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They’re wrong, and taking lazy comfort in the most superficial of resemblances. No, Horatio, RSS is not PUSH.

The famously brief success of Pointcast back in the 90’s left us with a number of business lessons, an inconclusive first (and very early) impression of Data Subscription, and the annoying buzz phrase “Push” Technology, which immediately had to be balanced against “Pull” Technology.

Once Pointcast was extinct, and people lacked for an actual example they could study and think about, the “Push” and “Pull” lost their high-tech cache, and very soon nobody knew what they were supposed to mean anymore, beyond their prior significance on the doors of the world.

Then, of course, the bubble burst, and the last thing anybody wanted to think about was a company that had failed before the bubble burst.

For those who don’t remember or were too young, Pointcast gave you ad-subsidized, user-configurable content (news, movie listings, horoscopes, weather, etc.) to the desktop. It ran on a large client-side application you had to download.

Millions did.

Pointcast failed not because it wasn’t popular. It was IMMENSELY popular. It failed because it choked up all the bandwidth of corporate networks, and brought traffic to a crawl. CTO’s told CEOs who told HR Directors who told employees that Pointcast was as bad as a virus, and you’d be fired if you had it installed on your desktop. Well, that’ll put a damper on demand…

Very soon, senior managers and executives from all corners of commerce will be openly and unashamedly consuming “porn” at the office. The word “PORN” will be heard in the corridors of even the most starch-stiffened of companies.

Announcing “Linegrazing“, a new section of this new blog where the cunning, craft and science of the online porn business will be dissected for your enjoyment and valuable edification.

Linegrazing exists because the following two statements are true:

1. For being fundamentally different from every other industry, the porn industry has spawned practices that are not to be found in any other industry.

2. Judgements about the morality of porn and aversion to controversy have kept mainstream businesses at arm’s length of the business of porn.

As a result, very little transfer of business intelligence has occurred. Though the obstruction affected both directions, and though both porn and mainstream have been denied some intelligence from the other side, porn has suffered no penalty to profit. In fact, porn = profit.

Hence, profitLAB.

Linegrazing refers to the “line” that separates pornography from everything else. Be advised: to study porn and to harvest its online marketing best practices, we will draw near to, graze, and cross that line.

If you are a businessperson interested in exploring the instructive potential of the online porn business, you’re invited to read Linegrazing. If you are the principal of a mainstream online business interested in maximizing your revenues, profitLAB has a number for you to consider. Yes, it IS possible to increase your company’s online revenues and profits without crossing the line. Fine gradations.

Jack Mardack

ps: the young lady whose endowments are pictured above is tASSy, a friend.