chairman | Kris Smith has read these articles about "chairman" | www.croncast.com Kris Smith http://www.croncast.com/keyg/chairman This is the keyword feed for "chairman" from my read items in Google Reader. If you would like to search or subscribe to category/keyword rss feeds for items that I have shared with Google Reader visit http://www.croncast.com/c4_reading.php en-us Copyright for these items belong to their original publishers. No Croncast, Kris, Betsy, Comedy, Parenting, Funny, Palegroove, Croncast, eBay, Goodwill This is the keyword feed for "chairman" from my read items in Google Reader. This is the keyword feed for "chairman" from my read items in Google Reader. http://www.croncast.com/images/croncast_itunes.jpg chairman | Kris Smith has read these articles about "chairman" | www.croncast.com http://www.croncast.com/keyg/chairman This is the keyword feed for "chairman" from my read items in Google Reader. If you would like to search or subscribe to category/keyword rss feeds for items that I have shared with Google Reader visit http://www.croncast.com/c4_reading.php Croncast - Kris and Betsy Smith info@palegroove.com http://www.croncast.com Palegroove Jim Parsons draws NAB award http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/variety/headlines/~3/fRhGoG8qqMo/VR1118014888 Shared item

Tags: nab award bang chairman big ]]>

Tags: nab award bang chairman big ]]> Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:36:08 -0500 tag:croncast.com,6006 Shape the Next Web Next Week with Augmented Reality and the Semantic Web http://www.techstartups.com/2009/11/11/shape-the-next-web-next-week-with-augmented-reality-and-the-semantic-web/ Shared item By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

marcoIf you are looking for a meetup with more brainpower than horsepower you need to be in New York next week. Don't come for Web 2.0 East, come for the Augmented Reality Lounge being hosted by and at Portner Novelli on November 17th at 7:00 p.m..

In this room will be some of the brightest stars from the Augmented Reality and Semantic worlds. You heard that right, AR and Semantic nerds in one room. Two of the most powerful forces that are shaping how the next web will be architected and delivered both on pc's and mobile. The work of both groups will be the defining factors in how you experience the world around you.

If you would take part in shaping the future of the internet, these are the folks you should meet and talk to. Many of them are going to be in town for a panel on AR at the Web 2Open, an unconference event at the Web 2.0 Conference. The others are based in New York and take part in the Semantic Web Meetup Group. That group is organized by one of the AR panelists and semantic technologist, Marco Neumann (@neumarcx).

Other members of this panel include:

This meetup before the event is the brainchild of John C. Havens (@johnchavens), the author of the book and blog Tactical Transparency and lead organizer for the first PodCamp NYC that helped to define all that followed. John has a strong interest in Augmented Reality and saw the obvious ties between the AR world and the Semantic side that I was talking to him non-stop about.

The Augmented Reality Lounge is an event that Marco described as:

The Semantic Web is an ideal candidate to become the fabric for Augmented Reality applications in the near future. The global availability of HTTP and the flexibility of RDF, the foundational framework for the Semantic Web, make it a perfect match for distributed, heterogeneous and networked applications that can help to enable emergent Augmented Reality services.

Believe me, if there is an iteration of the web that you should be a part of it is this one. The foundation that is being built from semantic data and the interaction with the real world that augmented reality presents is one that your ideas should be a part of.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/4

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Shape the Next Web Next Week with Augmented Reality and the Semantic Web is a post from: TechStartups.com



Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,



Tags: web semantic augmented reality meetup ]]>By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

marcoIf you are looking for a meetup with more brainpower than horsepower you need to be in New York next week. Don't come for Web 2.0 East, come for the Augmented Reality Lounge being hosted by and at Portner Novelli on November 17th at 7:00 p.m..

In this room will be some of the brightest stars from the Augmented Reality and Semantic worlds. You heard that right, AR and Semantic nerds in one room. Two of the most powerful forces that are shaping how the next web will be architected and delivered both on pc's and mobile. The work of both groups will be the defining factors in how you experience the world around you.

If you would take part in shaping the future of the internet, these are the folks you should meet and talk to. Many of them are going to be in town for a panel on AR at the Web 2Open, an unconference event at the Web 2.0 Conference. The others are based in New York and take part in the Semantic Web Meetup Group. That group is organized by one of the AR panelists and semantic technologist, Marco Neumann (@neumarcx).

Other members of this panel include:

This meetup before the event is the brainchild of John C. Havens (@johnchavens), the author of the book and blog Tactical Transparency and lead organizer for the first PodCamp NYC that helped to define all that followed. John has a strong interest in Augmented Reality and saw the obvious ties between the AR world and the Semantic side that I was talking to him non-stop about.

The Augmented Reality Lounge is an event that Marco described as:

The Semantic Web is an ideal candidate to become the fabric for Augmented Reality applications in the near future. The global availability of HTTP and the flexibility of RDF, the foundational framework for the Semantic Web, make it a perfect match for distributed, heterogeneous and networked applications that can help to enable emergent Augmented Reality services.

Believe me, if there is an iteration of the web that you should be a part of it is this one. The foundation that is being built from semantic data and the interaction with the real world that augmented reality presents is one that your ideas should be a part of.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/4

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Shape the Next Web Next Week with Augmented Reality and the Semantic Web is a post from: TechStartups.com



Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,



Tags: web semantic augmented reality meetup ]]> Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:34:47 -0500 tag:croncast.com,5710 Whose Internet is it, anyway? http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/fcc-neutrality.html Shared item homepage
First shared by - tamihania
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 1

Last week, the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, broke with precedent by proposing federal rules that enforce Net neutrality the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) shouldn't play favorites with the traffic traveling over their networks.

Proponents argue that Net neutrality promotes innovation. If software developers find more efficient ways to use the Internet, the argument goes, they shouldn't fear reprisal from ISPs that sell competing products. Broadband providers that also offer landline phone service shouldn't degrade the quality of Internet telephone calls in order to preserve their market share; the same goes for cable companies and Internet video.

But ISPs argue that they sometimes need to throttle back traffic sent by heavy users. Otherwise, they say, the network will become congested and slow to a crawl; thousands of casual users will pay the price for a few customers sucking up a disproportionate share of bandwidth. If they lose the ability to regulate traffic, the ISPs argue, they'll have to greatly increase network capacity and their customers will bear the cost.

David Clark, a researcher in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory who for most of the 1980s was the Internet's chief architect, has been following the Net neutrality debate for decades and spoke with the News Office about the FCC's proposed rules.

Q: In what respect do ISPs have a legitimate concern?

The Internet is not, in terms of cost for byte, terribly expensive, but neither is it free. You can find some numbers reported informally in the press, and I think the numbers are somewhat reasonable, that for a residential ISP to deliver another gigabyte of information to you, the cost in terms of the investment they make in facilities allocated to that gigabyte is about ten cents. So if I watch Internet television eight hours a day every day of the month, I'm probably generating several dollars in cost. It's not several hundred dollars in cost; it's several dollars in cost. But that's probably the ISP's profit margin.

Q: So what can the ISP do?

A while back Comcast announced that they were putting a monthly cap on their Internet users over the cable system. The cap they announced was 250 gigabytes a month. And nobody blinked, because that's maybe 50 or 100 times what the average Internet user was doing.

What if I said to you, okay, for $40 a month, which is what most people pay today, I'm going to do something much more restrictive than what Comcast did: you can transfer 100 gigabytes? For $50 a month, we'll take the cap off, and you can transfer as much as you want. For an additional $10, would the high-end guys be willing to do that? A lot of people today pay a little extra to get a higher peak rate; many people subscribe to a premium version of Internet service. I think most people would say, if the high-end people are paying an extra $10 a month, that's not burdensome..

People's fear in this space is that if we take one step away from the current pricing model of all-you-can-eat flat pricing, that the world will end. All of a sudden we'll be paying by the byte, which I think everyone understands will be a real inhibitor of experimentation on the market.

Q: But why is a usage cap any better than paying by the byte?

I was talking to somebody in a school district, and they said, look, we couldn't possibly afford a per-byte charge because some kid could come and get a program running on the computer and leave it running over the weekend and blow our entire year's budget.

I really think that's the point. The user at home wants to be protected from amazing overage charges. His computer goes into a loop, or it has a virus, and the computer has five days where it does nothing but splash data out full time, and you get a bill at the end of the month for $5,000. That's what terrifies everybody. But in the wireless space, many of the broadband services are fixed price with a usage cap, and the market deals with that much better than with a per-byte charge. Because nobody knows with an Internet application how many bytes it sends. Will this cost me a penny or a dime or a dollar? But they can average over a month. They look at the bill: I sent three gigabytes last month. The cap was five. Okay! They can deal with that.

The only question is, when usage caps come in, will they be done in a reasonable way, or will lack of competitive discipline allow ISPs to try things that are really pretty abusive?

Q: But given that many cable providers and phone companies are basically local monopolies, is there enough competition to provide that pressure?

As a rule of thumb, it's nice to see four or five competitors in a market. And we only have two wireline [phone and cable] in most markets. So you might say that two isn't really enough. On the other hand, when I watch Comcast and Verizon, in our serving area here, slugging it out on television with their ads, boy there's a lot of competition going on there. Just observing what I've seen on television, they believe that they're in a very competitive situation. Comcast just sent me a note that said, "We've upgraded your service." Why'd they do that? Because they're subjected to the pressures of competition.

Q: One of Chairman Genachowski's comments that's gotten a lot of attention is that Net neutrality rules will apply to wireless services as well. What do you see happening there?

Spectrum is more scarce than, say, the capacity on the fiber to your house. When you get into a heavily used cell where a number of people are trying to do bit-rate-intensive things, there are going to be real issues in managing that scarcity and allocating it. I quoted you a number of what it cost to do a gigabyte: that number applies to an Internet service provider that's large, that's got scale, and that's probably operating in a metropolitan or suburban area. People don't want to show you their exact business models, but I've seen situations that look like that number for a rural wireless provider was more like a dollar a gigabyte.

