An Exciting Turn of Events (POD 1999, Tech/Pop Culture)

NHBChamp

October 12, 1999
MEDIA, DOT-COM STOCKS PLUNGING IN THE WAKE OF DISNEY ALLEGATIONS​

Following the SEC’s report connecting Disney to fraudulent claims of accounting fraud, the stock price of Disney has plummeted from its September high of $40 to just $14 yesterday. As a direct result of the SEC report and the declining stock prices, Disney’s board of directors fired CEO Michael Eisner last Friday. Roy E. Disney, the company’s interim CEO, also stated that Disney plans to sell off Go.com and GeoCities, the companies whose acquisition prompted Disney to go after Yahoo.

Other companies have also been negatively affected by the scandal. Viacom, who is due to merge with CBS in 2000, experienced a -20% dropoff. Some investors have advised the companies to cancel the merger if the decline continues. Other media conglomerates have also seen falling stock prices, with Time Warner’s stock prices plummeting from $110 to $70, and Fox Entertainment Group saw its stock prices fall from $15 to $9.

However, the most concerning turn in the stock market may be in the previously-booming tech industry. NASDAQ, which seemed set to surpass 3500 later this month, has fallen in value to 2500. theGlobe.com, which reported the biggest gains in history from its IPO in November of 1998, is now worth only 30% of what it was worth at its height in April, and other startups such as Pets.com and Inktomi have also been severely affected. Even industry giants such as AOL, which had been seeking to merge with many of the embattled media companies mentioned above, have experienced losses, with shares in AOL selling for $10 less than they did a month ago.

Many analysts have pointed to the failure of Disney’s online ventures as evidence that many dot-com companies have been overvalued, a sentiment which appears to have gained traction among investors. This appears to have confirmed the predictions of market watchers who believed that the surge in tech stocks would eventually lead to a bubble burst. Robert Shiller, who is currently writing a book on the subject, declared the surge to be “a classic example of irrational market behavior.”

“People thought that demand would keep on rising, even though historically that’s rarely happened,” said Shiller in an interview with The New York Times.
 
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NHBChamp

October 18, 1999

DISTRICT COURT ISSUES FINDINGS OF FACT IN US V. MICROSOFT CASE
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With all the news focusing on the drama between Yahoo and Disney, it is easy to forget that one of the world’s largest tech companies is being sued by the U.S. government. Thomas Penfield Jackson, judge of the District Court of the District of Columbia, has issued preliminary findings of fact in the antitrust suit against the company. The court found that Microsoft had engaged in monopolistic behavior over the past few years by restricting the options of consumers seeking to choose operating systems for their PCs and by bundling Internet Explorer within their operating system, which limited consumer’s exposure to other browsers. With regards to PCs, Jackson said that “it is almost impossible to find a consumer-grade Intel PC that does not run Windows” and that “working with Microsoft is a requirement to create a successful application,” which gives the company “an unacceptable level of control” over the PC market.

Microsoft has admitted to controlling most of the PC market, but claims that it has not engaged in any harmful behavior, a claim that Jackson calls “anathema to the very purpose of antitrust laws.”


Microsoft has since transferred development of Internet Explorer to RealNetworks, and has promised not to bundle the program with the upcoming Windows 2000. Jackson briefly broke from his criticism of Microsoft to commend the company’s decision to cooperate in this area, saying that while the company has been guilty many times over of stifling competition, “[Microsoft] has taken action to end its pattern of anticompetitive behavior in the browser market with its sale of Internet Explorer.” However, it is unclear if this fact will affect the outcome of the case.


