Free Republic

Excerpt - The organization that oversees Internet addresses is expected Thursday to approve a proposal to create an unlimited number of so-called top-level domains -- the familiar suffixes like ".com" at the end of Web addresses. Under the plan, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will allow organizations to apply for any top-level domain. Businesses, for example, could use brand names such as ".ibm" or ".ebay" in their Web addresses. Cities could sign up for names like ".nyc" or ".berlin." It will also be possible to apply to use more general terms, such as ".news" or ".sports," to...

Microsoft is weighing up taking a stake in Facebook in a move that could value the social networking site at $10 billion (£5 billion) and trigger a bidding war. It is understood that the world’s largest software developer is considering paying between $300 million (£149 million) and $500 million for a 5 per cent stake in Facebook. A move by Microsoft would almost certainly trigger counter interest from a clutch of rivals including Google, the leader in search advertising, and Viacom, the media giant. Talks between Microsoft and Facebook are thought to be at an early stage and Facebook is...

MENLO PARK, Calif. —Today's New York Times has an article about people who are worth millions and are still complaining:Silicon Valley is thick with those who might be called working-class millionaires — nose-to-the-grindstone people like Mr. Steger who, much to their surprise, are still working as hard as ever even as they find themselves among the fortunate few. Their lives are rich with opportunity; they generally enjoy their jobs. They are amply cushioned against the anxieties and jolts that worry most people living paycheck to paycheck.But many such accomplished and ambitious members of the digital elite still do not think...

Excerpt - SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- Google Inc. (GOOG) is in talks to acquire online video company YouTube Inc. for roughly $1.6 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The discussions are still at a sensitive stage and could well break off, this person says. Rumors of such talks were reported on the TechCrunch blog. (This report and related background material will be available on The Wall Street Journal's Web site, WSJ.com.) ~ snip ~

Silicon Valley employment expanded in July, the first month since the dot-com bust that more people were earning paychecks than a year earlier. According to a state report released Friday, Santa Clara and San Benito county employers tallied 871,300 positions on their payrolls last month -- 600 more jobs than in July 2004. It represented a barely-there increase of 0.1 percent. ``It's just crossed that number by a hair's breadth, but you could say it's a landmark in that it's positive for the first time,'' said Steven Cochrane, senior economist at Economy.com. He cautioned it's still too early to celebrate...

It may surprise some people, but I agree with Parsons on this one. And I would go even further. I am a Conservative who believes that we should both welcome and fight FOR the .XXX domain designations. What? Yes, you heard me right. Now hear me out. I believe we should use the tactics of the Liberals – who always love to tax and regulate everything – and make ALL porn sites drop their current .COM domains and go to the .XXX url exclusively.

By Gene J. Koprowski UPI Technology News Published 12/8/2004 3:20 PM CHICAGO, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- During the late 1990s, an area called Silicon Alley emerged in New York City as an East Coast alternative to California's Silicon Valley. More recently, the Silicon Prairie emerged in Iowa as home to many Internet start-ups. As the World Wide Web continues to mature as a medium, other cities are desperately vying for dot-com businesses, offering economic incentives, building out fiber-optic infrastructure and high-speed digital subscriber lines, even in rural regions, far from metro areas, hoping to capture some of the job growth...

KerryEdwards.com is getting a lot of attention, but you won't find any pictures of the Democratic presidential candidate and his running mate. The online address belongs to Kerry Edwards, a bail bondsman from Indianapolis, Indiana. He joined CNN's Carol Lin to discuss the coincidence and the Web site. (snip) LIN: Now, you voted for President Clinton. Why not help out the party again? EDWARDS: How do you mean? LIN: Sell it to the Kerry people for whatever they're willing to pay for it. EDWARDS: For whatever they're willing to pay for it? LIN: Yeah. EDWARDS: I don't think they're willing...