I think the thing we're going to debate in the wireless space is whether or not there are classes of behaviors that seem to be associated with classes of applications. Should those behaviors be limited? Whether the wireless guys will say, "Look, you just can't watch as much video as you want." And they can do that in two ways. One of them is, they can say you have a monthly cap of three gigabytes. Go crazy! You want to watch video, you can blow out your monthly quota in about two days. And then you're going to be cranky. Or they could say, we're going to block certain video applications. I'm in favor of a usage cap over application-specific discrimination. Because the usage cap really does reflect to some extent what the ISP's cost structure is. Give the consumer choice.



internet cap cost month say

Tags: internet cap cost month say ]]>homepage
First shared by - tamihania
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 1

Last week, the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, broke with precedent by proposing federal rules that enforce Net neutrality the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) shouldn't play favorites with the traffic traveling over their networks.

Proponents argue that Net neutrality promotes innovation. If software developers find more efficient ways to use the Internet, the argument goes, they shouldn't fear reprisal from ISPs that sell competing products. Broadband providers that also offer landline phone service shouldn't degrade the quality of Internet telephone calls in order to preserve their market share; the same goes for cable companies and Internet video.

But ISPs argue that they sometimes need to throttle back traffic sent by heavy users. Otherwise, they say, the network will become congested and slow to a crawl; thousands of casual users will pay the price for a few customers sucking up a disproportionate share of bandwidth. If they lose the ability to regulate traffic, the ISPs argue, they'll have to greatly increase network capacity and their customers will bear the cost.

David Clark, a researcher in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory who for most of the 1980s was the Internet's chief architect, has been following the Net neutrality debate for decades and spoke with the News Office about the FCC's proposed rules.

Q: In what respect do ISPs have a legitimate concern?

The Internet is not, in terms of cost for byte, terribly expensive, but neither is it free. You can find some numbers reported informally in the press, and I think the numbers are somewhat reasonable, that for a residential ISP to deliver another gigabyte of information to you, the cost in terms of the investment they make in facilities allocated to that gigabyte is about ten cents. So if I watch Internet television eight hours a day every day of the month, I'm probably generating several dollars in cost. It's not several hundred dollars in cost; it's several dollars in cost. But that's probably the ISP's profit margin.

Q: So what can the ISP do?

A while back Comcast announced that they were putting a monthly cap on their Internet users over the cable system. The cap they announced was 250 gigabytes a month. And nobody blinked, because that's maybe 50 or 100 times what the average Internet user was doing.

What if I said to you, okay, for $40 a month, which is what most people pay today, I'm going to do something much more restrictive than what Comcast did: you can transfer 100 gigabytes? For $50 a month, we'll take the cap off, and you can transfer as much as you want. For an additional $10, would the high-end guys be willing to do that? A lot of people today pay a little extra to get a higher peak rate; many people subscribe to a premium version of Internet service. I think most people would say, if the high-end people are paying an extra $10 a month, that's not burdensome..

People's fear in this space is that if we take one step away from the current pricing model of all-you-can-eat flat pricing, that the world will end. All of a sudden we'll be paying by the byte, which I think everyone understands will be a real inhibitor of experimentation on the market.

Q: But why is a usage cap any better than paying by the byte?

I was talking to somebody in a school district, and they said, look, we couldn't possibly afford a per-byte charge because some kid could come and get a program running on the computer and leave it running over the weekend and blow our entire year's budget.

I really think that's the point. The user at home wants to be protected from amazing overage charges. His computer goes into a loop, or it has a virus, and the computer has five days where it does nothing but splash data out full time, and you get a bill at the end of the month for $5,000. That's what terrifies everybody. But in the wireless space, many of the broadband services are fixed price with a usage cap, and the market deals with that much better than with a per-byte charge. Because nobody knows with an Internet application how many bytes it sends. Will this cost me a penny or a dime or a dollar? But they can average over a month. They look at the bill: I sent three gigabytes last month. The cap was five. Okay! They can deal with that.

The only question is, when usage caps come in, will they be done in a reasonable way, or will lack of competitive discipline allow ISPs to try things that are really pretty abusive?

Q: But given that many cable providers and phone companies are basically local monopolies, is there enough competition to provide that pressure?

As a rule of thumb, it's nice to see four or five competitors in a market. And we only have two wireline [phone and cable] in most markets. So you might say that two isn't really enough. On the other hand, when I watch Comcast and Verizon, in our serving area here, slugging it out on television with their ads, boy there's a lot of competition going on there. Just observing what I've seen on television, they believe that they're in a very competitive situation. Comcast just sent me a note that said, "We've upgraded your service." Why'd they do that? Because they're subjected to the pressures of competition.

Q: One of Chairman Genachowski's comments that's gotten a lot of attention is that Net neutrality rules will apply to wireless services as well. What do you see happening there?

Spectrum is more scarce than, say, the capacity on the fiber to your house. When you get into a heavily used cell where a number of people are trying to do bit-rate-intensive things, there are going to be real issues in managing that scarcity and allocating it. I quoted you a number of what it cost to do a gigabyte: that number applies to an Internet service provider that's large, that's got scale, and that's probably operating in a metropolitan or suburban area. People don't want to show you their exact business models, but I've seen situations that look like that number for a rural wireless provider was more like a dollar a gigabyte.

I think the thing we're going to debate in the wireless space is whether or not there are classes of behaviors that seem to be associated with classes of applications. Should those behaviors be limited? Whether the wireless guys will say, "Look, you just can't watch as much video as you want." And they can do that in two ways. One of them is, they can say you have a monthly cap of three gigabytes. Go crazy! You want to watch video, you can blow out your monthly quota in about two days. And then you're going to be cranky. Or they could say, we're going to block certain video applications. I'm in favor of a usage cap over application-specific discrimination. Because the usage cap really does reflect to some extent what the ISP's cost structure is. Give the consumer choice.



internet cap cost month say

Tags: internet cap cost month say ]]> Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:24:12 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5591 Socialtext Mobile: Business Activity Streams On the Go http://mashable.com/2009/09/09/socialtext-mobile/ Shared item

headerIf you're one of the many enterprise (and increasingly, small business) users of Socialtext, you'll be excited about today's Socialtext Mobile beta launch news. If you're in the market for an Enterprise 2.0 solution for your business, there's even more reason to get Socialtext on your roadmap.

In addition to a mobile web-based application rolling out free to all customers, there are also three new dashboard widgets launching in the Socialtext web app that bring activity streams to the fore as a primary focus. The new widgets display not only what's most recent but also which content and people are most active, as well as offering a set of other powerful attention filters to help surface the most important activity happening in your workspaces and teams.

Starting out as primarily a wiki company back in 2002, Socialtext has grown to include a buffet of collaboration tools for the enterprise including blogging, microblogging, social spreadsheets, people profiles, activity streams, and a dashboard that pulls everything together in one view.

The Socialtext Desktop is an Adobe AIR client application for interfacing with Socialtext think of it like Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop for Twitter. The newly launching Socialtext Mobile app has a similar interface so will feel familiar to users of the desktop app, as well as sharing many of its features.

socialtext-bbAlthough the mobile app has only been tested thoroughly for the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry platforms, since it is a browser application and not a platform-specific client it should work well in most full-featured browsers for other platforms including Windows Mobile and Symbian. That's one of the reasons the app will officially be considered in beta, so there will be more time to test the remaining platforms with a larger user base.

When asked why Socialtext decided to go the web app route instead of the platform-specific route, President and Chairman Ross Mayfield indicated in an interview that quicker time to market and lower overall cost were the driving factors. It's a lower development and support cost not just for us, but for our customers as well, who at the enterprise level would otherwise need to support multiple platforms instead of a single web app.

To access the app, all current Socialtext customers need to do is log into Socialtext from a mobile device, and the system will detect and direct you to Socialtext Mobile. For teams and businesses interested in giving Socialtext's approach to collaboration a try, the hosted service is free for up to 50 users with some restrictions. The goal with both the web and mobile applications is essentially to go beyond the push mechanism of the email inbox and use activity streams to connect with colleagues in real-time, from anywhere.

Let us know if you have a chance to try out Socialtext Mobile, and give us your thoughts on the beta version.

Reviews: Android, Seesmic Desktop, TweetDeck, Twitter, adobe AIR

Tags: activity streams, android, blackberry, Enterprise 2.0, iphone, Mobile 2.0, real-time, socialtext, wikis



Tags: socialtext mobile app activity web ]]>

headerIf you're one of the many enterprise (and increasingly, small business) users of Socialtext, you'll be excited about today's Socialtext Mobile beta launch news. If you're in the market for an Enterprise 2.0 solution for your business, there's even more reason to get Socialtext on your roadmap.

In addition to a mobile web-based application rolling out free to all customers, there are also three new dashboard widgets launching in the Socialtext web app that bring activity streams to the fore as a primary focus. The new widgets display not only what's most recent but also which content and people are most active, as well as offering a set of other powerful attention filters to help surface the most important activity happening in your workspaces and teams.

Starting out as primarily a wiki company back in 2002, Socialtext has grown to include a buffet of collaboration tools for the enterprise including blogging, microblogging, social spreadsheets, people profiles, activity streams, and a dashboard that pulls everything together in one view.

The Socialtext Desktop is an Adobe AIR client application for interfacing with Socialtext think of it like Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop for Twitter. The newly launching Socialtext Mobile app has a similar interface so will feel familiar to users of the desktop app, as well as sharing many of its features.

socialtext-bbAlthough the mobile app has only been tested thoroughly for the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry platforms, since it is a browser application and not a platform-specific client it should work well in most full-featured browsers for other platforms including Windows Mobile and Symbian. That's one of the reasons the app will officially be considered in beta, so there will be more time to test the remaining platforms with a larger user base.

When asked why Socialtext decided to go the web app route instead of the platform-specific route, President and Chairman Ross Mayfield indicated in an interview that quicker time to market and lower overall cost were the driving factors. It's a lower development and support cost not just for us, but for our customers as well, who at the enterprise level would otherwise need to support multiple platforms instead of a single web app.

To access the app, all current Socialtext customers need to do is log into Socialtext from a mobile device, and the system will detect and direct you to Socialtext Mobile. For teams and businesses interested in giving Socialtext's approach to collaboration a try, the hosted service is free for up to 50 users with some restrictions. The goal with both the web and mobile applications is essentially to go beyond the push mechanism of the email inbox and use activity streams to connect with colleagues in real-time, from anywhere.

