Author: Matt

“You can build a forecast in about 10 seconds by sitting in a room and guessing. Sometimes I fear that folks think that’s how we do it.”

Jupiter research chief Evan Cohen, revealing how holiday e-commerce figures are cooked up, The New York Times Magazine, 19 December 1999

“Do you think we’re a horrible company that gets up every day thinking of ways to go after artists?”

eToys spokesperson Ken Ross, on his johnny-.com-lately employer’s move to take away the domain name etoy.com from a group of artists, despite the fact they predate etoys.com by two years, USA Today, 15 December 1999

“There’s no such thing as a unique idea anymore.”

Jeffrey Bonforte, CEO of i-drive.com, a thoroughly unoriginal Net storage startup, Worth, December 1999

“I think there’s a very fine line between good service and stalking.”

Tara Lemmey, director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on the art of online marketing, Nextravaganza conference, 14 December 1999

“We started as a search engine, so we know what people are looking for.”

Lycos executive Mark Stoever, on the Web network’s continuing inability to get users to stick with it, perhaps because it still hasn’t found what they’re looking for, ZDNN, 14 December 1999