<p>Meet David Denby, an American sucker indeed.</p> <p>Thursday, January 8, 2004 12:01 a.m.</p> <p>Even now, reading about the Internet stock-mania remains painful. So many people got torched, and many of them are still red-faced about the mistakes they made. The lingering shame may explain why the era has yet to deliver its "Den of Thieves" or "Liar's Poker," the defining books about Wall Street in the 1980s. In that earlier period of excess, most folks observed the Ivan Boeskys from afar. This time just about everyone found himself at least ankle-deep in the muck. And nobody really wants to read about his own foolishness. Or write about it.</p>

While reporters usually pretend that Bill and Hillary Clinton's legal problems are behind them, Mrs. Clinton seems to know better. That is, at least judging by the way she's handling the latest lawsuit filed against her. Sen. Clinton's office spent a significant part of this week dodging media questions about Stan Lee Media co-founder Peter Paul, who claimed in court documents filed in Los Angeles last week that she and her husband accepted $2 million from him and reported only a tiny fraction to the Federal Election Commission. "Clinton's Senate staff did not respond to the Associated Press' repeated...

Meet Joe Dirt Stuart K. Hayashi In 2001, comedian David Spade came out with a movie titled "The Adventures of Joe Dirt." It now appears that the film was about Joe Conason, the author of "Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth" and an editorialist for the liberal-biased Salon.com. In the person of Brad Pitt, you've already Met Joe Black. Now Meet the Real Joe Dirt. His book purports to expose how right-wingers harness the corporate media to brainwash society. Instead of demonstrating such, however, Joe is too busy flinging his Dirt around. In two...

By Leslie WalkerThursday, May 1, 2003; Page E01 You'd think dot-coms had finally connected their dots, considering how they're roaring back to life on Wall Street. Many top Internet stocks have doubled since last year, leading an impressive rally on the Nasdaq Stock Market. But the big picture of Internet business still looks so darn fuzzy that it seems risky to be declaring winners and conceding them their prize money. Okay, maybe Internet auction giant eBay Inc. deserves an early draw. It's the one Internet business that has turned its dots into neon dollar signs, raking in big profits and...

Mar 6, 6:58 PM ESTEBay Plans to Shut Down Half.com Unit SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- EBay Inc. said Thursday it would shut down Half.com, its fixed-price subsidiary for used books, CDs, videos and other common household items, in late 2004.Half.com founder Josh Kopelman also said he would leave the company's office in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., effective April 15.The San Jose, Calif.-based online auction company purchased Half.com in a June 2000 stock swap. The acquisition of Half.com, which at the time listed about 1 million items and had about 250,000 registered users, significantly increased eBay's operating expenses for several quarters.Founded...

<p>Here's a sampling from this week's e-mail bag: A gentleman named David Owens jauntily greets us with, "Hey d---ks----rs! I just read you can't pay your rent. Where are all your liberal buddies now? Oh well." A Hugh Curd rejoices that "thank mohammad, your truly worthless rag is going to fail ... maybe you can get some fresh capital from your bug-chasing friends in san francisco or your terrorist buddies in north africa. you failed! move to france and smoke cowardly dong." Stan Willock offers these words of consolation to Salon readers: "[They] will still have PBS, where hundreds are misinformed and entertained at taxpayer expense, as well as CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC. All are losing viewers to the fair and balanced Fox News Channel and to conservative talk radio. Best of luck looking for a new job. Hopefully you qualify as a member of a preferred group (person of color, female, gay, lesbian, etc)." And these are the more genial letters! I'll spare you the ones spelling out the lurid physical punishments their writers would like to inflict on me personally, which would make even Saddam blush.</p>

We prefer temporary explanations to a grimmer possibility. Let's call it the "excuse du jour." For three years, we've heard serial explanations for the economy's weakness. The latest is a looming war with Iraq. Aside from increasing oil prices, the war specter (it's said) has created huge uncertainty that's causing companies and consumers to postpone big spending decisions. Once the uncertainty lifts, we'll get a decisive recovery. Don't count on it. SINCE MID-2000, the U.S. economy has grown at an annual rate of 1.3 percent. Some quarters have been up, some down and some nearly stagnant (the growth rate for...