Let us know if you have a chance to try out Socialtext Mobile, and give us your thoughts on the beta version.

Reviews: Android, Seesmic Desktop, TweetDeck, Twitter, adobe AIR

Tags: activity streams, android, blackberry, Enterprise 2.0, iphone, Mobile 2.0, real-time, socialtext, wikis



Tags: socialtext mobile app activity web ]]> Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:17:17 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5528 Limewire Adds Facebook Support, Bit Torrent Seeding http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wiredbusinessblog/~3/EAX5aPIydtc/ Shared item lw_log-in-promoFile sharing veteran Limewire released a new version of its gnutella/bit torrent client Wednesday that lets users share files with their Facebook friends, download files faster via bit torrent, and seed files back into the bit torrent network.

Version 5.2 also revamps the program's private sharing feature, launched in December. Rather than sharing each file with specific people, you can now create a list of files to share with all of your personal contacts, making it easier to share vacation photos, videos and so on while keeping any potentially racier content private.

Rather than creating its own social network, Limewire put its hooks into the networks people already use, which is a wise strategy. Between twitter, blogs, email, Facebook, instant messaging, text messaging, and something called a telephone, we hardly need another way to keep tabs on our friends.

Those who prefer to organize media on their own computers, rather than trusting it to Flickr, Vimeo and so on, will likely appreciate the way Limewire lets them serve media directly to their friends, even if the hey, I just shared something with you alert comes through another service (i.e. Facebook).

The main drawback to Limewire's private sharing feature is that both users need to be running Limewire at the same time in order to share. If Limewire's creators intend for us to keep the app running at all times, they might want to think about creating separate preferences for maximum upload speed for friends and maximum upload stream for strangers, to avoid running up against ISP file bandwidth limits. Limewire product manager Nathan Lovejoy told us via phone that he'll consider adding that suggestion to a future version.



Tags: limewire files sharing friends share ]]>lw_log-in-promoFile sharing veteran Limewire released a new version of its gnutella/bit torrent client Wednesday that lets users share files with their Facebook friends, download files faster via bit torrent, and seed files back into the bit torrent network.

Version 5.2 also revamps the program's private sharing feature, launched in December. Rather than sharing each file with specific people, you can now create a list of files to share with all of your personal contacts, making it easier to share vacation photos, videos and so on while keeping any potentially racier content private.

Rather than creating its own social network, Limewire put its hooks into the networks people already use, which is a wise strategy. Between twitter, blogs, email, Facebook, instant messaging, text messaging, and something called a telephone, we hardly need another way to keep tabs on our friends.

Those who prefer to organize media on their own computers, rather than trusting it to Flickr, Vimeo and so on, will likely appreciate the way Limewire lets them serve media directly to their friends, even if the hey, I just shared something with you alert comes through another service (i.e. Facebook).

The main drawback to Limewire's private sharing feature is that both users need to be running Limewire at the same time in order to share. If Limewire's creators intend for us to keep the app running at all times, they might want to think about creating separate preferences for maximum upload speed for friends and maximum upload stream for strangers, to avoid running up against ISP file bandwidth limits. Limewire product manager Nathan Lovejoy told us via phone that he'll consider adding that suggestion to a future version.



Tags: limewire files sharing friends share ]]> Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:31:19 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5352 Bernanke Optimistic On Economic Recovery http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106860006&ft=1&f=1001 Shared item Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers Tuesday the economy shows "tentative signs of stabilization." Nevertheless, he said, the Fed's "highly accommodative" monetary policy will need to stay in place for an extended period.

E-Mail This Add to Del.icio.us



Tags: fed bernanke policy monetary accommodative ]]>Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers Tuesday the economy shows "tentative signs of stabilization." Nevertheless, he said, the Fed's "highly accommodative" monetary policy will need to stay in place for an extended period.

E-Mail This Add to Del.icio.us



Tags: fed bernanke policy monetary accommodative ]]> Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:00:00 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5339 Current Replaces CEO With MTV and Ad Industry Vet http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newteevee/~3/huI8SMGx8IE/ Shared item

Multiplatform video company Current Media said today that Mark Rosenthal, the former president and COO of MTV Networks and CEO of Interpublic Media, will replace co-founder Joel Hyatt as CEO.

RosenthalRosenthal had been a Current board member since the inception of the company. Hyatt will now serve as vice chairman.

Rosenthal had most recently been vice chairman and president of media platforms at the troubled ad startup Spot Runner, which he joined a little over a year ago from Interpublic.

Current says its cable channel is available in more than 60 million households and its web site has more than 7 million unique visitors per month. Chairmain Al Gore said in a recent speech that the site now receives more than 10 million video views per month.

The most notable news out of Current in recent months is something it hasn't actually covered the imprisonment of two of its journalists. Laura Ling and Euna Lee are being held in North Korea after being convicted for trespassing there while they were on assignment from the network.

With no disrespect to that terrible situation, Current still has some really fantastic talent we love the folks at InfoMania (recent coverage) and some great opportunities to make the web and TV work together. But it hasn't always been smooth sailing, and the network scrapped IPO plans earlier this year, citing the bad economy. In the run-up to the IPO we had also challenged the company's claims that it was profitable.

Current's most recent management hire was Paul Levine, president of new media, who had previously been with AdBrite.

Sorry about the poor quality pic; Current hasn't updated its management files yet.

GigaOM Pro: Smart insights at the pace of the digital media market. Get the latest research on trends and tech shaping the future of entertainment. Learn more


Tags: current media recent rosenthal million ]]>

Multiplatform video company Current Media said today that Mark Rosenthal, the former president and COO of MTV Networks and CEO of Interpublic Media, will replace co-founder Joel Hyatt as CEO.

RosenthalRosenthal had been a Current board member since the inception of the company. Hyatt will now serve as vice chairman.

Rosenthal had most recently been vice chairman and president of media platforms at the troubled ad startup Spot Runner, which he joined a little over a year ago from Interpublic.

Current says its cable channel is available in more than 60 million households and its web site has more than 7 million unique visitors per month. Chairmain Al Gore said in a recent speech that the site now receives more than 10 million video views per month.

The most notable news out of Current in recent months is something it hasn't actually covered the imprisonment of two of its journalists. Laura Ling and Euna Lee are being held in North Korea after being convicted for trespassing there while they were on assignment from the network.

With no disrespect to that terrible situation, Current still has some really fantastic talent we love the folks at InfoMania (recent coverage) and some great opportunities to make the web and TV work together. But it hasn't always been smooth sailing, and the network scrapped IPO plans earlier this year, citing the bad economy. In the run-up to the IPO we had also challenged the company's claims that it was profitable.

Current's most recent management hire was Paul Levine, president of new media, who had previously been with AdBrite.

Sorry about the poor quality pic; Current hasn't updated its management files yet.

GigaOM Pro: Smart insights at the pace of the digital media market. Get the latest research on trends and tech shaping the future of entertainment. Learn more


Tags: current media recent rosenthal million ]]> Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:39:29 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5247 The Dirty Backstabbing Mess Called Betamax vs VHS [Format War] http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/D46mKnrL7Ik/the-dirty-backstabbing-mess-called-betamax-vs-vhs Shared item You think you enjoyed Blu-ray vs HD DVD? Memory Stick vs SD? Pshaw! You haven't seen a format war until you've witnessed the betrayal and bloodbath that was Betamax vs VHS.

Sony was supposed to win this. The company made magnetic tape out of like paper and mud back in the 1940s, turned out a "pocketable" transistor radio in the 1950s, and invented the "portable" television by 1960. They had their first video tape recorder by 1963. They weren't the only ones, but they were among the first and best.

The so-called VTR business had a rocky start. The things were hulking bastards, with huge price tags and poor recording capability.

A company called Ampex put out the first "home entertainment" VTR in 1963, only it cost $30,000 in the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog, and was nicknamed Grant's Tomb because the product manager who thought it up was going to be shoved inside by the company's accountants. (He would have fit, too, the thing was so big.) Sony comes along in the middle of that decade and puts out a $1,200 "portable" VTR that came with a leatherette case and its own TV. It still weighed 65 pounds.

The worst part about these 1960s VTRs was that they were basically reel-to-reelyou had to thread your own 1-inch videotape through spools and stuff, and by the end of the decade, a one-hour spool of tape was like 8 inches in diameter. Can you imagine your TiVo needing 180 spools of videotape to get the job done?

As Sony toiled on the videotape problem, Matsushitawho we now call Panasonicand its independent subsidiary JVC weren't really standing out in the VTR business. Let's say this: Nobody would have guessed they'd be able to overthrow Sony and kick mecha ass within the decade.

However, these guys were among the biggest manufacturers, dwarfing Sony many times over. Matsushita, known for efficiency, not innovation, tended to focus on big boring appliancesTVs, refrigerators, air conditionerswith a smaller team, branded Technics, devoted to dominating the hi-fi realm. JVC was all about TVs and audio gear, and had decent video know-how.

It was Sony who solved the reel-to-reel problem withta daaa!a video cassette. It was called U-Matic, and at 3/4" thick, it was smaller than the earlier formats, but still a bit of a chunkster. Since video was a bit of a Wild West, Sony felt like it needed partners to firmly establish a format, and to avoid a format war. It asked Matsushita and JVC, who said "yes" as long as Sony adopted some changes. They key here: The partnership included a deal where everybody shared all the patents. Turns out, probably not the smartest move by Sony.

Sony was right to form a posse, though. Every single electronics maker in Japan, Europe and America was trying to build a video recorder. Some American firms were obsessed with lasers (though ironically it would later be the Dutch and Japanese firms who actually put lasers to good use); other American firms were jazzed about microfilm...for video. None of them had success. Before we get on with the story, here's a list of totally failed video players and recorders:

Matsushita VX-100 and VX-2000
Matsushita AutoVision
Toshiba/Sanyo V-Cord
Ampex InstaVision
MCA DiscoVision/Magnavox Magnavision
CBS Electronic Video Recording
RCA HoloTape
Sears/Cartridge Television Cartrivision

See what I mean? A friggin' mess it was.

