• by August 22, 2003

A Concept SoBig, It's Just Waiting To Happen: Now that the marketing industry finally appears to be getting its act together to combat spam - the much-hated and possibly illegal practice of sending unsolicited sales pitches via bulk e-mail - where is an enterprising young spammer expected to turn. The answer may be in your e-mail basket at this very moment. No, we're not referring to the Riff e-mail blast, though we're sure our sales and marketing chief Nick Friese (that's nick@mediapost.com) would be more than happy to accommodate any sponsorship notions that may cross your mind as you read this. We're referring, of course, to the dreaded bulk e-mail virus SoBig that surely has been worming its way into your inbox the last few days. As insidious as it may be, we can't help but marvel at the brilliance of a program that can circumnavigate so many firewalls and amass so many millions of impressions in the flash of a keystroke. And all without so much as a single sales pitch -- that is, of course, unless you buy into the viral marketing conspiracy theories involving anti-virus software marketers like Symantec and TK. You just know that anti-virus downloads are like battery and transistor radio sales following a Northeast power outage. Just ask the folks at your local Radio Shack. So it seems inevitable that as the Direct Marketing Association finally clamps down with its not-so-secret Operation Slam Spam (Thank You Ma'am), some resourceful hacker will find a way to transform viruses and worms into the next big marketing medium. If not as a method for actually transmitting marketing pitches, then possibly as a sponsorship deal. We can think of several new Viagra brand rivals who even now may be considering an association with a worm called SoBig.

For Whom The Bells Collect Tolls: It only took seven years to resolve, but the FCC has finally clarified key elements of the 1996 telecommunications act and the move is expected to revitalize the industry and accelerate the expansion of high-speed digital communications networks. The ruling, which gives the regional Bell operating companies greater incentive to build out and exploit new telecommunications technologies - especially high-speed optical fiber systems - is expected to fuel new products and services and could be the thing that finally gives impetus to the burgeoning consumer broadband marketplace. Aside from creating a foundation for new media products and services, the development could be a boon for the media industry as a new telecommunications branding war begins to heat up. A separate part of the ruling that may ease the obligation of the Bells to provide access to older, copper voice lines to competitors in their local markets, could also heat up advertising battles for local phone services.

Talk About Being Absorbed In Your Work: Technologists have been known from time to time to sponge off the innovations of others, but the scientists at Bell Labs are giving new meaning to that concept. In an announcement unveiled in the current issue of Nature magazine, Bell scientists say they may have stumbled on a way to dramatically improve the stability and security of optical fiber communications networks, thanks in large part to Euplectellas. For those who need to brush up on their Latin, those are deep-sea sponges. It seems that unbeknownst to us surface dwellers, these undersea invertebrates have - through millions of years of natural evolution - developed extremely resilient optical fibers that, unlike the man-made kind, are not prone to breaking. And it's those nasty little cracks that apparently have been wreaking havoc in our communications infrastructure, causing outages and costing great sums to ferret out and repair. While the fibers of this sponge, commonly known as the Venus Flower Basket, aren't clear enough to be used for industrial purposes, the Bell Labs techies believe they may be able to replicate their resiliency. Now if they can only figure out how to apply that to the Northeast power grid. But who knows what's next, electric eels?