Stick a fork in SDMI contest -- it's done

Two individuals, one from Finland and one from the United States, managed to successfully break one of the five proposed watermarking technologies that the music industry was considering to secure the digital music of the future. As a prize, each hacker will take home $5,000. Apparently, this also means that the surviving technologies -- which include watermarking solutions from Blue Spike and Verance -- will go on for further testing and possible implementation.

So why does no one seem excited by the news? Perhaps it's because the media has been reporting the breaks for weeks; or perhaps it's because "winning" the contest seemed more rhetorical than real. In order to fit SDMI's definition of "success," for example, the hackers were required to pass a slate of very strict criteria that seemed to unfairly eliminate a number of strong contenders. All de-watermarked files, for example, had to live up to the expectations of expert "golden ears" chosen predominantly by the record industry.

Most egregiously, a group of Princeton researchers who claim to have broken all the watermarks were eliminated from consideration. As Edward Felten, head of the Princeton group, wrote a few weeks ago, "Instead of the scientific question, the SDMI has chosen to focus on who is eligible for the cash prize that they have offered. Since we chose to forgo the cash prize in order to retain our right to publish our results, we understand that the SDMI no longer considers us to be entrants in their contest."

So although the two hackers who defeated one watermark are to be congratulated, the question of whether SDMI's remaining watermarks are actually unbreakable is still unanswered. If that was the intent of the contest, then SDMI's money wasn't particularly well spent. -- Janelle Brown [5:30 p.m. PST, Nov. 30, 2000]

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A second chance for dead dot-coms

If Boo.com, the fashion e-retail disaster, could come back from the dead, why shouldn't the rest of the dead and buried dot-coms? We had a few suggestions for what we'd like to see high-profile sites like Priceline and Napster come back as. Readers like Suson Bonet, Russell Brady and Michael Hkam had their own ideas:

1. QXL.com: The once highflying Euro auction site (tipped to reach $1,000 per share and now at $1 3/16) reinvents itself as the Internet's leading purveyor of consonants.

2. Living.com: Back from the dead, the site is devoted to life prolongation techniques and voodoo rituals for everlasting "life," as a remarkably lifelike zombie.

3. Drkoop.com: Realizing that you can't make money unless you sell something, drkoop.com hires Bob Dole to help it peddle Viagra to the elderly. Stock shoots straight up!

4. HotJobs.com: As a result of the recent downturn in the new economy, HotJobs.com becomes a career portal for the adult entertainment industry. Its digital hand logo is replaced by a digitally enhanced phallic thingy.

5. Kozmo.com: Investors from Cali, Colombia, acquire the company to exploit possible synergies. Although there are no apparent changes in business strategy, profits reach an all-time high.

6. Amazon.com: The stock plummets when Jeff Bezos is arrested on charges of having a goofy smile. The company spends the remaining cash on lawyers in an unsuccessful attempt to patent the Christmas shopping season. Eventually becomes a portal for tall, Brazilian mail-order brides.

7. Backflip.com: This is the company that brought you a service that lets you save your favorite sites to a personal account, so that you could revisit the site (like the favorites folder in your browser). It refocuses its business model to bring you nonstop coverage of various people doing back flips. The company becomes embroiled in a bitter rivalry with somersault.com. [3 p.m. PST, Nov. 30, 2000]

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Grok this!

Goodbye Grok; we barely knew ye. The Industry Standard is officially retiring its spinoff magazine, less than three months after its launch.

Grok, a monthly in-depth report on specific Net-related topics (entertainment, e-commerce, wireless), was conceived during the heady days of early 2000, when high-tech advertising fell like manna from heaven into the open hands of the tech magazine sector. Despite a nice design and some notable content, Grok was really just a thinly veiled attempt to create yet more editorial pages for those hungry tech advertisers, which had already stuffed the weekly the Industry Standard with so many ads that it was difficult to find the content in between the come-ons.

But times, they have changed. Marketing departments no longer have million-dollar advertising budgets, and Grok will be folded back into the Industry Standard as of the February issue. As editor-in-chief Jonathan Weber told the New York Daily News, "This past year, in terms of growth in the ad business and in our ad business, was a year literally off the charts. So that kind of thing doesn't go on forever. I think we're being prudent and responsive as a result."

But is this the beginning of the end of the new economy rag boom, which launched a dozen magazines and bestowed formerly starving writers with generous $100,000+ salaries? Will the demise of Grok be a relief to other newcomer magazines, like Fortune's eCompany Now, which suddenly have one less competitor to worry about, or is it actually the first in a line of dominoes falling?

And what does it mean for the Industry Standard's upcoming print joint venture with Inside.com? The proposed new weekly -- aimed at covering the same digital media-related topics as Inside.com, but with more depth -- would seem to be almost as redundant as Grok. The new mag isn't supposed to launch until late this year (and who knows what NASDAQ will do in the interim), but the outlook for yet another new economy magazine currently looks a bit grim, unless the new Inside proves to be so great that it will be able to poach ads from its competitors. Like, say, the Industry Standard. -- Janelle Brown [1 p.m. PST, Nov. 30, 2000]

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"I kiss you": The electronica version

The single, titled appropriately "I Kiss You," is pure techno-pop, with Mahir himself singing the pithy refrain: "My name is Maaaaa-hir (I kiss you, I kiss you)." (Sorry, no accordion playing seems to be included, but there is a backup singer.) EMI has even provided the Turk with his very own slick music video, featuring an ebullient Mahir running through Trafalgar Square with a sexpot on each arm, and driving through London glued to his cellphone. There are screen shots of his Web page and your favorite Mahir-isms ("I like music! Give me a call!") are included as lyrics.

