Broadband Advisor

Not long ago, the powers-that-be detected an impending crisis. To resolve it, they rushed into action crafting a proposal that represented an unprecedented upheaval of existing infrastructure. On the grounds that "something needed to be done" to avert the crisis, they brushed aside objections that the upheaval was too convulsive and might nonetheless fail to address the underlying issues that had created the crisis in the first place.

The question of why so many Google products are classified "beta" -- and classified thusly for so long -- has knocked around the tech press for some time. However, no one really seemed to know the answer, at least no one outside of Google.

At a conference that devoted much of its attention to celebrating the rise of collaborative platforms, media, and technologies, you had to wonder if the "Web 2.0" collaborative future would die before it really began. That was my takeaway from the Demo Fall 2008 conference in San Diego, which gave 72 startups six minutes each to show their stuff, usually in beta form.

There were many ways to search the Internet before Google came along, but none of them turned into a verb. These days, a big deal is being made of Google's turning 10 by a lot of the media. Most of the coverage has had a bit of an edge to it, as if people do not want to accept the success that Google has enjoyed.

Zoho has finally added a central document management page called Zoho Docs to tie together its many useful online apps. The clean-looking, functional page looks much like the Google Docs start page, with a folder view on the left and all files - spreadsheets, documents, presentations, etc. - listed on the right.

Last October, I wrote about Assurz, a service that-for a small up-front surcharge-would let you return anything you bought at a participating retailer, on very generous terms: no questions asked, a 90-day window, and no shipping charges or restocking fees. Sadly, Assurz is no more. The gist of the story is that Assurz filed for bankruptcy protection in late June after informing its retail partners that it was ending service because of excessively high return rates. What a shock: Whoever came up with the company's business model apparently didn't anticipate that the type of person who'd sign up for the service would be far likelier than the average customer to use it.

I did it yesterday. Not that I was trying, mind you -- honestly, I wasn't. I did, however, predict it would happen, so I'm going to take this opportunity to gloat about that.

Building Web applications that are robust and perform well is hard, but trying to promote them, build a market for them, and then make money from them is far harder. And harder still is when you're launching a Web service that competes with an established brand in the same market.

For a technology that has been in stable release since May 22, 2000, PHP 4 has finally reached the end of its official life. With the release of PHP 4.4.9, official support has ended and the final security patch for the platform issued.

In South Korea, the world's most online country (by percentage), the Internet has become a tool of politics as much as it has a tool for the everyday Web surfer. When a former CEO took the reins of the country earlier this year, it was effective use of the Internet which contributed to his rise to power. According to Reuters, the power that helped the new president Lee Myung-bak take power is now threatening the ongoing survival of his government.

Do you need to keep tabs on what online news makers say about your company, products and competitors? Online media monitoring is now easier and less expensive than ever.