The P2P Vogue Well, I guess not everyone's buying the P2P hype. Now, if I only knew the tune to Madonna's Vogue . . .

NEW TOWERGROUP RESEARCH SHOWS PEER-TO-PEER (P2P)COMPUTING MODEL POISED TO PENETRATE THE BUY-SIDE News Release Well, now P2P is the latest threat to B2B exchanges. A recent TowerGroup study predicts P2P could "usurp the plethora of B2B exchanges." They're failing quite nicely on their own, thank you.

The Standard: Let Others Sue: Marketer Licks Chops Over Rich Napster Data OK, this is a great idea. BigChampagne is one of several marketers that are mining the marketing harvest that is Napster. It is so silly that the recording industry can't pull their antediluvian heads out of the sand long enough to see what a bonanza Napster could be for them. BigChampagne automatically searches Napster for certain artists' songs (Aimee Mann and ex-Toad the Wet Sproket, Glen Phillips for example) and then instant messages the folks who have the relevant MP3 files. In Mann's case, the IM directed the user to a special site where they could download an MP3 of an unreleased song. In Phillips' case, it alerted the fan that Phillips had a Web site and was still making music. BigChampagne got between 20 and 40 percent response, and harvested thousands of emails from fans who wanted more information. This is such a no-brainer. And it's a wonderful form of poetic justice: rip off my music, get marketed to. I love it!

Plastic chips, single-electron devices emerge from the lab This is a hard article to slog through, but it reports as routine and mundane the creation of room temperature single electronic transistors. This is a pretty big deal, since previous devices operated at 25 Kelvin, 25 degrees above absolute zero. These engineers are pretty nonchalant about single electronic work because it's been going on for more than a decade. The first demonstration of using a single electron to control the position of another electron was way back in 1997. But folks like us (assuming you're not a molecular electrical engineer) tend to go, whoa! All it means is the ability to put a trillion transistors in a square centimeter vs. today's 6 million, that's all. What it will really mean, if it gets out of the lab this decade, as some are predicting, is storage and processor power will take dramatic leaps. Imagine what we'll do with 166,666 times the memory and processor capability!

BW Online | April 16, 2001 | The Great Internet Money Game This fascinating article holds the feet of the VCs and investment banks that gave us the irrational exuberance of the dotcom bubble. According to the article, "Of the 367 Internet outfits taken public since 1997 that are still trading, the stocks of 316 are below their offering prices, according to Thomson Financial. Only 55 companies, or 15%, have made money for public investors. And a staggering 224 have tumbled 75% or more since their IPOs. A total of $2.5 trillion has disappeared from Net company market caps since the peak last year." They're just lucky their Wall Street castles aren't surrounded by pitchfork wielding villagers with stakes for their hearts.

Reshare Corporation Home Page Now here's an idea that's way overdue: a company that specializes in making sure a manufacturer's existing channels get a slice of online sales revenue. I've been waiting for this for years, and have wondered why it was taking so long. Reshare has a system that enables online retailers to ask customers to pick a favorite retailer or search for one near them. When the sale is made, the retailer, and any relevant distributors, get a slice of the profit. In exchange for this, they are expected to support the product. Brilliant idea. And hatched right here in Minnesota as well!

ACME License Maker Another Weblogger pointed me to this site. You can make your own license plate images! Very cool.

Microsoft's virus antidote: Ban attachments - Tech News - CNET.com News Flash! Baby Thrown Out With Bathwater! I had heard that Microsoft was banning attachments in Outlook, but I couldn't quite believe it. It's apparently true. Rather than fix their security-hostile VB scripting environment, Microsoft has decided to just ban whole classes of attachments from Outlook. There's a good idea.

New Scientist: Easy writer Wanna be a programmer? Can you write English? No problem then. This article is about Synapse Solutions, which seem to have fulfilled a dream of mine.

CNN.com - Sci-Tech - Microsoft alters Passport terms of use - April 9, 2001 This article makes you wonder if having a desktop monopoly is a good idea. Microsoft makes you sign up for a Passport to access their tech support, yet their terms of service gave them sweeping rights over your stuff.

CNN.com - Health - E-service keeps doctors, patients in touch - April 9, 2001 Docs finally get email! You wonder why it took some guy to create a company to get doctors to respond to their patients via email. So how do they charge? The company gives them between $10 and $25 per email they answer. This seems crazy. But a great deal for the docs.

CNN.com - Technology - ICANN warns against preregistering domain names - April 3, 2001 For anyone thinking of preregistering one of the new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs), this article reiterates ICANN's and the FTC's warning against the practice. In my opinion, if you're willing to risk the up front money (up to $150) on the chance that you might actually get a choice domain name, go right ahead. But beware fly by night operations. Only use a preregistration service run by an accredited domain name registrar. Most services keep the money whether or not you get the name, and then sock it to you for the registration fee as well. Caveat emptor.

www.struck.com OK, OK. I promise not to use the word "struck" again in a Stratlet for at least a month!

The Open Source Initiative: History of the OSI I'm working on an article about business applications of Open Source software and this is a good description of how the OSI movement evolved out of the earlier free software, Debian, and GNU movements. I'm struck by the fact that an O'Reilly conference helped crystalize the movement soon after it adopted the Open Source moniker. O'Reilly recently organized one of the first, if not the first, peer-to-peer (P2P) conference in February, 2001. I wonder if P2P will follow the same path to development. Certainly there are a lot of the same players involved. (www.openp2p.com).