Microsoft claims that it is too early to reserve judgement on Microsoft’s guilt, given that the government will not present conclusions of law until December, and a verdict will not be issued until 2000. Despite this, Microsoft’s already-declining stock prices took another dive following the publication of the findings. It is unclear what remedy would be proposed by the DoJ if Microsoft is ruled to be an illegal monopoly, which seems likely given the contents of the findings of fact. In the past, monopolies such as Standard Oil and the Bell System have been broken up into regional companies. However, Microsoft’s centralized operations make it unclear how this process would work. Microsoft will likely appeal if they are penalized, meaning that the lawsuit will likely remain active for a while. Microsoft competitors Sun Microsystems and Caldera Systems have filed similar suits against Microsoft, which will be affected by Jackson’s ruling.
 
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NHBChamp

October 23, 1999

YAHOO! FILES SUIT AGAINST DISNEY SEEKING $10 BILLION IN DAMAGES​

Following the SEC’s finding that a Disney employee was responsible for false accusations of accounting fraud at Yahoo!, the company has filed a $10 billion defamation suit against Disney. The suit is the largest defamation case in US history, and according to Yahoo!, the hefty price comes from “the tremendous damage to Yahoo! and its investors from the decline in the value of Yahoo! shares which was a direct result of the false allegations.”


Disney management was not directly implicated by the SEC report, but given that ABC, a Disney-owned company, was the first to break the news, Yahoo!’s lawyers believe that other Disney employees conspired with the anonymous “whistleblower” in order to defame Yahoo!. Given the immense sum sought by Yahoo!, the “whistleblower” was not sued directly.


Given that the SEC’s conclusions have generally been accepted, the California district court is expected to hear the case in the following months. However, many observers are worried about the implications of the lawsuit should Yahoo! be awarded the full damages. Raymond Vasvari, legal director for the ACLU, issued a statement saying that “While Yahoo! may have a legitimate complaint in this case, we caution the judge presiding over this case to issue a verdict that does not set a precedent for infringing on the rights of legitimate whistleblowers and other critics of the powerful.”


Disney has claimed that the whistleblower acted alone and that nobody else at the company knew that the allegations were false. “The whistleblower was merely seeking revenge against his/her former employer,” said John Dreyer, a spokesman for Disney, who also noted that the company believes that it has identified the whistleblower following an internal investigation.


Regardless of what happens to Disney, the company has already announced that it will sell Go.com and GeoCities, the most visible parts of the companies’ internet division. No company has publicly expressed interest in buying the websites, but companies such as AOL and Lycos have been named as potential buyers.
 
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NHBChamp

December 20, 1999

DISNEY RESTRUCTURING AMIDST ONGOING LAWSUIT, LYCOS NAMED AS BUYER FOR GO.COM, GEOCITIES​


Following the departure of CEO Michael Eisner, interim CEO Roy E. Disney (the nephew of Walt) and the remaining board members of the company have made sweeping changes to the company’s inner workings.

For starters, some of Eisner’s ventures into serious films have been put on hold by the new management, who have negotiated for the Hollywood Pictures and Miramax divisions of the company to be sold off.

Disney has also shaken up its animation division in order to prioritize the production of quality films. Disney MovieToons, the division responsible for lower-budget animated films which are typically released directly to video, has been downsized, with many of its animators being moved into Disney’s feature animation studio.

One of the more notable appointments to the board of directors is Steve Jobs, who works with Disney in his role as CEO of Pixar Animation Studios. Disney’s deal with the company gave it the rights to the company’s characters and to produce sequels, but these terms have been too much for many at the company. Indeed, the upcoming film Toy Story 2 (the release date of which was pushed back to March because of Disney’s scandal) was made in part to prevent Disney from writing their own Toy Story 2 without Pixar’s approval. Jobs’s appointment to the board is expected to lead to a loosening of these requirements.

Lycos has also been confirmed as the buyer for the Go.com and GeoCities divisions of Disney. Go.com, which has received more negative media coverage than GeoCities, will likely be shut down, although links to disney.go.com, espn.go.com, and abc.go.com will continue to direct users to their respective websites. GeoCities, however, will become a part of Lycos’s pre-existing family of web hosting services, which currently includes Angelfire and Tripod. A representative of Lycos told CNN that the website’s user interface, which was greatly changed by Disney, will be restored to its previous state in order to please website owners who disapproved of Disney’s changes. The merger comes as Lycos suffers severe losses as the dot-com boom comes to a halt.
 

