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May
14, 2000
By JIM
BROOKS
As
a parent of two children under the age of 8, I'm often reminded
of all the times when my own parents told me of the importance of
good hygiene.
You
remind your kids to wash their hands, especially before eating.
It's difficult to watch them every waking moment, and telling your
kids to have clean hands before each handful of Easter candy gets
monotonous for both parent and child.
But
perhaps it's this drive for cleanliness that fuels our tendency
to fall victim to the many health-related e-mail stories making
the rounds these days.
How
about these spine-tinglers:
-
Flesh-eating bacteria is entering the country on bananas imported
from Costa Rica.
-
Did you know your deodorant can give you cancer?
-
A woman found roach eggs in a fast-food burrito? And another found
them in the lick-n-glue flap on a mailing envelope.
If
you've read these -- and believed they were possibly true -- then
you're in good company. We've all fallen victim to one of the long
string of e-mail hoaxes that flow into e-mail boxes every day.
Health
issues are one of the hot buttons for consumers, and according to
the Centers for Disease Control, the "flesh-eating bacteria-tainted
banana" e-mail generated so many inquiries a separate telephone
line was set up to handle them (404-371-5375).
The
old saying, "Truth is stranger than fiction" often rings
true, and many of the stories you read seem plausible.
Two
Web sites specialize in debunking -- or confirming -- these hoaxes,
and they can even point out in some cases where the rumor or myth
got its start.
The
Urban Legend Reference Pages, http://snopes.simplenet.com,
offer a full listing of e-mail stories, hoaxes and urban legends
that aren't Net-related.
The
AFU & Urban Legend Archives is a site devoted to a popular urban
legend newsgroup. The Web site is an archive of newsgroup posts
and other content related to urban legends.
You
can visit the archive at www.urbanlegends.com.
In
addition to health-related hoaxes, both sites catalog the many other
e-mail legends that surface from time to time.
For
example, offers of free cola, free trips to Disney World, free makeup,
surcharges on e-mail, and a host of others.
NAME
GAME. Network Solutions, the company that has registered more
domain names than any other, plans on getting into the "used"
domain name business.
The
company plans on creating a section of its Web site to allow domain
name holders room to list their domains for sale.
Good
domain names -- those using common terms and phrases -- are becoming
increasingly scarce. Network Solutions will eventually allow you
to search domains for sale as easily as searching for new domain
information.
Domain
names have become a lucrative business. So far this year, business.com,
loans.com and autos.com sold for $7.5, $3.2 and $2.5 million, respectively.
Network
Solutions says for now they plan to stay out of the financial end
of domain sales. The service will initially be free. A fee will
likely be charged later.
ICQ
RETOOLS. ICQ, the ever-popular, AOL-owned instant communication
software suite recently released the latest version of its software,
ICQ 2000 a Beta 4.29.
The
new version features enhanced navigation, new instant messaging
and communications functions, and the ability to operate across
a corporate firewall.
ICQ
is used by a huge number of users -- 65 million registered, with
100,000 new ones each day.
Two-thirds
of ICQ users are outside the U.S., and two-thirds are under the
age of 34, according to ICQ officials.
For
more information or to download the new ICQ beta, visit www.icq.com.
BRICKS
N' CLICKS. Amazon.com was the top Web site for April in the
PC Data Top E-tailer's Report for April.
The
report looks at e-commerce Web sites, and counts the number of unique
buyers and unique visitors to create its rankings.
The
popular ticket seller Ticketmaster.com was the No. 2 site.
Several
businesses with real-world "bricks n' mortar" stores made
the top 10 in April, including Barnesandnoble.com (#3), sears.com
(#5), Staples.com (#8) and JCPenney.com (#9).
Established
retailers haven't been aggressively building their online businesses
until recently, and according to Cameron Meierhoefer, an analyst
for PC Data Online, taking it slowly might not have been such a
bad idea.
"Over
the past year, many established retailers were slow to embrace the
web," he said. "However, the recent success of these sites
suggest that a careful approach to establishing retail presence
on the web may be paying off in the long run and may be a way to
strengthen brand loyalty among younger, more Internet-savvy consumers."
Business
analysts predict a shakeout among Net-only retailers in the coming
18 months, and we're seeing a few Internet businesses already beginning
to struggle.
CDNow.com,
an Internet-only music CD retailer, has been seeking a merger or
investment funds to keep it operating.
Online
grocer Peapod is struggling to stage a comeback after announcing
in April it was on the verge of financial collapse.
Other
e-businesses -- particularly those without marketable products or
services -- will encounter rough sailing ahead.
NET
RESULTS. ACNielsen's latest research proves what most of us
already have discovered: The Internet has become tightly integrated
into our daily routine.
- Nearly
2 in 3 Americans over the age of 12 have access to the Internet
now, and half of them use it daily, according to ACNielsen's latest
report.
- Almost
half of U.S. Internet users have purchased a product or service
online. Books, music and software are the top items purchased
online, followed by travel products and clothing.
- E-mail
is still the most-used application used online, with 86 percent
of all Internet users regularly sending or receiving messages
electronically.
- Seventy
percent of users go online most often at home, and most regular
Internet users spend at least an hour online at a time.
Comments
and questions about this column may be sent to jbrooks@myoldkentuckyhome.com,
or visit www.myoldkentuckyhome.com
on the World Wide Web.
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