Part of the problem was the message. Nobody knew what the hell this was all about. Sony wasn't just a pioneer in the technology, they thought hard about how to explain why you totally desperately want something bad. At one point, Sony hired Bela Lugosi to dress up one last time as Dracula, and explain that, since he worked nights, he needed to catch up on primetime shows when he got home. Get it? Vampiresthey're out killing people when Barney Miller is playing! It was a good bit, and there were a lot more like it. Little by little, the public caught on to what VCRs were for.

Anyway, U-Matic, launched in 1971, wasn't a runaway success, either, but it was the bestselling video recorder to date, and the first successful VCR. In the realm of pro video, it was hot. Sony cashed in by steering from the home market to the businesses but JVC, who kept trying to pitch it for home use, got hosed. Like villains in some Shakespearean play, Matsushita and JVC kinda lurked in the background, planning for the next round when they might one-up that little charmer, Sony. The name of their plot? Video Home System, which you and I call VHS.

Sony was naive. Like, crazy naive. In 1974, it asked Matsushita and JVC to partner up again, this time on a fully baked format called Betamax. They weren't asking for intellectual collaboration, just a deal to make and sell the things. It was a nice system, with really small tapes, but the problem was, the tapes only recorded for an hour. Sony was like, "That's not a problem," but everyone else was like, "Yes, it is." The would-be partners dragged their heels suspiciously, not signing any deals. Sony kinda thought that was weird, but went ahead and launched the one-hour Betamax box in 1975.

Big mistake.

Not long after Sony went into wide release with the one-hour Betamax, JVC pulled a two-hour VHS out of its butt. And in time for Christmas 1976 no less. Sony had another flash of naivete when it pressed on with the one-hour system for a while, even though it had a two-hour system in the works. In that gap, JVC and its big poppa Matsushita scored sales and recognition.

Some people say Betamax was "better" but that depends on many factors, and could very well be an urban myth. The technologies were so close Sony's own chairman called VHS a copy of Betamax. What may have looked good in one system with certain settings might not look as good on another with different settings. And by some accounts, Betamax's more moving parts meant they were more expensive to manufacture and more costly to maintain and repair. It's not an open-and-shut case of quantity vs. quality. Either way you look at it, there are compromises.

By this point, it wasn't just some anything-goes contest with a million formats. By 1976, all those above had died or were dying. In Japan, there were just two choices. The Japanese government told everyone to sort it out. Hitachi, Mitsubishi and Sharp joined Team VHS, but didn't really move forward.

In February 1977, Sony grabbed Toshiba and Sanyo, and then signed the American powerhouse brand Zenith up for an order of Sony-made Betamaxes with the Zenith name on them. Was it going to happen for Betamax after all? Seemed like they'd finally drawn at least a few good cards from the deck.

Sony might not have been totally screwed at that moment, but there were two American powerhouses, and the other one, RCA, was undecided. Ironically, the fate of the Japanese VCR industry relied on how well it could handle the most American of sports: Football. In other words, now that both players could manage two hours of recording time, what RCA wanted was enough recording time to capture a gamethree hours would do.

What transpired next is unclear. Even though, at the time, both technologies were limited to two-hour capacity, Matsushita pledged to make RCA tape machines that could record for four hours.

Was this a lie? Was it vaporware? Whatever the deal, JVC engineers pulled off a four-hour capacity six weeks later, and RCA agreed to buy 55,000 machines that year, and up to a million more in the next three years. Better yet, RCA's SelectaVision VHS decks would cost $300 less than the two-hour Betamaxes, at $1000 a pop.

Although Betamax hung on for a bit longer, that, boys and girls, was the end of the competition. In 1979, Sony market share tilted downward, and by 1980, the jig was up for those poor bastards.

Note: I recognize that there are other issues that might have come into play here, including Universal's lawsuit of Sony, which lead to today's Supreme Court definition of fair-use copyright law, and the fact that some studios, including Warner, began squeezing movies onto videotape early, with varying degrees of success. However, I contend that none of that changed the outcomethe war above was fought between Sony and Matsushita, and Matsushita won.

SOURCES:
Fast Forward: Hollywood, The Japanese, and the VCR Wars - James Lardner (Special thanks to you, Jim, for chatting me through some of this)
Sony - John Nathan
The History of Television - Albert Abramson
Sony History - Sony Global Website
Made in Japan - Akio Morita
Quest for Prosperity - Konosuke Matsushita
[PDF] Case Report on Betamax - Verardi et al
"Why VHS was better than Betamax" - Guardian UK - Jack Schofield

Gizmodo '79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born.





Tags: sony betamax matsushita video hour ]]>You think you enjoyed Blu-ray vs HD DVD? Memory Stick vs SD? Pshaw! You haven't seen a format war until you've witnessed the betrayal and bloodbath that was Betamax vs VHS.

Sony was supposed to win this. The company made magnetic tape out of like paper and mud back in the 1940s, turned out a "pocketable" transistor radio in the 1950s, and invented the "portable" television by 1960. They had their first video tape recorder by 1963. They weren't the only ones, but they were among the first and best.

The so-called VTR business had a rocky start. The things were hulking bastards, with huge price tags and poor recording capability.

A company called Ampex put out the first "home entertainment" VTR in 1963, only it cost $30,000 in the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog, and was nicknamed Grant's Tomb because the product manager who thought it up was going to be shoved inside by the company's accountants. (He would have fit, too, the thing was so big.) Sony comes along in the middle of that decade and puts out a $1,200 "portable" VTR that came with a leatherette case and its own TV. It still weighed 65 pounds.

The worst part about these 1960s VTRs was that they were basically reel-to-reelyou had to thread your own 1-inch videotape through spools and stuff, and by the end of the decade, a one-hour spool of tape was like 8 inches in diameter. Can you imagine your TiVo needing 180 spools of videotape to get the job done?

As Sony toiled on the videotape problem, Matsushitawho we now call Panasonicand its independent subsidiary JVC weren't really standing out in the VTR business. Let's say this: Nobody would have guessed they'd be able to overthrow Sony and kick mecha ass within the decade.

However, these guys were among the biggest manufacturers, dwarfing Sony many times over. Matsushita, known for efficiency, not innovation, tended to focus on big boring appliancesTVs, refrigerators, air conditionerswith a smaller team, branded Technics, devoted to dominating the hi-fi realm. JVC was all about TVs and audio gear, and had decent video know-how.

It was Sony who solved the reel-to-reel problem withta daaa!a video cassette. It was called U-Matic, and at 3/4" thick, it was smaller than the earlier formats, but still a bit of a chunkster. Since video was a bit of a Wild West, Sony felt like it needed partners to firmly establish a format, and to avoid a format war. It asked Matsushita and JVC, who said "yes" as long as Sony adopted some changes. They key here: The partnership included a deal where everybody shared all the patents. Turns out, probably not the smartest move by Sony.

Sony was right to form a posse, though. Every single electronics maker in Japan, Europe and America was trying to build a video recorder. Some American firms were obsessed with lasers (though ironically it would later be the Dutch and Japanese firms who actually put lasers to good use); other American firms were jazzed about microfilm...for video. None of them had success. Before we get on with the story, here's a list of totally failed video players and recorders:

Matsushita VX-100 and VX-2000
Matsushita AutoVision
Toshiba/Sanyo V-Cord
Ampex InstaVision
MCA DiscoVision/Magnavox Magnavision
CBS Electronic Video Recording
RCA HoloTape
Sears/Cartridge Television Cartrivision

See what I mean? A friggin' mess it was.

Part of the problem was the message. Nobody knew what the hell this was all about. Sony wasn't just a pioneer in the technology, they thought hard about how to explain why you totally desperately want something bad. At one point, Sony hired Bela Lugosi to dress up one last time as Dracula, and explain that, since he worked nights, he needed to catch up on primetime shows when he got home. Get it? Vampiresthey're out killing people when Barney Miller is playing! It was a good bit, and there were a lot more like it. Little by little, the public caught on to what VCRs were for.

Anyway, U-Matic, launched in 1971, wasn't a runaway success, either, but it was the bestselling video recorder to date, and the first successful VCR. In the realm of pro video, it was hot. Sony cashed in by steering from the home market to the businesses but JVC, who kept trying to pitch it for home use, got hosed. Like villains in some Shakespearean play, Matsushita and JVC kinda lurked in the background, planning for the next round when they might one-up that little charmer, Sony. The name of their plot? Video Home System, which you and I call VHS.

Sony was naive. Like, crazy naive. In 1974, it asked Matsushita and JVC to partner up again, this time on a fully baked format called Betamax. They weren't asking for intellectual collaboration, just a deal to make and sell the things. It was a nice system, with really small tapes, but the problem was, the tapes only recorded for an hour. Sony was like, "That's not a problem," but everyone else was like, "Yes, it is." The would-be partners dragged their heels suspiciously, not signing any deals. Sony kinda thought that was weird, but went ahead and launched the one-hour Betamax box in 1975.

Big mistake.

Not long after Sony went into wide release with the one-hour Betamax, JVC pulled a two-hour VHS out of its butt. And in time for Christmas 1976 no less. Sony had another flash of naivete when it pressed on with the one-hour system for a while, even though it had a two-hour system in the works. In that gap, JVC and its big poppa Matsushita scored sales and recognition.

Some people say Betamax was "better" but that depends on many factors, and could very well be an urban myth. The technologies were so close Sony's own chairman called VHS a copy of Betamax. What may have looked good in one system with certain settings might not look as good on another with different settings. And by some accounts, Betamax's more moving parts meant they were more expensive to manufacture and more costly to maintain and repair. It's not an open-and-shut case of quantity vs. quality. Either way you look at it, there are compromises.

By this point, it wasn't just some anything-goes contest with a million formats. By 1976, all those above had died or were dying. In Japan, there were just two choices. The Japanese government told everyone to sort it out. Hitachi, Mitsubishi and Sharp joined Team VHS, but didn't really move forward.

In February 1977, Sony grabbed Toshiba and Sanyo, and then signed the American powerhouse brand Zenith up for an order of Sony-made Betamaxes with the Zenith name on them. Was it going to happen for Betamax after all? Seemed like they'd finally drawn at least a few good cards from the deck.