NHBChamp

HIGHEST-GROSSING MOVIES OF 1999, WORLDWIDE
1. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (Fox), $1,024,034,145
2. The Sixth Sense (Disney), $620,932,751
3. Tarzan (Disney), $455,875,234
4. The Matrix (Warner Bros.), $450,345,023
5. The Mummy (Universal), $409,493,105
6. The World Is Not Enough (MGM), $359,763,092
7. Notting Hill (Universal), $353,098,458
8. American Beauty (DreamWorks), $343,693,922
9. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (New Line), $330,233,192
10. Runaway Bride (Paramount), $318,546,902

 

NHBChamp

January 10, 2000

AMAZON/eBAY MERGER IN THE WORKS, BILL GATES TO EXIT AS CEO OF MICROSOFT​


Although many investors and startups expected the dawn of a new millennium would bless them with increased profits, the stock market has barely recovered from its downturn late last year. It appears that the millennium bug has struck early, and in a different fashion than was expected. While movie studios have slowly recovered from the damage done by the Yahoo whistleblower scandal, dot-com startups have not. Many startups which focus on online shopping, such as the online pet store Pets.com and the grocery business Webvan, have been hit hard by the market crash. However, the announcement of a merger between Amazon and eBay has given hope to some investors who had given up on this area of the market. Employees of both companies have confirmed that while the two companies will become one entity, with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in charge, the two websites will remain separate for the time being.


In other tech-related news, Bill Gates announced his intention to step down as CEO of Microsoft. This development was not unexpected, given that Gates has been associated in the media with the antitrust suit against the company which is pending in federal court. Microsoft President Steve Ballmer will succeed Gates as CEO, but Gates will remain at Microsoft as Chairman of the Board. Microsoft has also been suffering from the downturn in the stock market, which has worried PC manufacturers whose computers run Microsoft’s OS.
 
Electric Monk

Electric Monk

I’m guessing this is a “merger” where Bezos saves cash in not buying eBay since Amazon usually runs light and in return pays the management of eBay handsomely? Obviously eBay shareholders wind up with more valuable Amazon/eBay stock, though there might be some unrest since a purchase would have given them more cash.
 

NHBChamp

Electric Monk said:
I’m guessing this is a “merger” where Bezos saves cash in not buying eBay since Amazon usually runs light and in return pays the management of eBay handsomely? Obviously eBay shareholders wind up with more valuable Amazon/eBay stock, though there might be some unrest since a purchase would have given them more cash.
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I admit I don't know that much about how this works. I thought of it as a merger of equals, so Amazon didn't have to actually buy eBay. Thanks for the advice, I might consider the implications of this merger in the future.
 

NHBChamp

January 17, 2000


CHECHEN WAR DRAGS ON AS RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES SEEM NO CLOSER TO CAPTURING WANTED TERRORISTS​


Defeating the Chechen insurgency has proven harder than expected for the Russian military, as Chechen forces remain in Dagestan and maintain control of the Chechen capital Grozny. The reasons for the success of the Chechen invasion are unknown, but many observers have credited the onslaught of terrorist attacks in areas away from the battleground, which has diverted some of the attention away from the chaos in occupied territory. December’s bombing in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), for instance, killed 89 people and led to a 10-day long manhunt. Given that the Chechen culture is vastly different from that of most of Russia, many Russians consider preventing attacks on Russian soil more important than invading Chechnya. However, this has put Russia on the defensive, giving the Chechens an advantage on their home turf.

Unlike the previous Chechen war, however, a large portion of the insurgents are of Arab descent and have volunteered their service in declaring jihad on Russia. Members of the terrorist group al-Qaeda, which is currently based in Afghanistan, moved into Chechnya in the months leading up to the war and now number approximately 100. Russian and American intelligence officers have concluded that al-Qaeda has been instrumental in planning terrorist attacks against Russian cities. However, these members of al-Qaeda have thus far been able to avoid capture by hiding in remote locations and blending in with the Chechen militants.


