A Poke in the Eye of the Online/Multimedia Industrial Complex
Vol. 1, No. 22
[scientifically tested to take no more than 3 minutes to read, depending on how discombobulated you get]
Diarrhea of the Corporate Mission
Wall Street, New York -- Bob Dole has us longing for the good old days, when a farmer could make a buck and not worry about pesticide lawsuits, water usage, and his daughter being the butt of jokes everywhere. And Clinton's "bridge to the 21st century" will be hit with "what's the toll?" zingers from Dole by next week. Dole can be forgiven for not understanding these wacky times, with high-tech gizmos, adding machines, and the World Wide What-yu-muh-call-it. Believe it or not, there was a day when banks gave loans to people who wanted to start businesses with missions like "sell fruit," "fix cars," or "make those plastic things on the end of shoelaces." No longer. If you want the big bucks, you have to confuse the money folks with dazzling jargon that makes no sense. Sprinkle an "interactive marketing application" here and a "secure payment download" there. Put your mission statement up on a spanky clean Web site, and watch the venture money flow.
Lately, 3MR has been wowed with the "corporatese" being spoken at a few company home pages and want to share some of our findings. These are real excerpts from sites where they want to show how much they know about something even if they don't. See if you can figure out what they're talking about -- the company names have been changed to protect us.
"Koalascape develops high-performance software products that allow our customers to engage in business-to-consumer and business-to-business commerce on the Internet. Other Koalascape products deploy Internet based business applications within an enterprise, creating an intranet. Our innovative technology enables companies to centrally manage business transactions using content located on multiple distributed Web servers, with state-of-the-art security."
[they sell commerce software; my grandma did that three years ago]
"SphincterNet is a premiere business-to-business on-line services company specializing in Internet technologies. Our primary business focus is the content management of interactive multimedia developed for World Wide Web (WWW) computer environments, electronic publishing, and on line design. Our clients are made up of regionally and globally distributed organisations in a number of business markets."
[they build Web sites; my deaf, dumb and blind 8-year-old nephew does that with his hands tied behind his back]
"Behind The Times will carry expanded coverage of computers, the Internet, electronic entertainment, cyberspace, technology careers, technology stocks and consumer software products. It will replace the paper's current Monday Business section and incorporate material now appearing in the popular Behind The Times feature in Wednesday's Business section."
[it is a major daily paper discovering the Net about 2 years later than the rest of the world; my goldfish had a home page before them]
We Get (Hate) Mail
As the subscriber base of 3-Minute Roast grows by leaps and bounds -- somewhere between SPIV and Salon 1999 -- we are being inundated with love and hate mail. We'd like to share some with you. The names have been changed to funnier, made-up ones because it would be boring otherwise.
Our First Cancellation (still hanging on our wall)
Please remove me from whatever fucking mailing list this might be.
Thanks.
Brit in a Snit
Our Second Cancellation
Do you realize this is embarrassingly unfunny? Sorry, I'm a humor snob. If the other sophomores like it, then the problem's probably mine. But for both our sakes, yes, please do remove me from the list.
Haughty Harry in New Yawk
Sufferers of SES (Startup Exploitation Syndrome) Reply
You forgot to add "corporate song books" and "they insist you will be happier if you work from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m" and "piped in music, all the soda you can drink, and day-old Chinese food brought in for lunch every day" and "corporate slogan: it's not just a job, it's not just an adventure, it's not just a way of life, IT IS LIFE."
Stressed in San Mateo
You're not planning an SES intervention for me are you?
Ian, who has an hour commute, no cubicle walls, and a discarded CEO
Note: If you reply to this email address, we might respond, we might reprint your rant, or we might give in to terrorist demands.
Shameless Plug
Though we're not in the business of advertising anything, and in fact, are not even in business, we'd like to point out that the 3-Minute Roast home page is now as live as it's gonna get at this handy, easy-to-forget address:
http://www.eyesongs.com/eyesongs/3-minute/roast.html
3MR will still come out first by email, and then get archived at this site to help readers check out back issues. There are cool graphics, contests, interactive ads, giveaways, and the rare first issue! (OK, really just the last one.)
Big Bonus: We'll never, ever beg you for a vote for "Cool Site of the Year, Decade or Century." Cool is for Fonzi; way cool is for surfers (real surfers, not the kind who can't swim).
"3-Minute Roast" is a weekly, advertisement-free, opinionated rip on anything that strikes our fancy in the online world.
Max Schlickting - Editor-in-Chief
Barbara Yalpsid - Online Editor
Lefty Periwinkle - First Amendment Expert
Mark Glaser - Unpaid Editorial Intern* If you hate our rantings, send a reply message: "Bill Gates is funny
and you aren't," and we'll discontinue service.
* To see all our back issues, link up to 3MR on the Web at:
http://www.mediawhore.com/3-minute/roastarchive.html
* The material is the exclusive copyright of Comdex Haters Int'l, hoping
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distribution.