Spamming the Electoral College

So you're a Republican member of the Electoral College. You earned the post by remaining loyal to your party. You have faith in the American democratic system and you'll be heading to the state capital any day now to cast your presidential vote. But first you've got to deal with pounds of unsolicited mail, an in box full of spam, and oh yeah, hundreds of phone calls from Gore-loving strangers, all of them asking you to vote for big Al.

Who are these people and where did they come from? Look no further than VoteWithAmerica.com. The Web site doesn't just provide phone numbers and home and e-mail addresses for 172 electors in the 18 states that Bush won; it also helps people print out ready-made labels for snail-mailed letters, and thanks to a deal with Net2Phone, an Internet telephone company, free long-distance calls to electors' homes are only a single click away.

The plan is to convince electors to follow the popular vote tally and elect Gore -- "to put patriotism above partisanship," says David Enrich, director of Citizens for a True Democracy, the non-partisan anti-electoral-college non-profit behind the effort.

If just three electors actually take this advice, the results of the Nov. 7 election could suddenly turn in Gore's favor. But will this hacktivist push succeed where others have failed? It seems unlikely. After all, while the public has a right to lobby the electors, it's not clear that encouraging thousands of people to invade their phones, mailboxes and in boxes will warm their hearts. Spam tends to alienate rather than persuade. And Presidential spam -- contrary to what the pols might like to believe -- is still spam. -- Damien Cave [2:20 p.m. PST, Dec. 11, 2000]

- - - - - - - - - - - -

"The Street" gets delisted

"Sex in an elevator: What else do you want?" asked disappointed fan Ryan Spalazzi. The show had everything viewers wanted in a Wall Street fantasy: busty women, bad-boy brokers who always made a mint, dumbed-down dialogue and, oh yeah, sex -- lots of sex. Unlike all those "smart" shows now in vogue, like "The West Wing" and "Bull," "The Street" was wonderfully asinine, says Jeff Stamp, a friend of Spalazzi who also watched the show.

"It was sort of like 'Melrose Place' but in a broker's office," he says. "I don't know anything about finance and when I watched 'Bull' [another broker-based show], the dialogue was over the top. I didn't get it. But on 'The Street', the characters were just regular people. They talked about work but they mostly talked about sex. I was totally sucked in."

Fox, however, was not "sucked in," nor were they interested enough to give the show time to make a recovery. And so Ryan and Jeff will join the scores of television fans who are left to mourn the death of something they loved.

Perhaps, like the fans of "My So-Called Life," they'll start a letter-writing campaign. For now, though, they're just trying to move on.

"I don't get it," Stamp says. "It doesn't make sense." -- Damien Cave [6 p.m. PST, Dec. 8, 2000]

- - - - - - - - - - - -

A win for Internet radio

The decisions won't be available on the Web or in print until Monday, but according to John Potter, executive director of the Digital Media Association -- a trade group for online broadcasters -- both rulings represent a "huge win for consumers."

They essentially clear up licensing disputes, he says, and create a more level playing field for Betalounge, GoGaGa and the more than 4,000 other sites that stream music over the Web.

The first decree holds that traditional broadcasters must pay record labels streaming fees. The National Association of Broadcasters had argued that their terrestrial licenses covered Web broadcasting, but the copyright office begged to differ. The new rulings state that traditional stations will not be able to avoid paying for online licenses. The rules that apply to Net-only outfits -- specifically the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- must also apply to KQOQ, WNEW and every other radio station that wants to send its signal through the Net.

The second judgment turned on the issue of interactivity.

The Recording Industry Association of America had previously argued that when you click on say, a specific genre at Sonicnet, you're taking part in a "consumer-influenced Webcast." Because listeners are deciding what music they want to hear, the RIAA argued, the regular radio license just won't do; broadcasters must get additional licenses for each and every song in their catalogue.

The copyright office felt differently.

Siding with online broadcasters, who had complained that such licenses would cripple their nascent industry with extra, unfair fees, the new ruling states that broadcasters need only obtain a single compulsory license from the labels, as opposed to thousands.

Of course, these broadcasters still need figure out a way to make money -- a financial hurdle that may prove far more difficult than what they've just overcome in the courts. But for now, the fun continues. -- Damien Cave [2:59 p.m. PST, Dec. 8, 2000]

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Brenda Laurel dissects Purple Moon

When companies go bust, aggrieved founders often turn their disappointment into darts of blame. Venture capitalists, the market, consumers, advertisers, a few choice employees -- there's always someone or something that "just didn't get it."

Brenda Laurel is different. In her essay in the zine Signum, the founder of Purple Moon -- a company devoted to making interactive media for little girls -- has every reason to be bitter. She's fought hard to overcome the built-in male chauvinism of gaming since the early '90s. She even succeeded for a time -- winning support and funding from Paul Allen, one of the cofounders of Microsoft -- but her idealism soon gave way to failure.

It would be easy for Laurel to point the finger: at men, at the gaming industry or at Mattel. Indeed, her essay is part of a larger package that asks "What Ever Happened to the Cyber Revolution?" and many of Laurel's fellow contributors have no problem whining about what former Wired staffer Brad Wieners calls the TEOTWAWKI, or "the end of the world as we know it." Instead Laurel takes the high road. While "most of us were hard-working, talented, and devoted to creating media that would honor girls," she writes, "gender politics gnawed away at the company from within and without." She goes on describe five dysfunctional management styles -- the Victim, the Handmaiden, the Male Impersonator, the Queen Mother and the Best Friend -- which female managers often fall into.

