My Questions to the IT community

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Thursday, February 24, 2005

Trustworthy Internet Sites?

How does the general public determine what is a trustworthy site and what is not on the internet? Take the following site which talks about "a hacker in my house"
(http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/2001.12.2.42056.2147.html#comments)
...which probably gets read way too much and I am increasing its hit count :(.

My sister-in-law would believe this site; not that she is a stupid person; just non-IT oriented to understand what is real and what is not.... related to IT.

There are various entities that have tried to make a difference. BBB, ICR, etc but more so for "trading" or "online business" as opposed to "general information" sites.

ICOP standard has been around since 1997 with minor success http://www.internet.org.uk/icop.html. Who would be willing to pay them 25 pounds to bless a general information site...year after year? Their business lookup leaves a lot to be desired....How is the general public suppose to determine the url link in a post is affialiated with a company name?

This Blog is a site and I currently don't pay for it. The information I'm posting is truthful. Why should I pay to be in a truthful zone?

1) Will the IT industry come to the aid of the general public to assiss them in determining what sites are truthful and which are not?
2) Can the Governments issue "seals" of some type to allow the public to know?
3) Is there a ".org" that can help?
4) Will it be Free?
5) Is it even possible? and if so, how long would it take for the sites to get on board ?

Your Thoughts?

Monday, February 21, 2005

Next new Corporation to enter IT industry?

Who will be the next large corporate entity to try their hand in Information Technology? Convergence within IT for the big players (e.g. IBM, Oracle, etc) is getting close to complete. It's time some other entity steps in the arena.

Various other companies have tried. (e.g. MCI WorldCom from the telecom market).

What market segment will try next....
1) the household goods arena such as...well, it can't be Gillette but what about their new owner Proctor & Gamble?
2) the oil sector?
3) etc

My assumption is that it will be one that has a flavour of monoplistic environment (i.e. they basically own their area and must look elsewhere to obtain more market share and revenue).

Your Thoughts?