Rough Drafts

The Standard’s business-to-business conference attracts lots of B2B market makers, but very few buyers or sellers — those who would actually use the markets. How much of the B2B boom is really just hype? “Among the rosy predictions and case studies lurks a sense of uncertainty. B-to-b is still very

Here’s a worthwhile c!net analysis on how consumer heavyweights Yahoo, AOL, and eBay are getting into B2B — and what it might mean: Net giants target business e-commerce

Everybody’s doing B2B now: aerospace and paper industries get into the act. Four Largest Aerospace, Defense Firms Near Agreement to Form Web Venture (subscription site) Largest U.S. Paper Firms Team Up To Launch Online Marketplace (subscription site) Paper Companies Plan Online Marketplace

Afraid to stand up to the likes of Microsoft and RealNetworks, pussycat privacy-protection organization TRUSTe is trying to show it’s tough by beating up on MotherNature.com: TRUSTe Cracks the Whip

Car buyer beware: It turns out that online sources for car pricing information, including Kelly Blue Book and Edmunds.com, may not have such accurate information after all — in fact, they often report prices hundreds of dollars higher than the SRP. Car shoppers often pay more online

CompUSA’s new owners clean house, get rid of management responsible for Cozone.com debacle. CNET.com – CompUSA names new CEO WSJ Interactive CompUSA Announces a Shuffle Of Management as CEO Resigns (subscription required)

Petroleum Electronic Pricing Exchange, or PEPEX, will enable its participants to electronically negotiate sales at www.pepex.net, which is scheduled to begin trading products May 1. Web Petroleum Marketplace Unveiled

Redherring.com – Shop Talk: Marine industry proves big B2B challenge- March 21, 2000

Mark Hurst passed along an interesting item from his own weblog at goodexperience.com. He criticizes the idea that computers should be designed to interact with people on an emotional level — for instance, responding with friendly noises when you hug the computer, I guess. It would be much better, M

AOL is about to roll out the next version of Netscape Navigator, as the company struggles to figure out what to do with its browser, portal, and all. Most pathetic hope: the browser’s open source model will make it easy to create custom versions of the browser for the media giant’s many different br

The good news: The queen of all dictionaries, the OED, is finally making itself available over the Internet. The bad news: The OED is no Encyclopedia Britannica, giving itself away for free: You’ll need to pony up at least 1,000 UK pounds to buy access. Oxford English Dictionary goes online

Here’s an interesting article on an early Unix BBS in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that dates back to 1983. Predating the Web by seven years, M-Net still boasts a healthy community who regularly frequent its Unix shell-based bulletin boards and live chat rooms. M-Net’s software also wound up being used by t