New Internet Businesses - Bits and Pieces in the News
December 1, 2006
The Wall Street Journal reported on the fast rise of fantasy betting - a clever new business that offers gamblers a chance to play their favorite games in competition with other players for prizes.
In recent years, lots of these sorts of websites have sprung up, the WSJ said, including Faniq.com, NBX.com, Fanlete.com, Pickheads.com, and Wagerline.com. These sites "effectively allow U.S. consumers to engage in legal online gambling." The regular online gambling industry is said to be a $12 billion industry and growing.
Another interesting Internet "fantasy" phenomenon: Second Life, an online service that allows users to create a parallel world where their virtual selves can enjoy a better life. (This is pretty scary and exciting.)
And it's not just teenagers who are populating social networking sites (like YouTube and MySpace). Younger children are rushing to sites like Imbee.com and NeoPets.com, according to an article by Sue Shellenbarger.
"The under-16 sites pose few of the hazards linked to networking sites for older people," she said. "The activities range from chats and blogging to creating virtual pets or characters and acting out roles in virtual cities."
And I found all of these references to Internet-driven businesses in a single issue of The New York Times:
* A new Michael Connelly novel is being promoted with the use of a phone number (323-244-5631) that features a recorded message from Detective Harry Bosch, the hero, and a YouTube video that shows him enacting the opening scene from the book, Echo Park.
* A front-page piece on Movie Gallery, a big movie rental chain that is a billion dollars in debt because of tanking sales due to Netflix and Tivo-type technology.
* Online bartering is working for Peerflix, a DVD-trading service with 250,000 members who trade DVDs by using Peerflix as an intermediary. (Peerflix charges $1.50 per trade, of which 51 cents goes to cover shipping and postage.)
* A story about how mainstream advertisers are flocking to social networking sites like YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace, because that's where millions of young people are going.
* An essay by David Carr about how he prefers video-chatting with his children to watching Lost on television.
posted by M. Masterson @ 10:48 AM,
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