Sony might not have been totally screwed at that moment, but there were two American powerhouses, and the other one, RCA, was undecided. Ironically, the fate of the Japanese VCR industry relied on how well it could handle the most American of sports: Football. In other words, now that both players could manage two hours of recording time, what RCA wanted was enough recording time to capture a gamethree hours would do.

What transpired next is unclear. Even though, at the time, both technologies were limited to two-hour capacity, Matsushita pledged to make RCA tape machines that could record for four hours.

Was this a lie? Was it vaporware? Whatever the deal, JVC engineers pulled off a four-hour capacity six weeks later, and RCA agreed to buy 55,000 machines that year, and up to a million more in the next three years. Better yet, RCA's SelectaVision VHS decks would cost $300 less than the two-hour Betamaxes, at $1000 a pop.

Although Betamax hung on for a bit longer, that, boys and girls, was the end of the competition. In 1979, Sony market share tilted downward, and by 1980, the jig was up for those poor bastards.

Note: I recognize that there are other issues that might have come into play here, including Universal's lawsuit of Sony, which lead to today's Supreme Court definition of fair-use copyright law, and the fact that some studios, including Warner, began squeezing movies onto videotape early, with varying degrees of success. However, I contend that none of that changed the outcomethe war above was fought between Sony and Matsushita, and Matsushita won.

SOURCES:
Fast Forward: Hollywood, The Japanese, and the VCR Wars - James Lardner (Special thanks to you, Jim, for chatting me through some of this)
Sony - John Nathan
The History of Television - Albert Abramson
Sony History - Sony Global Website
Made in Japan - Akio Morita
Quest for Prosperity - Konosuke Matsushita
[PDF] Case Report on Betamax - Verardi et al
"Why VHS was better than Betamax" - Guardian UK - Jack Schofield

Gizmodo '79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born.





Tags: sony betamax matsushita video hour ]]> Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:00:00 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5235 Journalist Demands Google Give Up Its 'Fair Share' To Newspapers http://techdirt.com/articles/20090716/0346265569.shtml Shared item Google needs to pay up its "fair share" to newspapers. There are numerous problems with the logic in the piece, but they can be summarized in two basic camps: a misunderstanding of the internet and a misunderstanding of economics.

The great thing, by the way, is that the comments on the article highlight pretty much every mistake that Osnos makes -- and, of course, as is oh-so-typical in these situations, Osnos does nothing at all to engage or respond to the comments that call out his mistakes. You want to know why newspapers are failing? It's not because of Google, it's because of this viewpoint that some journalists still hold that they're the masters of the truth, handing it out from on high, wanting nothing at all to do with the riff raff in the comments.

So, what's wrong specifically with the article? Well, he uses as his basis the idea that cable companies (and their subscribers, really) pay TV networks to be carried in cable packages, and suggests that Google should be doing the same thing -- paying newspapers as if they were networks. Of course, there are a few problems there. Television is a broadcast medium with a limit on what can be provided. The economics are entirely different than a communications medium with unlimited "space" for content. Suggesting the two are the same is simply wrong. The economics are entirely different. In one case, you have significant scarcities in terms of what gets "offered." That's not the case with the internet. Ignoring that destroys Osnos' entire argument.

Even more to the point, as one of the commenters to Osnos, Kimota, notes: "It's interesting that cable television was held up as a good example of how to extract subscription fees for content. The American Customer Satisfaction Index from the University of Michigan said in 2007 that cable and satellite TV suffered 'the lowest level of customer satisfaction among all industries covered.'" When your idea of how to save the newspaper business is to take a model mostly beloved by consumers and ask it to mimic a model almost universally hated... that's a problem, right?

The second big problem with Osnos' analysis is that he doesn't appear to understand how Google makes its money. He simply looks at the fact that it's making a ton of money, while newspapers are not, and assumes that Google's actions draw in the money that should have gone to newspapers (hence the "unfairness"). But as Scott Rosenberg notes in the comments again, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how Google makes its money, which has little to nothing to do with news, but in targeted advertisements on transactional searches (searches where people are looking to buy something):
Google makes its money mostly from targeted advertising on product searches and other narrow, directed searches. The advertising on news-related searches is not nearly as valuable. Google could remove all newspapers and journalism content from its Web search catalog tomorrow and lose very little of its revenue. The links to news it provides are valuable to its users but not terribly valuable to its advertisers.
Finally, Osnos makes another big mistake, common among newspaper folks, that whoever breaks the news is obviously the most valuable source. Yet, as we were just discussing, being first doesn't always mean that you have the most useful information. Related to this, Osnos complains specifically about how Sports Illustrated broke a story, but Google News pointed more people to the Huffington Post coverage of that particular story, stating:
Most galling was that The Huffington Post's use of an Associated Press version of SI's report was initially tops on Google, which meant that it, and not SI.com, tended to be the place readers clicking through to get the gist of the breaking scandal would land.... Why did The Huffington Post come up ahead of SI.com? Because, even Google insiders concede, Huffington is effective at implementing search optimization techniques, which means that its manipulation of keywords, search terms, and the dynamics of Web protocol give it an advantage over others scrambling to be the place readers are sent by search engines. What angered the people at Sports Illustrated and Time Inc. is that Google, acting as traffic conductor, seemed unmoved by their grievance over what had happened to their ownership of the story. An SI editor quoted to me Time Inc's editor-in-chief, John Huey, noting crisply that, "talking to Google is like trying to talk to a television."
This, of course, is a gross distortion of reality, and implies totally incorrectly that somehow the Huffington Post has some power over Google that SI.com could not replicate. The fact that Sports Illustrated and other publications have made bad decisions in optimizing their content isn't Google's fault. It's their own fault. Here, let me put this in terms that old "paper" folks might get: If more people go to my store than your store because I put a better ad in the Yellow pages, it's not the fault of the Yellow pages publisher. It's your fault for having a crappy ad. By doing a better job optimizing its content, the Huffington Post effectively better "advertised" itself to Google.

Of course, old school publications like Sports Illustrated could just as easily do the same thing themselves, but they haven't. On top of that, they could offer more useful features and services that attract more people such that they specifically seek out SI's coverage. But, instead, they treat the community the same way Osnos seems to: the riff raff can comment, but they aren't a part of the "real conversation" that occurs outside of the community.

Osnos wants fairness, but the system is amazingly fair. Much more fair than it ever was in the past, in fact. The problem isn't about "fairness." It's about Osnos being upset that in a level playing field pretty much everyone but the newspapers have figured out how to play the game better. What's fair is that the newspapers haven't been able to adjust and their revenue and readership is reflecting that.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story




Tags: google osnos newspapers huffington si ]]>Google needs to pay up its "fair share" to newspapers. There are numerous problems with the logic in the piece, but they can be summarized in two basic camps: a misunderstanding of the internet and a misunderstanding of economics.

The great thing, by the way, is that the comments on the article highlight pretty much every mistake that Osnos makes -- and, of course, as is oh-so-typical in these situations, Osnos does nothing at all to engage or respond to the comments that call out his mistakes. You want to know why newspapers are failing? It's not because of Google, it's because of this viewpoint that some journalists still hold that they're the masters of the truth, handing it out from on high, wanting nothing at all to do with the riff raff in the comments.

So, what's wrong specifically with the article? Well, he uses as his basis the idea that cable companies (and their subscribers, really) pay TV networks to be carried in cable packages, and suggests that Google should be doing the same thing -- paying newspapers as if they were networks. Of course, there are a few problems there. Television is a broadcast medium with a limit on what can be provided. The economics are entirely different than a communications medium with unlimited "space" for content. Suggesting the two are the same is simply wrong. The economics are entirely different. In one case, you have significant scarcities in terms of what gets "offered." That's not the case with the internet. Ignoring that destroys Osnos' entire argument.

Even more to the point, as one of the commenters to Osnos, Kimota, notes: "It's interesting that cable television was held up as a good example of how to extract subscription fees for content. The American Customer Satisfaction Index from the University of Michigan said in 2007 that cable and satellite TV suffered 'the lowest level of customer satisfaction among all industries covered.'" When your idea of how to save the newspaper business is to take a model mostly beloved by consumers and ask it to mimic a model almost universally hated... that's a problem, right?

The second big problem with Osnos' analysis is that he doesn't appear to understand how Google makes its money. He simply looks at the fact that it's making a ton of money, while newspapers are not, and assumes that Google's actions draw in the money that should have gone to newspapers (hence the "unfairness"). But as Scott Rosenberg notes in the comments again, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how Google makes its money, which has little to nothing to do with news, but in targeted advertisements on transactional searches (searches where people are looking to buy something):
Google makes its money mostly from targeted advertising on product searches and other narrow, directed searches. The advertising on news-related searches is not nearly as valuable. Google could remove all newspapers and journalism content from its Web search catalog tomorrow and lose very little of its revenue. The links to news it provides are valuable to its users but not terribly valuable to its advertisers.
Finally, Osnos makes another big mistake, common among newspaper folks, that whoever breaks the news is obviously the most valuable source. Yet, as we were just discussing, being first doesn't always mean that you have the most useful information. Related to this, Osnos complains specifically about how Sports Illustrated broke a story, but Google News pointed more people to the Huffington Post coverage of that particular story, stating:
Most galling was that The Huffington Post's use of an Associated Press version of SI's report was initially tops on Google, which meant that it, and not SI.com, tended to be the place readers clicking through to get the gist of the breaking scandal would land.... Why did The Huffington Post come up ahead of SI.com? Because, even Google insiders concede, Huffington is effective at implementing search optimization techniques, which means that its manipulation of keywords, search terms, and the dynamics of Web protocol give it an advantage over others scrambling to be the place readers are sent by search engines. What angered the people at Sports Illustrated and Time Inc. is that Google, acting as traffic conductor, seemed unmoved by their grievance over what had happened to their ownership of the story. An SI editor quoted to me Time Inc's editor-in-chief, John Huey, noting crisply that, "talking to Google is like trying to talk to a television."
This, of course, is a gross distortion of reality, and implies totally incorrectly that somehow the Huffington Post has some power over Google that SI.com could not replicate. The fact that Sports Illustrated and other publications have made bad decisions in optimizing their content isn't Google's fault. It's their own fault. Here, let me put this in terms that old "paper" folks might get: If more people go to my store than your store because I put a better ad in the Yellow pages, it's not the fault of the Yellow pages publisher. It's your fault for having a crappy ad. By doing a better job optimizing its content, the Huffington Post effectively better "advertised" itself to Google.

