BE DOPE NEWS (BDN) Industry analysts believe they have traced what is being called the "largest work slowdown in Web history" to its root cause - the release of the Net Positive beta from Be, Inc.

Be, Inc. earlier this week made available to the public a beta version of its Net Positive web browser that improved not only on speed, but on user customization and page-rendering stability. This set in motion a chain of events no one could have predicted.

"I've always loved Net Positive for its speed," said one BeOS user, "but in the past it sometimes had trouble rendering my favorite pages, such as Slashdot.org. With the beta release, I can view 99% of my favorite web pages reliably and faster than ever before."

This typical reaction to the Net Positive beta increased usage of the Net Positive browser tenfold. That's when webmasters began to take notice.

"I'm analyzing the night's logs and I keep seeing entries for this 'Net Positive/BeOS' combo I've never seen before," said an anonymous webmaster at Hotwired. "So I order the BeOS to check it out and WHAM! - I'm hooked cruising the web with this thing."

"We were sure there was some secret new networkable game making the rounds and sucking up the time of even the most dedicated webmasters," said industry analyst John C. Dvorak. "However, discovering the BeOS as the cause of the timesuck is not a big leap of logic - it too is powerful, fun and addicting."

The same process was repeated around the globe, and copies of the BeOS were soon being installed and investigated on a large scale everywhere as webmasters puzzled over the "Net Positive" log entries.

One webmaster summed up the attituded in a newsgroup posting that read "surfing the web is finally fun again."

Citing the need to earn a living, many webmasters have paused their Net Positive surfing to return to work, but note that Net Positive and the BeOS have now become their web-cruising tools of choice.

New Stories
New stories by the author of Be Dope can be found at Segfault.org

e Villa Celebration
Did you know all of Be Dope's e Villa stories are available via one handy page?

Be Dope Merchandise
These remaining tshirts are sure to be a collector's item someday. Buy now.