Taking Holiday E-Com to the Street

I wonder how Uncle Heathcliffe would look in a 'Purple Sugar Daddy' lid," mused the Mouser, who was doing all of this year's holiday shopping online at PimpHats.com.

I wonder how Uncle Heathcliffe would look in a Purple Sugar Daddy lid," mused the Mouser, who was doing all of this years holiday shopping online at PimpHats.com. The fly Furball wondered about the state of e-biz in general as he completed his order. It seemed like only yesterday young punks were telling His Hirsuteness that the Web ruled and that paper was dead. Now, this holiday season is seeing e-tailers like Amazon, Yahoo and eBay jamming circulars and inserts into Sunday newspapers in an attempt to drum up business. In an even stranger twist, the Katt has heard recent reports from the Big Apple that Barnesandnoble.com has actually resorted to placing fliers under automobile windshield wipers. It certainly wouldve been hard to believe a year ago that a dot-com would be advertising in the same way as a local pizza parlor.

"It probably wouldnt hurt business if B&Ns gift cards could be universally used, not just at the brick-and-mortar stores but online as well," the Feline fumed.

His shopping done, the Kitty decided to sift through the Litterbox for some nuggets of note. A longtime Katt crony tells El Gato that 2ndWave may be in serious trouble. According to the Furballs friend, the MSP has fired its CEO and VP after only four months on the job. The tipster claims that the company, which has offices in California, Texas and New York, needs to surf down the pipeline to some new deals by February or March or face a wipeout.

Spencer was glad he took the Superfly route for his holiday gifts, especially after hearing that Apples iPod and Compaqs iPaq portable music devices may not be able to play music from some legal subscription services. It seems that content from the MusicNet and Pressplay services may not work on the players. Considering that most of the Napster clones, like MusicCity, Grokster and Kazaa, are up to their G clefs in legal battles—it seems a shame that an incompatibility with such devices and legit subscription services could exist. "Grandmall be iced out in her bling bling and the pink fur club hat I got her," touted the Tabby. "Shell hook up her own groove."

The Furball fielded a call from a feline who lives between a microwave tower and a Maryland emergency management radio tower. Since executing a clean install of Windows XP, the tattler said shes been receiving text cell phone messages in any Web-enabled text box on her PC. Claiming calls to Microsoft and Symantec were futile, she thinks the problem may stem from a microphone for voice-enabled text or Soundblaster possibly accepting the radio frequency. An amusing tale, but could such a problem really exist, you ask? The mack daddy Mouser was too busy jamming on how straight up the blue "fur bucket" hat he ordered for himself was to even worry about it. Peace out, yall.

Have some industry gossip? Send it to spencer_katt@ziffdavis.com.