Build Date: Fri Apr 4 02:30:37 2025 UTC
I know it would like suck and all for everybody else, but I am sorry, I would like to be responsible for crashing the universe. I can just see myself saying "Oooppss, I didn't mean to do that.... say you guys should have made this like idiot proof."
-- Johnnie Royale
Microsoft Figures Out How to Corner the Market on Net Advertising
2001-06-09 10:53:29
What if you could put ad links on every single web page on the Internet? What if you could sell those links to other companies, creating links back to their sites so they could sell their products? Best of all, what if you didn't have to pay a single dime to any of the webmasters carrying your ads? That's what Microsoft can do with the new Smart Tags technology that they're building into Windows XP products.
Smart Tags are a new feature of Microsoft Office XP. If you load Office XP, then according to Microsoft's web site, "Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft Excel 2002, Microsoft Outlook 2002 (when Word is enabled as your e-mail editor) and Internet Explorer (when Office XP is installed on your computer)" will automatically start using Smart Tags.
Think of Smart Tags as your favorite word processor's "Search and Replace" feature on steroids and out of (your) control. Smart Tags look through documents, and replace "information such as names, dates, addresses, phone numbers, places, and stock symbols" with hyperlinks.
Hyperlinks to where? Other documents and other web sites. Of course you can probably modify where your Smart Tags link to, but just to be helpful, you can bet that Microsoft will include a set of default hyperlinks that they can automatically update without your interference.
This means that anytime you fire up Internet Explorer in an XP environment and start browsing the Internet, it will automatically start sticking whatever hyperlinks Microsoft wants into the web pages you're reading. Hyperlinks that were not added by the webmaster of the site, that may be irrelevant to the site, and that are not part of the site's design or desired by the site's creator.
Usually if you want to stick a link onto someone else's site, you have to pay for it. This is called "advertising." Microsoft has just figured out how to put ads on every single web page in existence, and they don't have to pay one dime to a single webmaster for all of that ad space.
T O P S T O R I E S
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
"I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...)
Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots
Earlier this month Xitter experienced a massive outage. In an interview, Musk told Fox Business that he believes the attack came from "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." (More...)
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
The Deep Dark Underbelly of the Star Wars Myth, or Ramayana Remembered
It's a fact: Star Wars is a blatant plagiarism of an ancient Asian legend, and the long lines of devout Star Wars freaks are really unscrupulous Asian copyright busters. From Indonesia to Thailand to Nepal, videos are available for sale or rent before they're even released in the US and UK due to this nerdy camcorder-clutching bunch. (More...)
An innocent trip to the Central Market resulted in a severe attack of arachnophobia (and a meal) when a depraved street kid set her vicious pet spider on an unsuspecting shopper. (More...)
Clowns Take on God in Mysterious Annual Ceremony
Last Sunday's (the 6th) Grimaldi Service at a small church in East London was a red-letter day for clowns worldwide. About a hundred old-school red-nosed clowns made the sombre trip to darkest Dalston to pay their respects to clowns who died in the last year and to thank God for the gift of laughter in a bizarre ceremony presided over by the eccentric Reverend Clown Roly, resplendent in a garish red lumberjack shirt with oversized gold lapels. (More...)
It's that time of year again -- Burning Man Season -- and that means fresh SCIENCE! Here is a new lab experiment for the fruity hillbilly in all of us. (More...)
One of our star reporters was sent to Comdex by his employer. El Destino reports live from the biggest, geekiest trade show in the world. (More...)
During a magnificent sunny day in a fast receding autumn, the Spock Science Monitor reporters once again blew the playa dust off of their computers and covered the 2002 Burning Man Decompression – held every year just east of Portola Hill in beautiful San Francisco. Both an afternoon and evening issues were released to the unsuspecting crowd of freaks attempting to in some small way experience the euphoria of the playa – if but for a brief afternoon far from the desolation of Northern Nevada. (More...)