The tune is even, dare we say, kinda catchy.

Although the CD doesn't hit the stores until Dec. 18, you can currently watch the video and listen to a preview on -- where else? -- Mahir's Web site. And don't write Mahir off merely because the peak of his fame was over a year ago: Only the most cynical geek could watch Mahir grin his way through lines like "My heart fills with joy when you are near" and resist his charms. Consider it a disco anthem for the digital age; we can't wait until this one hits the playlists at Ministry of Sound. -- Janelle Brown [3:35 p.m. PST, Nov. 29, 2000]

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Salon to AvantGo readers: We're sorry we called you "sex-starved losers"

Chalk this one up to the perils of new media publication. Yesterday Salon published an In Box item critiquing an advertisement in the LinuxJournal. Since the ad itself was not online, we thought we'd do our readers a useful service and create a new Web page featuring the advertisement. Hey, we're a Web publication, we can do all kinds of innovative things.

Unfortunately, we did not realize that Salon's publishing software would consider this page an actual Salon story. And we especially did not realize that readers of Salon who use the AvantGo service to download stories onto their PalmPilots would get, without any explanation, just the one sentence caption that we gave to the advertisement.

We can only imagine, with great horror, the shock that thousands of avid Salon Technology & Business readers must have felt when they were informed, oh so bluntly, that "you are a sex-starved loser who can't get a blow job -- so buy our product." We beg forgiveness from our readers. We'd like to promise nothing like this will ever happen again, but then again, you never know what kind of monster is waiting around the next corner in unexplored cyberspace.

We can assure you, however, that the senior Salon editor who was responsible for the fiasco has been sentenced to a yearlong unpaid internship working for Matt Drudge. -- Andrew Leonard [5 p.m. PST, Nov. 29, 2000]

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The future of online voting?

That addictive meat market Am I Hot or Not just won't stop spawning fan sites.

First, there was the original "Hot" site, where you upload a picture of yourself to have it rated by the merciless, anonymous fashion police of the Web. Then, hilarious copycat site Am I Goth or Not invited moody creatures of the night to be ranked on their tragic, melancholic beauty.

Now, the presidential election hysteria has spawned its own spinoff: Am I President or Not. No, you can't upload your photo, and there are only two candidates to choose from, Bush and Gore. And what do you know, they're currently running neck and neck: Gore has a slight lead in the popular vote with a rating of 5.96, while Bush boasts a respectable ranking of 5.70. Nader, as usual, is unjustly left out of this important forum for reasoned debate. Is this the future of online voting?

It appears so. Our readers have alerted us that there are not one, but two sites playing the presidential ratings game.

Am I Hot or Not has been dubbed one the best examples of so-called viral marketing because it's impossible to resist clicking on it and spreading the word about it to your friends. But who could have predicted that parodying the site itself would be equally addictive? It's become a kaleidoscope for looking at our latest collective obsession. We're all hot or not now. -- Katharine Mieszkowski [11:34 a.m. PST, Nov. 29, 2000]

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You're a sex-starved loser -- so buy our product!

The advertisement in the November issue of Linux Journal is hard to miss. The sultry disembodied head of a young woman, her lips bright and glistening red, gazes out at the geek reader. She's attractive, no doubt about it, in a soft-porn kind of way. But the text next to her face is less endearing.

"Don't feel bad," reads the advertisement. "Our servers won't go down on you either."

Yikes. Ironic advertising is one thing, but going out of your way to directly insult the target demographic at which you are aiming your product represents a bold new strategy in marketing. Think about the message this ad is delivering: You, the Linux geek, are so lame that you can't get a blow job -- now, buy our servers. Stop living in your fantasy world of unrequited lust and pull out your credit card for something other than an adult Web site for once!

Maybe it's just a funny twist on the stereotype of the geek as ungainly slob. Or maybe it's something deeper than that -- evidence of geek self-hatred. Whatever the case, one point can't be argued -- if the purpose of an ad is to gain attention for a company, then this one does the job. -- Andrew Leonard [3:00 p.m. PST, Nov. 28, 2000]

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Wanted: Hookah-smoking dot-commers

It's tough making friends when you're the new dot-commer couple on the block in San Francisco -- what with the overt animosity with which many locals greet the dot-com interlopers ruining their city. But when a dot-commer has a problem there's always a ready solution: the Web. So one nouveau economy duo posted a kind of friendship personal ad on the mailing list "craigslist," announcing: "Fun, outgoing COUPLE looking to meet others (non-sexual)."

This lonely dot-commer couple kvetches about how being glued to a monitor 80 hours a week can cramp your social life: "We all know how hard it is to meet people in this city -- let's face it -- for most people it's work, work, work, come home from work, think about your long day at work, and go to sleep." And the only people they've met so far are on the other side of the cubicle: "Now that we have settled into our new jobs in San Francisco, we are ready to have fun and meet people! Unfortunately, hanging out with work people just brings up more work ... and we want to meet couples with more common interests than just work!!" Uh, good luck.

The anonymous pair identify themselves with only an e-mail address and describe their friend-worthy qualifications as follows: She -- a passion for sushi, shoes and technology ("I just love technology!"). He -- a fondness for whiffle ball, good beer and Mexican food. They could not be more central casting, right down to their favorite shared pastime -- smoking with a hookah, which she brought back from Egypt. How authentic! So if anyone out there has a burning desire to get stoned with two San Francisco Net junkies, bring out the welcome wagon and light it up. I'll stick with a few more hours in front of my monitor, thanks. -- Katharine Mieszkowski [12:15 p.m. PST, Nov. 28, 2000]

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