoting Explorer
exclusively for over a year and providing the software free with all new
subscriber packs. In a recent survey which attracted 472 responses from the
organisation's 8,000 subscribers, the overwhelming majority of respondents
(90%) reported that they used Windows95 as their desktop operating system,
but 65% used Netscape Communicator as their browser.
Friday 17th
October 1997
FIRST BUG HITS EXPLORER
4.0
Microsoft
will release an updated version of Internet Explorer 4.0 on
its web site shortly following the recent discovery of a serious security
flaw in the product by German computer scientists. The flaw - which mirrors
a similar hole found in the earliest releases of Netscape Communicator in
July this year - would allow an Internet site creator to view certain text,
html and image files on an IE 4.0 user's hard drive when they visited a site
exploiting the defect. Microsoft has downplayed the significance of the flaw,
saying that it doesn't pose a threat to existing IE 4.0 users.
Thursday 16th
October 1997
L.T. LAWRENCE OPENS ON OUR
MALL
East Brisbane solicitors
L.T. Lawrence &
Associates opened an online presence with us today. In contrast to
most "business card" sites mounted by small Australian and US legal firms,
the tight 4-pager follows a quirky, off-beat path that - the owners hope
- will continue to grow over time. "I was surprised how quickly the Internet
became an everyday tool in our office once we put a connection in," Lindsay
Lawrence said. "Opening a permanent online presence for our practice was
the next logical step. But we wanted to avoid the tedium of some legal sites
and put a memorable message out there that most people could enjoy, whether
they ever had cause to use us or not." The new site will be updated on a
monthly basis.
Wednesday 15th
October 1997
TELSTRA: "WE WERE WRONG"
Several months after pleading
in front of the Australian Senate for the right to charge timed calls because
- amongst other things - the growth of Internet usage was allegedly tying
up phone exchange switches, Telstra
have admitted that they greatly overestimated the problem. Big Pond
General Manager John Rolland, speaking at a Big Pond promotional
launch, said that the congestion supposedly caused by consumers connecting
to the Internet for long periods of time was not as big an issue as was first
thought. New digital exchanges and the widespread use of optic fibre cables
on major Australian and international trunk routes meant that the Internet
doesn't pose any "meltdown" threat to the existing
telecommunications network within the foreseeable future - a discovery backed
by recent research studies undertaken by telecommunications companies in
the USA and Europe.
Tuesday 14th
October 1997
SUN SUES MICROSOFT OVER IE4
JAVA
After repeated warnings over
the last six months, Sun Microsystems
have launched legal action against
Microsoft over the Wintel-based
Java compiler included with Internet Explorer 4.0. According to Sun, Microsoft
have breached their Java licensing conditions by including an "MS-brand"
Java compiler with IE4 in a calculated campaign by the company to fragment
the Java language and break its cross-platform compatibility. The suit also
accuses Microsoft of trademark infringement, false advertising, breach of
contract and unfair competition and seeks an injunction and damages against
the software colossus. Sun have said that they're willing to drop the lawsuit,
however, if Microsoft complies with licensing conditions and rejoins the
effort to produce an international-standard Java. Although Sun's move has
won support from Java developers world-wide who have become increasingly
vocal in their criticism of what's widely termed "MS Java", Microsoft themselves
have dismissed the allegations as "without merit".
Monday 13th
October 1997
1.8 MILLION AUSTRALIANS ONLINE
- SURVEY
According to a survey of 30,000
men and women aged 14 and over conducted by Roy Morgan Research in
June and July this year, more than 1.78 million Australians aged 14
and over had accessed the Internet during the previous month, and almost
twice that number (an estimated 2.96 million) had accessed it at some time.
This is more than double the number estimated in a similar survey by the
company the year before, and accords closely with estimates given by a number
of other research organisations in recent months (AGB McNair: 1.6 million;
WWWConsult: 1.4 million; Sofres/IMR: 1.8 million). Morgan's research also
disclosed that the Net demographic in Australia is altering. According to
their studies, women now account for roughly 42% of the Australian Internet
audience and access rates amongst both sexes declines directly with age -
from 34% of those under 17 to 8% of those aged over 50.
Friday 10th
October 1997
YEAR 2000 BUG IN EMBEDDED CHIPS,
TOO...
The US Federal Reserve Bank
has expanded the agency's official attack on Year 2000 problems to include
disruptions from embedded chips, which are likely to prove much harder to
detect and correct than Y2K problems with computer systems. The bank's move
comes after it was alerted to the fact that many systems in everyday use
- from digital clocks and other domestic appliances through to complex air
traffic control and medical systems - make use of embedded chips which will
fail on either August 21, 1999 or January 1st, 2001. US Reserve President
William McDonough, speaking in New York, said that as the Year 2000
deadline inched closer many "subtle problems" are beginning to be highlighted.
He warned that the cost of failing to deal with the problem immediately could
be catastrophic for many businesses.
Thursday 9th
October 1997
SINGAPORE NET USE
DOUBLES
The number of Internet subscribers
in Singapore more than doubled to 230,000 over the last year, according
to Irish consulting firm
NUA, with three leading ISPs
dividing the market between them: SingNet, the oldest commercial Internet
service provider in Singapore (100,000 dial-up subscribers), Pacific Internet
(85,000) and CyberWay (45,000). The latest combined total is a 140% increase
over the 97,000 dial-up users in Singapore a year ago - and more than double
the estimated 70% growth of the Net worldwide over the same period. The growth
of intranets will further increase this number, NUA says. In Singapore it's
estimated that there are now several hundred corporate accounts linking thousands
of users. Some analysts believe the actual number of Net users in Singapore
could be as high as 350,000. Going forward, players agree that new developments
like electronic commerce, voice and other multimedia services will continue
to spur growth.