Such generalizations may sound anti-feminist. A friend of mine, a woman, found the article offensive because it portrayed women as "unable to function as businesspeople because we are too insecure and unable to manage women and men, who we are either trying to befriend or overthrow.

But Laurel admits that she "can see something of myself in every one of the stereotypes," and by breaking both from feminist and corporate "blame the other" orthodoxy, she achieves what the other essays in this package do not. She does exactly what she aimed to do at the start; not just study the problem of gender and technology, but also "do something about it." -- Damien Cave [4:45 p.m. PST, Dec. 7, 2000

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Abandon all hope, Christians who click here

Jesus Dress Up: Need we say more? Just in time for the holidays, it's tastelessly offensive and deliciously twisted paper doll humor: Jesus might be nailed to the cross, but he can still have fun in a variety of outfits (Santa Claus, raver, astronaut or ballerina) that you can mix and match and even print out for playtime. Warning: If you are an easily offended Christian, perhaps this is not the game for you. -- Janelle Brown [3:30 p.m. PST, Dec. 7, 2000]

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Every geek deserves a makeover

You live life in front of your computer; you wear T-shirts you picked up at a trade show, khakis and ancient tennis shoes. Your haircut cost you $8, even though you make a six-figure salary. You haven't had a date in a year.

Fortunately for you, Geek Boy Services is here to help. For a paltry $1,000 ($700 for clothes, $300 for services rendered) and three hours of time, a genuine Cool Chick will take you shopping: "You will have more confidence. More hip clothes, more action."

Geek Boy Services is the year-old brainchild of Christie McClelland, a 27-year-old massage therapist who saw her opportunity while working the knots out of the backs of lonely geeks at companies like Critical Path and Covalence. "You can tell geeks don't care how they dress," she observes, listing the numerous fashion faux pas of the typical Silicon Valley techie. "And yet they were going for the most beautiful and interesting women. They just needed a little spicing up."

Her first customer was a bona fide geek, the author of a widely used Perl utility, who she described as a "Boston type."

"He wanted to date girls like Bettie Page -- fishnets and high heels -- and he was in T-shirts and boat shoes," she says. Once she gussied him up with a haircut, some bowling shirts and a pair of nice square-toed black shoes, he managed to pull down nine dates in one week, she claims.

A year later, she's guided nearly 150 men through the stores of San Francisco; at least five, she says, have attributed their ensuing relationships to their makeovers. Most geeks are just looking for a little sprucing up, but some are striving to achieve a particular "look." McClelland says the "goth" and "raver" looks are especially popular right now, with a healthy dose of interest in James Dean and swing.

McClelland doesn't consider herself a mere personal shopper: She also guides her clients to better haircuts and personal styles, and helps them identify the "scenes" (read: clubs, cafes, bars) they should infiltrate in order to find the kinds of girls that they admire. A number of consultants she works with will also offer "lifestyle coaching" (i.e.: how to balance work with play) and relationship advice.

Does this mean that the attractiveness quotient of Bay Area techies is going to increase noticeably? One can always dream, but I wouldn't count on it: Even the guys McClelland takes shopping don't always wear their hip new threads very often. "They are geek boys," she sighs. "They don't want people to look at them." -- Janelle Brown [2:45 p.m. PST, Dec. 7, 2000]

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Dot-com condolence cards

All the holiday cheer bubbling about this time of year is just an added insult to laid-off Net workers facing a paycheck-less Christmas and job-hunting New Year. And for the sympathetic friends and family of the canned, online greeting card sites like Blue Mountain, Egreetings and Hallmark offer nothing in the way of tasteful e-mail condolence cards. Thankfully, Satirewire is filling the void, providing dot-com holiday cards with a touch of morbid humor.

Whoops! Santa accidentally downsized the reindeer. And Priceline's stock price looks like Frosty the Snowman on a hot summer day. Laced with all the requisite cheesiness of your average greeting card, they're enough to make even an unemployment-collecting former dot-communist smile.

So, raise a glass for the recently departed, the fine folks who used to sit in the cubes around yours, and be thankful that no matter how many workers the dot-coms lay off one thing is for sure: Someone will be left on the Net to find a way to make gallows humor of it all. -- Katharine Mieszkowski [5:30 p.m. PST, Dec. 6, 2000]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meet the new boy's club, same as the old boy's club

Yes, Virginia, there is an old boy's club in the new economy. According to a new survey by GLS Consulting, one quarter of the female respondents say that they do run into the same old same old gender barriers: "They feel devalued, invisible, underpaid and overlooked for advancement," the researchers noted. And these are not the downtrodden grumblings of entry-level flunkies. The study talked to 265 women in mid-level to senior management jobs at Internet, high-tech and service companies.

While 59 percent reported being treated equally, 31 percent said they face some discrimination as mothers, older women or even for being single. One respondent wrote: "For more experienced women coming from 'old' but much more diverse companies, a new economy job can mean feeling like you just fell back 15 years to a room full of white guys in ties -- OK, golf shirts. From a leadership perspective, the 'new economy' sometimes looks a lot like the old, old economy, except dressed more casually."

But some noted that, overall, there were fewer gender-related problems than under the old world order. One put it this way: "In 'old economy' jobs, women enter into something already established with expectations historically crafted around men. In the new economy, women can be involved from the foundation on up, helping craft the standards and expectations that will define the industries. It's incredibly exciting."

Let's hope these executives will help build industries that live up to the new economy's egalitarian hype. -- Katharine Mieszkowski [3:45 p.m. PST, Dec. 6, 2000]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Got a tip for the In Box? E-mail us