Of course, old school publications like Sports Illustrated could just as easily do the same thing themselves, but they haven't. On top of that, they could offer more useful features and services that attract more people such that they specifically seek out SI's coverage. But, instead, they treat the community the same way Osnos seems to: the riff raff can comment, but they aren't a part of the "real conversation" that occurs outside of the community.

Osnos wants fairness, but the system is amazingly fair. Much more fair than it ever was in the past, in fact. The problem isn't about "fairness." It's about Osnos being upset that in a level playing field pretty much everyone but the newspapers have figured out how to play the game better. What's fair is that the newspapers haven't been able to adjust and their revenue and readership is reflecting that.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story




Tags: google osnos newspapers huffington si ]]> Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:48:03 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5214 Bernard Madoff 's Office For Rent (PHOTOS) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/10/bernard-madoff-s-office-f_n_229278.html Shared item NEW YORK (AP) -- Behind unmarked doors on the 17th floor of a red granite high-rise known as the Lipstick Building, FBI agents still labor to unravel a case like no other.

The agents -- already there for more than six months -- say the chore is so daunting, they need to stay in the Manhattan skyscraper at least another year.

And by the way: They intend to hang on to the copy machine.

The former headquarters of Bernard Madoff are a home away from home for the FBI and, as of July 1, a leasing opportunity for any potential tenant who can stomach its status as ground zero of the largest securities swindle in history.

"Some people may see a stigma associated with it," building manager Russell Freeman said on a recent tour of the piece of the three-floor firm that's been put on the market. "But he's out of there. His bad karma has gone with him. ... Space is space."

Space once used by Madoff himself -- a fishbowl corner office with partial views of the East River -- has been emptied of most furniture and paperwork, like the rest of the 19th floor. Only a pair of built-in cabinets and a wall-mounted television, easily 10 years old, remain.

Across the room is a matching corner office where Madoff's brother Peter worked. Two smaller glass offices were for Madoff sons Andrew and Mark. Two filing cabinet drawers still bear stickers with the name "Andy Madoff."

The three men, whose names remain on an automated directory in the building lobby, oversaw a trading floor for Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities that's now a ghost town, dead silent except for the hiss of an air conditioner.

The color theme throughout -- from the refrigerator in a galley kitchen to the trading floor desks to the many conference rooms -- is the minimalist black and ash gray favored by the 71-year-old former Nasdaq chairman, one of the original tenants when the building opened in the mid-1980s.

Floors 17 through 19 became part of a crime scene later last year when the once-prominent money manager confessed that his secretive investment advisory group actually was a massive Ponzi scheme that wiped out thousands of investors. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison last month and on Thursday decided not to appeal the sentence.

The disgraced financier has claimed he alone conned clients by recycling their money to create phantom wealth. But investigators have said they suspect members of Madoff insiders were involved and have been camped out on the 17th floor searching for evidence of a wider conspiracy.

Many of the records were paper or on microfilm and date back decades. Authorities say the firm relied on an old IBM computer to churn out statements that were fictitious.

When the scandal broke, news crews and burned investors flocked to the 34-story skyscraper -- shaped like an open lipstick tube -- to measure the financial wreckage. They didn't get far: Madoff's firm had been sealed off from the public by an army of FBI agents, federal regulators and a trustee appointed to liquidate the business assets.

Since then, the trustee has sold one of Madoff's legitimate trading operations to a new broker-dealer firm that took over the 18th floor. A staircase connecting the 18th and 19th floors will be removed, Freeman said.

As for the 17th floor, trustee Irving Picard wrote in court papers that the FBI "has advised me that they will require access to the space until, at least, approximately July of 2010." It also wanted to continue using a leased Xerox copying machine there. The cost will be covered by an industry group that compensates victims of securities fraud.

Sharing the 17th floor in separate office space is a discount brokerage headed by Wall Street veteran Muriel Siebert, the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange in 1967 and the only tenant allowed a dog. Siebert had a sublet with Madoff and is now paying rent to the trustee.

What remains is the 16,182-square-foot 19th floor. A bankruptcy judge recently authorized the trustee to cancel the Madoff lease there through 2012 with landlord Metropolitan Real Estate Investors, creating the vacancy in a sagging commerical real estate market.

Freeman wouldn't say what Madoff paid in rent, adding that no price has been set for the floor. There have been some feelers, but no firm offers.

Any takers who don't remodel, he said, "will certainly have to like dark colors."



Tags: madoff floor space firm trustee ]]>NEW YORK (AP) -- Behind unmarked doors on the 17th floor of a red granite high-rise known as the Lipstick Building, FBI agents still labor to unravel a case like no other.

The agents -- already there for more than six months -- say the chore is so daunting, they need to stay in the Manhattan skyscraper at least another year.

And by the way: They intend to hang on to the copy machine.

The former headquarters of Bernard Madoff are a home away from home for the FBI and, as of July 1, a leasing opportunity for any potential tenant who can stomach its status as ground zero of the largest securities swindle in history.

"Some people may see a stigma associated with it," building manager Russell Freeman said on a recent tour of the piece of the three-floor firm that's been put on the market. "But he's out of there. His bad karma has gone with him. ... Space is space."

Space once used by Madoff himself -- a fishbowl corner office with partial views of the East River -- has been emptied of most furniture and paperwork, like the rest of the 19th floor. Only a pair of built-in cabinets and a wall-mounted television, easily 10 years old, remain.

Across the room is a matching corner office where Madoff's brother Peter worked. Two smaller glass offices were for Madoff sons Andrew and Mark. Two filing cabinet drawers still bear stickers with the name "Andy Madoff."

The three men, whose names remain on an automated directory in the building lobby, oversaw a trading floor for Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities that's now a ghost town, dead silent except for the hiss of an air conditioner.

The color theme throughout -- from the refrigerator in a galley kitchen to the trading floor desks to the many conference rooms -- is the minimalist black and ash gray favored by the 71-year-old former Nasdaq chairman, one of the original tenants when the building opened in the mid-1980s.

Floors 17 through 19 became part of a crime scene later last year when the once-prominent money manager confessed that his secretive investment advisory group actually was a massive Ponzi scheme that wiped out thousands of investors. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison last month and on Thursday decided not to appeal the sentence.

The disgraced financier has claimed he alone conned clients by recycling their money to create phantom wealth. But investigators have said they suspect members of Madoff insiders were involved and have been camped out on the 17th floor searching for evidence of a wider conspiracy.

Many of the records were paper or on microfilm and date back decades. Authorities say the firm relied on an old IBM computer to churn out statements that were fictitious.

When the scandal broke, news crews and burned investors flocked to the 34-story skyscraper -- shaped like an open lipstick tube -- to measure the financial wreckage. They didn't get far: Madoff's firm had been sealed off from the public by an army of FBI agents, federal regulators and a trustee appointed to liquidate the business assets.

Since then, the trustee has sold one of Madoff's legitimate trading operations to a new broker-dealer firm that took over the 18th floor. A staircase connecting the 18th and 19th floors will be removed, Freeman said.

As for the 17th floor, trustee Irving Picard wrote in court papers that the FBI "has advised me that they will require access to the space until, at least, approximately July of 2010." It also wanted to continue using a leased Xerox copying machine there. The cost will be covered by an industry group that compensates victims of securities fraud.

Sharing the 17th floor in separate office space is a discount brokerage headed by Wall Street veteran Muriel Siebert, the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange in 1967 and the only tenant allowed a dog. Siebert had a sublet with Madoff and is now paying rent to the trustee.

What remains is the 16,182-square-foot 19th floor. A bankruptcy judge recently authorized the trustee to cancel the Madoff lease there through 2012 with landlord Metropolitan Real Estate Investors, creating the vacancy in a sagging commerical real estate market.

Freeman wouldn't say what Madoff paid in rent, adding that no price has been set for the floor. There have been some feelers, but no firm offers.

Any takers who don't remodel, he said, "will certainly have to like dark colors."



Tags: madoff floor space firm trustee ]]> Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:10:02 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5138 Bertelsmann, KKR form music unit http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/variety/headlines/~3/jWA295c5Z1U/VR1118005768 Shared item

Tags: rights music bmg management bertelsmann ]]>

Tags: rights music bmg management bertelsmann ]]> Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:51:00 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5112 Former Joost CEO Gets New Gig as VC http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newteevee/~3/eTiumhtUfus/ Shared item

joostFormer Joost CEO Mike Volpi already has a new gig lined up. He'll be a venture partner at Index Ventures, which was part of the group that pumped $45 million into the little web TV startup that could (but didn't).

Joost announced last week that it was changing focus from offering premium content in order to become (yet another) white-label video provider. As part of that strategic shift, Volpi stepped down as CEO but remains chairman of the company. Volpi has a long history with Index as he invested $10 million in the firm's first fund while he was an exec at Cisco. According to the press announcement, Volpi will be based in the London office as part of the venture team where he will lead early stage investments in the Internet, telecom/networking and media sectors and contribute to the firm's later stage growth fund.

Kara Swisher at All Things D has an interview with Volpi about the latest move, where he offers up a few more details about Joost. On the company's failure to be a premium content player, he said, At the end of the day, the consumer offering we had was not working, a lot because we did not have enough access to content we needed to build traffic. Volpi justified Joost's move into the highly competitive world of white-label video by saying, It is better to be competing in a sector that has profitable rivals than one that does not. He said Joost had discussions with possible acquirers, but those didn't pan out because of price issues. Not everyone wanted to pay a lot to own Joost, but a lot of people wanted to rent it, he said.

Hopefully, Volpi will be able to take the failure of Joost in stride and pass on his experience of what not to do as a startup to the companies Index invests in.

GigaOM Pro: Smart insights at the pace of the digital media market. Get the latest research on trends and tech shaping the future of entertainment. Learn more


Tags: joost volpi ceo index lot ]]>

joostFormer Joost CEO Mike Volpi already has a new gig lined up. He'll be a venture partner at Index Ventures, which was part of the group that pumped $45 million into the little web TV startup that could (but didn't).

