h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

An act of bob?

Peet, no, the number U244980 was just before midnight GMT.

Email dosnt lie
I will show everyone the (Editors) email


H2g2 will charge ALL users

I Thank you for your time

Go on then put your money where your mouth is.

You still haven't said *which* editors!

shazz - no s in the office

Editors with email capability apparently. I don't think that narrows it down much! Though the h2g2 Editors (in)famously emailed stuff before to a bunch of people which was meant to be private. Poor H.

yet again ...

To be honest with you it just souinds like s/he is trying to get a rise out of us. Maybe they should raise the mental age limit on h2g2 instead

Mel

.........WHAT!!!

Being charged to use hootoo?

Seem a little far fetched to me anyway.

There's an interesting question though...

Say the BBC disowned h2g2, for their own reasons or whatever, would people be willing to pay a subscription fee?

Is the previous advertising plan known definitively to be a non-starter or was h2g2 simply in the wrong place at the wrong time with too few people? I guess only Jim or Peta might know how close h2g2 was to being a success before having to sell out to the BBC. It certainly has more people now. That should make a difference to advertisers if it were ever to be considered again.

I don't think it's as simple as counting the number of people signed up, SEF. You have to figure out how money goes into drawing people in and keeping them at the site and how much it costs to run the site, and then subtract that from the advertising dollars. That last part is the problem, since the subtraction tends to leave you with a negative number.

At the time h2g2 gave up the commercial ghost, web advertisers were dropping the price they were willing to pay. This drop only accelerated afterwards as the dotcom industry bottomed out.

We're at the point now where America OnLine - a large American-based internet service provider (ISP) that charges monthly fees in addition to its liberal use of advertising - is losing money. And from what I've read, this can be chalked down pretty much entirely to advertising devaluation. It was a very profitable business just a few years ago.

I really doubt h2g2 would have survived if they'd stuck it out longer.

I have just got an email direct some somebody saying that Record_breaker is infact the ghost of Roy Castle who has shead his nice guy image and wants to disturpt this community !

It's much more likely that the ghost of Roy Castle would be urging on the "No No No" thread, writing about tap dancing and requesting a trumpet smiley. He also seemed far more literate than the posts made by U244980 appear to be.

Oi, oi oi! I'm the tap dancing correspondent round here

*points to "Murder on the Dancefloor column in *

so that Roy Castle can go and play 'is trumpet someplace else!

Roy Lives or!!!

Good old Roy - he was my inspiration when I started tap dancing many moons ago

We were talking earlier about the changes in BBC's internet division and pressures put on the Auntie Beeb by commercial stations moving in, and the owners who are now verbally challenging the BBC charter.

I read an interesting article comparing the change in America's media due to similar influences, and how critics are starting to fight back. On surface, the article sounds critical of the BBC. But read a little deeper, and you'll see it's written in support of a renewed charter.

Opinionist Joe Conason writing for The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1044416,00.html

Oops, clarification. The article isn't against the BBC at all. I just wasn't familiar with 'Beebwatch' and drew the wrong conclusion!

Just in case you weren't feeling old enough today, this will certainly change things. Each year the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin puts together a list to try to give the Faculty a sense of the mindset of this year's incoming freshman.

Here is this year's list:
The people who are starting college this fall across the nation were born in 1983.
They have no meaningful recollection of the Reagan Era and probably did not know he had ever been shot.
They were prepubescent when the Persian Gulf War was waged.
There has been only one Pope in their lifetime.
They were 10 when the Soviet Union broke apart and do not remember the Cold War.
They are too young to remember the space shuttle Challenger blowing up.
Tianamen Square means nothing to them.
Bottle caps have always been screw off and plastic.
Atari predates them, as do vinyl albums.
The statement "You sound like a broken record" means nothing to them.
They have never owned a record player.
They have likely never played Pac Man and have never heard of Pong.
They may have never heard of an 8 track. The Compact Disc was introduced when they were 1 year old.
They have always had an answering machine.
Most have never seen a TV set with only 13 channels, nor have they seen a black and white TV.
They have always had cable.
There have always been VCRs, but they have no idea what BETA was.
They cannot fathom not having a remote control.
They don't know what a cloth baby diaper is, or know about the "Help me, I've fallen and I can't get up" commercial.
Feeling old Yet? There's more:
They were born the year that Walkmen were introduced by Sony.
Roller skating has always meant inline for them.
Michael Jackson has always been white.
Jay Leno has always been on the Tonight Show.
They have no idea when or why Jordache jeans were cool.
Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave.
They have never seen Larry Bird play.
They never took a swim and thought about Jaws.
The Vietnam War is as ancient history to them as W.W.I, W.W.II and the Civil War.
They have no idea that Americans were ever held hostage in Iran.
They can't imagine what hard contact lenses are.
They don't know who Mork was or where he was from. (The correct answer, by the way, is Ork)
They never heard: "Where's the beef?", "I'd walk a mile for a Camel," or "DE plane, DE plane!"
They do not care who shot J. R. and have no idea who J. R. was.
Kansas, Chicago, Boston, America, and Alabama are places, not bands.
There has always been MTV.
They don't have a clue how to use a typewriter.
Do you feel old yet? If you do, then pass this on to some other 20 old fogies...but don't send it back to me, I feel old enough.