West Coast Law Firm Closing After Dot-Com Collapse By JONATHAN GLATER artners at the San Francisco law firm of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison decided yesterday to wind down the firm, bringing to an end a 77-year-old Bay Area institution that rose flamboyantly and rapidly on the Internet boom. The decision came after efforts to merge with Morgan Lewis & Bockius — a 1,100-lawyer firm whose largest offices are in Philadelphia, Washington and New York — failed on Wednesday, said William Sullivan, who is head of the national securities practice at Brobeck. "That caused us to look at all the issues...

13:21 EDT Wednesday Washingtonpost.com demands stats for entry Jeff Clabaugh Staff Reporter The Washington Post's Web site will began requiring visitors to provide information about themselves to get full access to the paper's online content. Beginning Wednesday, visitors are given the opportunity to voluntarily fill out a short survey. Beginning next week, it'll be mandatory. The three question survey requires a visitor to enter year of birth, sex and ZIP code. The Post says it will require no personally identifiable information from users. Washingtonpost.com CEO Christopher Schroeder says the site will use the information to develop new products and to...

Anyone who has been surprised by the tanking of the stock market just hasn't been paying attention. The crash was inevitable; the only variable was when. As such, it shouldn't be a factor in trying to predict the future of publicly traded Linux companies. Alan Greenspan described it as "irrational exuberance," or crazy happiness. We'd leave out the part about happiness -- the equities market spent the 1990s in near-total insanity. If the 1980s were the "me" decade, the 1990s were the decade of ignoring the obvious.It was a decade in which there was actually a national debate over the...

<p>PARTY HEARTY!.Dennis Kozlowski partied hearty at his $12 million Nantucket mansion over the July 4 holiday.</p> <p>Corporate disgrace hasn't cramped the high-rolling lifestyle of Tyco's ex-CEO, L. Dennis Kozlowski.</p> <p>While the shamed fat cat awaits a Manhattan trial for tax evasion - and Tyco's stock remains stuck in the Dumpster - he's been living it up on his $25 million antique yacht and enjoying the Atlantic views from his $12 million Nantucket mansion.</p>

Every dog has his day. And the Web's most celebrated canine is getting more than one. The Pets.com sock puppet -- perhaps the best-known icon of the dot-com boom and bust -- is coming back from the Internet graveyard to market auto loans to people with bad credit. The puppet's message: Everyone deserves a second chance. "He's a lot like our customers -- they are good people who have had a bad time," said Jim Crouse, chief executive of 1-800-Bar None, a Pleasanton company that provides car financing and is adopting the puppet as its mascot. The sock puppet has...

The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business By: Tim Carvell, Adam Horowitz, Thomas Mucha  Issue: April 2002 Print Article | Email This Article    In a perfect world, a list like this would not exist. In a perfect world, businesses would be run with the utmost integrity and competence. But ours is, alas, an imperfect world, and if we must live in one where Enron, Geraldo Rivera, and Cottonelle Fresh Rollwipes exist, the least we can do is catalog the absurdities. 1. Houston, We Have a Problem, Part 1: Enron states billions of dollars in extra revenue through aggressive accounting and complicated off-the-books partnerships managed by its own executives,...

Losses persist at Yahoo Yahoo, one of the earliest web pioneers and still one of the main portals for web users, remains loss-making as advertising continues to be hard to come by. But revenue was growing faster than analysts expected, the company said, as it tries to shift from relying on advertising to providing value-added, paid-for services. For the first three months of 2002, Yahoo reported a net loss of $53.7m (£37.4m) or 9 cents a share, its sixth straight quarter of losses. In the same period last year Yahoo lost $11.5m or 2 cents a share. Excluding one-offs and...

Here’s a story to remind you about how Wall Street is such an exciting place to put your money. Do you recall a stock known as Internet Advisory Corp. from back in the salad days of the dot-com boom? Wonder what’s happened to it since then? Well, read on for the heartwarming tale of a Web-design outfit that crashed in the tech wreck, and is now trying to resurrect itself as a topless bar. IN CASE YOU’VE FORGOTTEN, Internet Advisory Corp. enjoyed an Elvis moment of sorts in the late 1990s when its terrifically descriptive stock symbol of ‘PUNK’ generated...