Wednesday 8th
October 1997
THIRD AGERS COMPRISE 14% OF NET
- SURVEY
A comprehensive survey on Internet
users aged 50 and over carried out by Excite Inc. for
Third
Age Media Inc has found that 14 percent of all Internet users are
"third agers" - i.e. people who no longer have the financial responsibility
of bringing up a family, thus leaving them with large disposable incomes
and time to enjoy themselves. The survey revealed that up to 83 percent of
third agers log on at least once a day and spend over eight hours a week
online. The reasons cited for going online were to maintain contact with
relatives and to try something new. The average third ager has a considerable
disposable income (65% earn more than $US40,000 per annum) and are likely
to purchase goods and services online. The typical third ager is also educated
with 86 percent having been to college. The survey also disclosed that 69%
of third agers are men and 31% are women.
Tuesday 7th
October 1997
TELCOS PLAN NEW 40GB TRANS-PACIFIC
CABLE
Representatives from
Optus, Telecom New Zealand and Worldcom will meet with
local and international telecommunications carriers and service providers
next month to begin planning a new 40 GByte, $1 billion trans-pacific cable.
The Southern Cross Cable Network - when completed - would link Australia
and New Zealand with Hawaii and the USA, bypassing the badly congested Telstra
trans-Pacific cable which slowed Australian Internet access to overseas sites
to a crawl for most of the last week. The new network would also end Telstra's
near-monopoly on overseas Net access into and out of Australia and dramatically
increase trans-Pacific capacity and Internet access speeds. Work on laying
the submarine cable is expected to commence early in 1998, with the new network
coming into full operation in 1999.
Monday 6th October
1997
FTC TO INVESTIGATE INTEL
The powerful US Federal
Trade Commission (FTC) has announced that it intends to launch an
investigation into Intel following
the company's decision in July to slash its prices by around 50% to closely
match the prices charged by rival clone chip-makers AMD and Cyrix. The FTC
is concerned that Intel's almost total domination of the chip market - it
currently holds 90% of the world's market for microprocessors - may
be leading to unfair trade practices. The investigation will be second one
the FTC has taken against Intel in the last six years. In a previous 1991
investigation the FTC elected to take no action against the company.
Friday 3rd October
1997
SUN THREATENS TO REVOKE MICROSOFT
LICENCE
Fed up with Microsoft's
continuing attacks on the development of the Java language and attempts to
turn it into an international standard, Sun
Microsystems have turned the tables by threatening to revoke Microsoft's
licence to use Java in its products if the company turns out to have a
non-standard Java interpreter in its recently-released Internet Explorer
4.0. According to Sun, Microsoft are a licensee like any other company
- and if the company finds that Microsoft have failed to adhere to the terms
of its agreement with Sun they will "seriously" reconsider the software giant's
position. Meanwhile, Sun have responded to the 14 countries that rejected
its first ISO attempt and, if the countries approve the amendments, will
resubmit Java to the International Standards Organisation later this
year.
Thursday 2nd
October 1997
TELSTRA LAUNCHES SURE-LINK MERCHANT
SERVICE
Telstra made its first move
into online shopping today by opening its new
Telstra Surelink secure
electronic merchant payment facility. The new service will allow participating
consumers and merchants to exchange cash over the Internet in a secure
transaction environment. Telstra Multimedia, who are the brains behind the
adventurous project, plan to make money out of the Surelink operation by
charging participating merchants a percentage of each transaction. While
Surelink has beaten all four of Australia's major banks to the punch in bringing
a unified payment system to Australia's online consumers, an official
VISA/Mastercard/Bankcard online payments system has reputedly been the subject
of discussions between secure payment giant GTE and three major Australian
banks for several months.
Wednesday 1st
October 1997
AUSTRALIAN SITES SHRINK 5% IN
SEPTEMBER
The number of Australian Internet
sites decreased by around 1700 - or approximately 5% - during September 1997
according to our monthly Australian Internet Growth Index. This is
the second time that the Index, which has been measuring the number of sites
on the Australian Internet for the last 21 months, has registered a significant
fall. Some reductions are due to the collapse of several small ISPs during
the month and some due to ISP's performing "Spring Cleaning" of dead or ghost
sites. The October 1st figures (with September 1st figures in brackets) are
as follows:
Australian
Internet Growth Index September 1997
(Figures Show Estimated Sites) |
-
Brisbane - 3,147
(3,331)
-
Sydney - 10,299
(10,786)
-
Melbourne - 7,787
(8,180)
-
Adelaide - 3,030
(3,180)
|
-
Perth - 3,086
(3,198)
-
Hobart - 1,150
(1,223)
-
Canberra - 2,803
(2,994)
-
Darwin - 2,554
(2,672)
|
|
During September Australian
Cybermalls displayed 56,982 storefronts, a slight drop over our August
visitation figures of 59,477. The September figures equated to an average
of 1,899 visitors per day. For comparison, 12 months ago in September 1996
we displayed 14,730 storefronts to an average of 492 people a day. We will
be hosting our 500,000th visitor within the next few days.
|