Russian president Vladimir Putin, who is running for election to a full term in March, has pledged to strengthen the military response and capture the leaders of the Chechen resistance. He has called for the imposition of martial law on Chechnya, stating that Russia’s withdrawal from Chechnya in 1996 was “a tremendous mistake which much be remedied.” Putin’s current government has begun to organize a propaganda campaign supporting the Russian government, parts of which seem to implicitly blame Yeltsin and Putin’s opponents for the war.
 
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NHBChamp

January 31, 2000
SUPER BOWL XXXIV HIGHLIGHTS​

1ST QUARTER:

The Buccaneers kept control of the ball for most of the first quarter. An incomplete pass by Trent Dilfer briefly gave the ball to the Colts, but the Bucs’ defense prevented the Colts from advancing. Mike Alstott scored a 20-yard touchdown with one minute left in the quarter, leaving the score at 7-0 at the quarter’s end.

2ND QUARTER:

The Colts came back in the second quarter, with Marshall Faulk leading a drive which ultimately led to the Colts scoring a field goal. A return by Warrick Dunn gave the ball back to the Buccaneers, but after one possession the Colts got the ball back and proceeded to score another field goal. The Buccaneers were in possession of the ball when the quarter ended with a score of 7-6.

HALFTIME SHOW:

In the wake of the company’s legal battles, the halftime show veered away from its originally-planned Disney theme to a general-purpose extravaganza. The show celebrated the new millennium, with musicians performing various hits of the past century and symbolically “passing the torch” to the up and coming artists of the 21st century.

3RD QUARTER:

The game intensified in the second half, with Dunn leading a 70-yard drive only to be intercepted by Colts safety Billy Austin. The Colts were not able to return the play, and the Buccaneers scored a 10-yard touchdown. The Colts followed this up with a 30-yard drive which culminated in a failed field goal attempt. The Buccaneers recovered the ball and advanced 13 yards, and Mike Alstott scored a 60-yard touchdown, but was unable to complete the conversion, bringing the score to 20-6.

4TH QUARTER:

The Colts turned around and led a drive to the Buccaneer’s 30-yard line. The Bucs’ defense managed to block the Colts’ first three attempts, but on the 4th down Peyton Manning completed a 18-yard pass to Jerome Pathon, followed up by a successful touchdown pass to Karsten Bailey. The Buccaneers quickly moved to secure their lead and advanced 60 yards towards the Colts’ end zone. However, the Colts’ defense proved insurmountable and the Buccaneers instead opted for a field goal. The goal was successful, and time ran out before the Colts had time to reach the Bucs’ side of the field, ending the game with a score of 23-13 and giving the Bucs their first Super Bowl win.

THE ADS:

Following the downturn in the stock market, many companies who were slated to run ads during the game sold their airtime to other companies. Notably, Netbang’s halftime spot, which the company bought in November, expecting the dot-com bubble to be a passing phase, was sold to Pizza Hut for $6 million, almost three times its market price. Pizza Hut used this opportunity to run a longer-than-usual commercial featuring a band of merry chefs baking a pizza while singing until they are interrupted by a delivery boy and go back to normal.

The final commercial for Toy Story 2, which comes out in March, aired just before the second quarter began. It features a clip from the film of Buzz Lightyear talking to another Buzz Lightyear who lives at the toy store and still believes himself to be a real space ranger.

Some of the most memorable commercials, however, came from Miller Lite, mocking the commercials of Budweiser which have traditionally dominated the Super Bowl. The series features many disappointed parties of people drinking Bud Light, which via jump-cuts are replaced by Miller Lite, leading to much happiness. The ads, directed by English director Edgar Wright, are expected to be repeated many times after the Super Bowl as part of a larger campaign.
 

