LETTERS - Letter to the Editor

Industry Standard, The, April 16, 2001

"Do you think it was just by chance that the tape recorder used by the Mission: Impossible team to get their instructions was a Craig?"

BIG OL'JET AIRLINERS

I'M AMAZED THAT YOUR TIMELINE ON Boeing's history ["Boeing's Big Move," April 2] did not include two of its most famous airplanes.

I worked on the first passenger jet, the 707, in 1956. The B-52, much more prominent than the B-47, carried us through several wars from 1953 up to the present.

Robert Morrisette

Owner

Dolphin Business Services

writer77@att.net

I'M THINKING SYNERGY

REGARDING THE "FILE SWAPPING: 18 AND Over" Post in your April 2 issue, is no one else seeing the light here?

Surely a merger between Napster and Pronster with interesting viewable images while songs download ...

Robert Green

Advertising Director, West Coast

Revolution

robert.green@revolutionmagazine.com

THIS LETTER WILL SELF-DESTRUCT

BEING, I PRESUME, YOUNGER AND INEXPErienced, Terry Lefton and contributor Ben Hammer are to be forgiven for not knowing what they should about product placement in TV and movies ["You Can't Zap These Ads," March 26], but someone at the magazine should know better. To say that in the past "product placement might involve a show staffer slipping a product into a scene as an informal thank-you for buying an ad" is absurd.

As senior VP of marketing for Pioneer Electronics in the early 1980s, I spent more than $100,000 a year under contract with a company whose mission was to strategically place Pioneer's products in movies and TV. Do you think it was just by chance that the tape recorder used by the Mission: Impossible team to get their instructions was a Craig?

Bill Matthies

Partner

Coyote Insight

wmstthies@coyoteinsight.com

TIVO: NO ONE'S WATCHING

ELINOR ABREU'S ARTICLE ABOUT TWO ["Snooping on the Couch Potatoes," www.thestandard.com, March 26] snooping into the lives of viewers is misplaced, in my opinion. I have worked with online advertisers and ad firms and lived through the privacy storm years ago.

The issue on the Internet is more about personal information -- Social Security numbers, passwords, porn proclivity, visits to cancer research sites -- than the more general type of data TiVo could possibly collect.

If I decide to tape a show or skip a commercial, TiVo and advertisers would be hard-pressed to make concrete assumptions about me personally for the following reasons: One, they do not know whether my wife, my 10-month-old daughter or I hit the Skip button for a specific commercial. Two, I cannot store personal info on the service the way I can on Web sites. Three, this is not any more egregious than the existing, albeit flawed, services offered by Nielsen and so on.

Thomas Eaton

thomaseaton@eurekaggn.com

BIDDING ON TRUST

PROJECTING THE IMPENDING DEMISE OF eBay due to recent accounts of shill bidding and miscreants possessing good ratings is premature ["Not a Pretty Picture," March 26].

Murders take place daily, as do robberies, rapes and vandalism. It would be premature for an individual -- and certainly irresponsible for the media -- to project the demise of society because of acts performed by reprobates. Total freedom from crime is never an option, even while transacting on eBay.

Numerous academics are currently conducting research on eBay showing that users acquiring negative feedback receive lower final prices for goods they sell on the site -- proof that the feedback system is effective.

Although eBay admittedly is less than forthcoming in releasing information pertaining to fraud, its overwhelming success alone proves it is a safe marketplace.

Mark Steckbeck

Economics Department

George Mason University

msteckbe@gmu.edu