Joost announced last week that it was changing focus from offering premium content in order to become (yet another) white-label video provider. As part of that strategic shift, Volpi stepped down as CEO but remains chairman of the company. Volpi has a long history with Index as he invested $10 million in the firm's first fund while he was an exec at Cisco. According to the press announcement, Volpi will be based in the London office as part of the venture team where he will lead early stage investments in the Internet, telecom/networking and media sectors and contribute to the firm's later stage growth fund.

Kara Swisher at All Things D has an interview with Volpi about the latest move, where he offers up a few more details about Joost. On the company's failure to be a premium content player, he said, At the end of the day, the consumer offering we had was not working, a lot because we did not have enough access to content we needed to build traffic. Volpi justified Joost's move into the highly competitive world of white-label video by saying, It is better to be competing in a sector that has profitable rivals than one that does not. He said Joost had discussions with possible acquirers, but those didn't pan out because of price issues. Not everyone wanted to pay a lot to own Joost, but a lot of people wanted to rent it, he said.

Hopefully, Volpi will be able to take the failure of Joost in stride and pass on his experience of what not to do as a startup to the companies Index invests in.

GigaOM Pro: Smart insights at the pace of the digital media market. Get the latest research on trends and tech shaping the future of entertainment. Learn more


Tags: joost volpi ceo index lot ]]> Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:31:00 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5102 Cliqset Debuts Second Iteration Of Social Identity Platform, Raises $1.5 Million http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/1uEUJf-rO8s/ Shared item Jacksonville, Florida-based Cliqset is launching the second beta version of its online identity platform today with some nifty new features, and is also announcing that it has raised $1.5 million in financing from a single angel investor.

Cliqset is not exactly an easy concept to explain, but here goes. Essentially, the platform aims to stitch together the social web by allowing users and developers build, organize and share social information across a wide variety of services. As an end user, Cliqset can help you merge and share the social information (your status updates, location, photos, etc) currently scattered around the web with the people, applications and devices you already use and trust. Developers on the other hand get access to an extensive set of read/write social APIs they can use as an alternative to building and managing support for their own.

The second beta, launching today, comes with a new Location Services API that allows developers to build apps for web and mobile by using location info from users. With the API, developers can fetch and use address information using the latitude and longitude coordinates provided by mobile devices. The gathered location information can be tied to user activities but also be used to store more generic location information that's relevant to the applications they build on top of the Cliqset platform.

A related new element is the integration of Cliqset location services with third-party services like BrightKite, FireEagle and Twitter, basically simplifying how a user can keep their social and location information in sync across the Web.

Also new is a fresh push/pull architecture for social information that travels to and from Cliqset, Cliqset-enabled applications and the supported third-party services. A mix of push/pull functionality is now possible with over 30 third-party services, including Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, identica, laconica, Linkedin, FireEagle, and FriendFeed. It's like the latter on steroids, actually.

Cliqset has recently closed its second seed round, $1.5 million coming from angel investor Derek Mercer, founder and former chairman and CEO of Vurv Technology, a provider of talent management software that was acquired in 2008 by Taleo for about $128.8 million. This comes in addition to an earlier early-stage capital injection of $500,000 by the man, bringing the total invested in the startup to $2 million.

Cliqset - Merge, Organize and Share Social Information from cliqset on Vimeo.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.



Tags: cliqset social information location services ]]>Jacksonville, Florida-based Cliqset is launching the second beta version of its online identity platform today with some nifty new features, and is also announcing that it has raised $1.5 million in financing from a single angel investor.

Cliqset is not exactly an easy concept to explain, but here goes. Essentially, the platform aims to stitch together the social web by allowing users and developers build, organize and share social information across a wide variety of services. As an end user, Cliqset can help you merge and share the social information (your status updates, location, photos, etc) currently scattered around the web with the people, applications and devices you already use and trust. Developers on the other hand get access to an extensive set of read/write social APIs they can use as an alternative to building and managing support for their own.

The second beta, launching today, comes with a new Location Services API that allows developers to build apps for web and mobile by using location info from users. With the API, developers can fetch and use address information using the latitude and longitude coordinates provided by mobile devices. The gathered location information can be tied to user activities but also be used to store more generic location information that's relevant to the applications they build on top of the Cliqset platform.

A related new element is the integration of Cliqset location services with third-party services like BrightKite, FireEagle and Twitter, basically simplifying how a user can keep their social and location information in sync across the Web.

Also new is a fresh push/pull architecture for social information that travels to and from Cliqset, Cliqset-enabled applications and the supported third-party services. A mix of push/pull functionality is now possible with over 30 third-party services, including Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, identica, laconica, Linkedin, FireEagle, and FriendFeed. It's like the latter on steroids, actually.

Cliqset has recently closed its second seed round, $1.5 million coming from angel investor Derek Mercer, founder and former chairman and CEO of Vurv Technology, a provider of talent management software that was acquired in 2008 by Taleo for about $128.8 million. This comes in addition to an earlier early-stage capital injection of $500,000 by the man, bringing the total invested in the startup to $2 million.

Cliqset - Merge, Organize and Share Social Information from cliqset on Vimeo.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.



Tags: cliqset social information location services ]]> Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:02:47 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5008 Free Software Foundation and Cisco Settle (Quietly) Open Source Copyright Infringement Dispute http://feeds.lexblog.com/~r/NewMediaAndTechnologyLaw/~3/bqHiKQPWLe0/ Shared item Last December, the Free Software Foundation, with great fanfare, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Cisco Systems, Inc. The complaint alleged that certain of Cisco's Linksys products contained code distributed under the open source GNU General Public License. The complaint further alleged that Cisco, by distributing the enumerated products containing GPL-licensed code, had engaged in the distribution of such code, but had failed to comply with the requirements of the GPL license by making the code available in source code form.


The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the FSF by attorneys for the Software Freedom Law Center. The SFLC is the "enforcement arm" of the FSF, a law firm formed for the specific purpose of providing legal services for open source developers seeking to enforce the provisions of open source licenses. Prof. Eben Moglen is the chairman and one of the directors of the firm.

This was not the first lawsuit filed by the SFLC, but it is notable in that some of the underlying code which is alleged to have been infringed was authored by none other than Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation and a first-line mover and shaker in the open source movement. According to the Copyright Office public catalog, Stallman is an author of code covered by registration No. TX 2-084-819, one of the registrations enumerated in the complaint against Cisco. The record shows that the copyright was assigned to the Free Software Foundation.

There has as yet been no announcement of the settlement from the FSF or the SFLC, and the docket in the district court does not reveal the terms of the settlement, only an order dismissing the action with prejudice and without costs. Some past settlements of similar actions announced by the SFLC have included not only an agreement on the part of the defendant to provide the source code as required by the GNU GPL, but also an agreement to appoint an Open Source Compliance Officer to monitor compliance with GPL licenses, an agreement to undertake "substantial efforts" to notify those to whom products were distributed of their right to receive the source code, and payment of undisclosed financial consideration.



Tags: code source open cisco software ]]> Last December, the Free Software Foundation, with great fanfare, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Cisco Systems, Inc. The complaint alleged that certain of Cisco's Linksys products contained code distributed under the open source GNU General Public License. The complaint further alleged that Cisco, by distributing the enumerated products containing GPL-licensed code, had engaged in the distribution of such code, but had failed to comply with the requirements of the GPL license by making the code available in source code form.


The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the FSF by attorneys for the Software Freedom Law Center. The SFLC is the "enforcement arm" of the FSF, a law firm formed for the specific purpose of providing legal services for open source developers seeking to enforce the provisions of open source licenses. Prof. Eben Moglen is the chairman and one of the directors of the firm.

This was not the first lawsuit filed by the SFLC, but it is notable in that some of the underlying code which is alleged to have been infringed was authored by none other than Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation and a first-line mover and shaker in the open source movement. According to the Copyright Office public catalog, Stallman is an author of code covered by registration No. TX 2-084-819, one of the registrations enumerated in the complaint against Cisco. The record shows that the copyright was assigned to the Free Software Foundation.

There has as yet been no announcement of the settlement from the FSF or the SFLC, and the docket in the district court does not reveal the terms of the settlement, only an order dismissing the action with prejudice and without costs. Some past settlements of similar actions announced by the SFLC have included not only an agreement on the part of the defendant to provide the source code as required by the GNU GPL, but also an agreement to appoint an Open Source Compliance Officer to monitor compliance with GPL licenses, an agreement to undertake "substantial efforts" to notify those to whom products were distributed of their right to receive the source code, and payment of undisclosed financial consideration.



Tags: code source open cisco software ]]> Tue, 12 May 2009 17:34:51 -0400 tag:croncast.com,4979 Sony Dinged $1 Million for Child-Privacy Breach http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wired27b/~3/481924872/sony-dinged-1-m.html Shared item Picture_10 Sony Music agreed Thursday to pay $1 million to settle allegations that it knowingly collected and disclosed personal information of as many as 30,000 children under the age of 13.

It matched the Federal Trade Commission's largest fine levied under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. In 2006, the FTC dinged social-networking site Xanga.com $1 million on similar allegations. The settlement marked the 13th enforcement actionthe FTC has undertaken against companies for violating the act -- bringing to $3 milliion the amount in total fines.

According to an FTC lawsuit(.pdf) Sony unlawfully obtained and publicized personal information, including e-mail addresses and photos, from children under 13 via the registration process on its roughly 1,100 music sites.

Under the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, known as COPPA, website operators must obtain the consent of parents or guardians before they may lawfully collect or publish personal identifying information of children under 13.

"On certain of the company's music sites, after collecting dates of birth from children indicating that they were under 13, Sony Music enabled children to create user profiles in the form of personal fan pages, through which children were able to interact with other Sony Music fans, including adults," the FTC's lawsuit alleged. "Sony Music publicly posted and made available for viewing on the internet certain items of information submitted by children in creating their user profile, including any photos they may have uploaded, as well as their gender, age, city and country."

The law cannot prevent kids under 13 from faking their dates of births or providing bogus e-mail addresses of their parents in a bid to acquire parental consent. Still, Sony collected and/or broadcasted on its websites information from 30,000 children who listed their dates of birth as being under 13.

"Sony Music is paying the penalty for falling down on its COPPA obligations," FTC Chairman William Kovacic said.