NHBChamp

Nivek said:
When bucanners is possible, WTF the Colts got that far? even with peyton manning sophmore season the team was pretty shaky...still that was something unique
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In real life, they did manage to recover from their previous season by going from 3-13 to 13-3, so I figured they could've probably done the same thing ITTL (even if it was unlikely). They still would've had Peyton Manning, and they didn't trade Marshall Faulk to the Rams in this timeline. (Maybe you can give me advice on how to do sports, as I don't know enough about early 2000s sports to include many more sports updates.)
 

Nivek

NHBChamp said:
In real life, they did manage to recover from their previous season by going from 3-13 to 13-3, so I figured they could've probably done the same thing ITTL (even if it was unlikely). They still would've had Peyton Manning, and they didn't trade Marshall Faulk to the Rams in this timeline. (Maybe you can give me advice on how to do sports, as I don't know enough about early 2000s sports to include many more sports updates.)
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In OTL they sucessfuly Staled the rams and without Faulk is possible they could win if the rams just relied on kurt warner passing, and yeah Manning+Faulk would have been the GSOT in Indianapolis instead, still make sense just suprise. Nice idea.
 

NHBChamp

February 17, 2000
MICROSOFT RELEASES WINDOWS 2000, ANNOUNCES CANCELLATION OF ODYSSEY OPERATING SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT TO FOCUS ON NEPTUNE​

Today was the launch date for the long-anticipated Windows 2000 operating system. To mark the launch, newly-minted Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer organized commemorative events in Seattle featuring speakers such Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell and Compaq CEO Ben Rosen. Going against Microsoft’s original plans to design Windows 2000 mainly for business usage, Ballmer declared that a version of Windows 2000 for home computers would be sold in the coming months.

The new Windows Store, which was created over the past few months to ease antitrust negotiations with the government, was revealed at the press conference by RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser. RealNetworks is behind Internet Explorer 5.5, the most important product on sale through the store, as unlike previous iterations of Windows, Windows 2000 does not come with the browser pre-installed. Glaser revealed that Microsoft will also sell PC games through the browser, although which games are to be sold have not been announced.

Although Windows 2000 was the main event, news also surfaced about the development of Microsoft’s next operating system, which will be based on the same NT kernel as Windows 2000. The business-oriented Project Odyssey OS has been cancelled, with development resources being redirected towards the consumer-oriented Project Neptune, which had experienced many delays. The plan is believed to indicate that Microsoft is making a shift towards a combined business and home experience.
 

NHBChamp

March 26, 2000
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 72nd ACADEMY AWARDS​

Unsurprisingly, American Beauty was the big winner of the night, winning Best Picture, along with wins for first-time director Sam Mendes and actor Kevin Spacey. Star Wars: Episode I- The Phantom Menace became the first Star Wars film to lose in the Visual Effects category, with The Matrix winning the award instead. As for the other acting awards, Hilary Swank won Best Actress, Angelina Jolie won Best Supporting Actress, and Tom Cruise won Best Supporting Actor.

The nominations were notably lacking in movies produced or distributed by Disney, with The Sixth Sense (which received many nominations at the Golden Globes) notably being shut out. This was likely a result of last year’s management shakeup at Disney, which forced the company to suspend its campaign for its awards. The Best Original Song award, which is typically a shoo-in for the company, was instead won by the song “Blame Canada” from the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut. South Park co-creator Trey Parker gave a confusing, yet funny, improvised acceptance speech praising the “gods of Hollywood” for giving them the Oscar, and dedicating the award to South Park voice actor Mary Kay Bergman, who committed suicide before the film’s release.

The In Memoriam reel paid tribute to the many great icons of Hollywood who died in the past year, such as George C. Scott, Alec Guinness, Hedy Lamarr, and Dudley Moore. A particularly heartfelt tribute was given to Robert Downey Jr., who died in a car accident only two weeks prior to the ceremony.
 
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