Politech mailing list archives
FC: Predictions of Disney Net-takeover wrong: Go.com is dead
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:39:35 -0500
http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=01/01/29/211230 Disney Pulls Plug on Go.com posted by lizard on Monday January 29, @03:38PM from the jon-katz-wrong-again dept. MSNBC is reporting that Disney is shutting down its GO portal. Lizard was right, Katz was wrong. Rant follows. OK, here's the scoop. A long time ago, on a web site far, far, away, the perennially trying-to-get-hep-and-groovy-with-all-you-cool-young-dudes Jon Katz wrote about how Disney, which, being a corporation, is inherently evil, was going to destroy the net with it's Go network. The war is over! The mouse has won! The corporate uberstate has triumphed! We're all doomed, doomed, doomed! Intoned Katz: "Go.com has emerged as a sleeper... They are almost impossible to compete with... Like the Hotel California, you can check out any time, but you can never really leave... Go.com may be a watershed in the evolution of Net and Web media.... Go.com makes it instantly clear that Disney will buy whatever it needs to make its Website competitive..." Well, Go.com is dead. Katz was wrong. This is news on the level of "Dog bites man" or "Pope condemns abortion" or "Mideast peace talks break down." I, of course, was right. And I'm happy to admit I'm not too big a man too gloat over it. Here's what a lot of failed portals and dotcoms and other such types are learning the hard way. The appeal of the Internet is not content -- it's the ability to create content. We are on the net because we can be readers and writers, because the line between artist and audience is erased. From Ultima Online to Usenet, the net thrives because the users are part of the "product." Any "content" site based on a passive consumption model is dead on arrival. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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- FC: Predictions of Disney Net-takeover wrong: Go.com is dead Declan McCullagh (Jan 30)