The lawsuit alleges that, since 2004, at least 30,000 children under 13 had registered on Sony's music websites, and that Sony had "actual knowledge" that it was breaching the law.

Businesses often use information they collect from web users for marketing purposes.

The Federal Trade Commission also faulted Sony for having a deceptive privacy policy. The policy indicated that if children marked they were under 13, they would be "restricted from participating in Sony Music's web page activities."

A spokeswoman for Sony was not immediately available for comment. The FTC said Sony is now complying with the protection act.

See Also:




Tags: sony privacy children under music ]]> Picture_10 Sony Music agreed Thursday to pay $1 million to settle allegations that it knowingly collected and disclosed personal information of as many as 30,000 children under the age of 13.

It matched the Federal Trade Commission's largest fine levied under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. In 2006, the FTC dinged social-networking site Xanga.com $1 million on similar allegations. The settlement marked the 13th enforcement actionthe FTC has undertaken against companies for violating the act -- bringing to $3 milliion the amount in total fines.

According to an FTC lawsuit(.pdf) Sony unlawfully obtained and publicized personal information, including e-mail addresses and photos, from children under 13 via the registration process on its roughly 1,100 music sites.

Under the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, known as COPPA, website operators must obtain the consent of parents or guardians before they may lawfully collect or publish personal identifying information of children under 13.

"On certain of the company's music sites, after collecting dates of birth from children indicating that they were under 13, Sony Music enabled children to create user profiles in the form of personal fan pages, through which children were able to interact with other Sony Music fans, including adults," the FTC's lawsuit alleged. "Sony Music publicly posted and made available for viewing on the internet certain items of information submitted by children in creating their user profile, including any photos they may have uploaded, as well as their gender, age, city and country."

The law cannot prevent kids under 13 from faking their dates of births or providing bogus e-mail addresses of their parents in a bid to acquire parental consent. Still, Sony collected and/or broadcasted on its websites information from 30,000 children who listed their dates of birth as being under 13.

"Sony Music is paying the penalty for falling down on its COPPA obligations," FTC Chairman William Kovacic said.

The lawsuit alleges that, since 2004, at least 30,000 children under 13 had registered on Sony's music websites, and that Sony had "actual knowledge" that it was breaching the law.

Businesses often use information they collect from web users for marketing purposes.

The Federal Trade Commission also faulted Sony for having a deceptive privacy policy. The policy indicated that if children marked they were under 13, they would be "restricted from participating in Sony Music's web page activities."

A spokeswoman for Sony was not immediately available for comment. The FTC said Sony is now complying with the protection act.

See Also:




Tags: sony privacy children under music ]]> Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:41:53 -0500 tag:croncast.com,4720 GOP convention: Tasteless quote of the week http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ContracostatimesPoliticsWeblogNewsAndObservationsSomeSeriousSomeNotOnTheEastBayPoliticalScene/~3/381955248/ Shared item Here's my nomination for the most tasteless quote of the week:

If (Democratic veep nominee Joe) Biden tries any of that bully stuff with Sarah Palin, he will remind women of their ex-husbands, California GOP Chairman Ron Nehring.

This is offensive on so many levels.

Nehring knew it, too.

I'm going to hear about that quote, he said afterward.



Tags: quote nehring gop week tasteless ]]>Here's my nomination for the most tasteless quote of the week:

If (Democratic veep nominee Joe) Biden tries any of that bully stuff with Sarah Palin, he will remind women of their ex-husbands, California GOP Chairman Ron Nehring.

This is offensive on so many levels.

Nehring knew it, too.

I'm going to hear about that quote, he said afterward.



Tags: quote nehring gop week tasteless ]]> Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:29:22 -0400 tag:croncast.com,4402 Silicon Valley leaders debut YouTube medical channel http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/typepad/social_media/~3/316033580/silicon-valley.html Shared item

From a news release this week:

YouTube and The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) today collaboratively launched a comprehensive Internet video channel dedicated to the improved understanding of incurable neurodegenerative brain diseases. The UCSF Memory and Aging Center YouTube channel can be found here. The multimedia offering represents the latest step by one of the world's leading neuroscientific research teams to engage the public and the medical community in an aggressive search for the causes and cures of debilitating brain conditions known as dementias. ...

The YouTube collaboration was inspired by the Fight for Mike, an initiative by Silicon Valley leaders to save the life of former Apple/Netscape marketing ace Mike Homer, who was diagnosed last spring with CJD and is being treated at UCSF. Homer's close friends, Silicon Valley investor, Ron Conway, and Intuit Chairman William V. Campbell lead the initiative. ...

The idea to create the video-sharing channel resulted from a brainstorming session involving UCSF physicians and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs that was hosted last fall by YouTube CEO and co-founder Chad Hurley, a protg of Homer's.

Well done, Chad.

To further support the initiative, UCSF is also reaching out with:

Memory and Aging Center CJD Web site

Defeat Dementia Know More Now widget

Defeat Dementia Facebook group

Veodia Partnership



Tags: youtube ucsf silicon channel valley ]]>

From a news release this week:

YouTube and The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) today collaboratively launched a comprehensive Internet video channel dedicated to the improved understanding of incurable neurodegenerative brain diseases. The UCSF Memory and Aging Center YouTube channel can be found here. The multimedia offering represents the latest step by one of the world's leading neuroscientific research teams to engage the public and the medical community in an aggressive search for the causes and cures of debilitating brain conditions known as dementias. ...

The YouTube collaboration was inspired by the Fight for Mike, an initiative by Silicon Valley leaders to save the life of former Apple/Netscape marketing ace Mike Homer, who was diagnosed last spring with CJD and is being treated at UCSF. Homer's close friends, Silicon Valley investor, Ron Conway, and Intuit Chairman William V. Campbell lead the initiative. ...

The idea to create the video-sharing channel resulted from a brainstorming session involving UCSF physicians and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs that was hosted last fall by YouTube CEO and co-founder Chad Hurley, a protg of Homer's.

Well done, Chad.

To further support the initiative, UCSF is also reaching out with:

Memory and Aging Center CJD Web site

Defeat Dementia Know More Now widget

Defeat Dementia Facebook group

Veodia Partnership



Tags: youtube ucsf silicon channel valley ]]> Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:45:43 -0400 tag:croncast.com,4144 Microsoft's Supreme Search Screw-up http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/the-tech-observer/2008/05/20/microsofts-supreme-search-screw-up?rss=true Shared item If Microsoft is back at the table trying to buy Yahoo's search business, an outside observer can only conclude that Microsoft has failed miserably at search. The question then is: How can Microsoft have tried so hard to crack the search market and fallen down so completely?

Let's see... here's Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates quoted in a story out of the World Economic Forum in 2004. Yes, four long years ago -- an eternity on the Web. From the story, talking about Google: "'They kicked our butts,' (Gates) said, while promising a better next-generation Internet search engine from Microsoft, due as early as next year." No next-generation search engine from Microsoft appeared in 2005.

Later in 2004, a Microsoft researcher both promised a Google-beating search engine and, at the same time, downplayed its importance. From a story that ran then:

One Microsoft technologist said web search technology will be a big money maker for Google and others in the short term but he predicted the party won't last long. Speaking before about 100 gathered for the Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT in Cambridge, Mass., Eric Brill, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research, said the "monetization" model of web search technology is at risk. Brill's comments come on the heels of Google's highly successful IPO last month and bullish Wall Street reports this week that sent Google shares soaring to a high of $127.

"There's tons and tons of money to be made," said Brill. He acknowledged that Microsoft is intent on playing catch up with its own web search engine later this year yet projected that both companies could hit a fiscal wall.

Some of those promises might have come out of early-2000s research -- after Microsoft specifically targeted the development of search and contextual advertising technologies. A 2003 report says Microsoft tripled its staff to go after search. In November 2003, the company told reporters it was coming out with a new search product to compete with Google. What happened there?

In 2005, Microsoft launched a "Search Technology Center" in Beijing. You'd think maybe the Chinese might have some fresh ideas about how to beat Google -- but apparently not. Otherwise Microsoft wouldn't be so desperate to buy Yahoo.

In January of this year, Microsoft even went out and bought an enterprise search outfit called Fast Search for $1.2 billion. Just last week -- last week! -- a Microsoft exec demonstrated "next-generation search" based on Fast Search at Gates' annual CEO Summit.

If Microsoft has been investing heavily in search-related research since 2003, thinking it had a major search product in 2004, founded a new search center in China in 2005 -- why would its next-generation search demo be based on a company it bought five months ago?

Even if Microsoft has internally developed whiz-bang cool search technology, the company has failed to widely deploy it or use it to win traffic and advertisers. The more Microsoft seems to desire Yahoo's search business, the more search seems like Microsoft's supreme screw-up.

Well, maybe its second worst screw-up, after Vista.

Related Links
TED Flash: Star Wars for Microsoft and Google
Microsoft Swings at Google, but Pulls Its Punch
Google's Second Front Against Microsoft: Will It Work?



Tags: search microsoft google generation said ]]>If Microsoft is back at the table trying to buy Yahoo's search business, an outside observer can only conclude that Microsoft has failed miserably at search. The question then is: How can Microsoft have tried so hard to crack the search market and fallen down so completely?

Let's see... here's Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates quoted in a story out of the World Economic Forum in 2004. Yes, four long years ago -- an eternity on the Web. From the story, talking about Google: "'They kicked our butts,' (Gates) said, while promising a better next-generation Internet search engine from Microsoft, due as early as next year." No next-generation search engine from Microsoft appeared in 2005.

Later in 2004, a Microsoft researcher both promised a Google-beating search engine and, at the same time, downplayed its importance. From a story that ran then:

One Microsoft technologist said web search technology will be a big money maker for Google and others in the short term but he predicted the party won't last long. Speaking before about 100 gathered for the Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT in Cambridge, Mass., Eric Brill, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research, said the "monetization" model of web search technology is at risk. Brill's comments come on the heels of Google's highly successful IPO last month and bullish Wall Street reports this week that sent Google shares soaring to a high of $127.

"There's tons and tons of money to be made," said Brill. He acknowledged that Microsoft is intent on playing catch up with its own web search engine later this year yet projected that both companies could hit a fiscal wall.

Some of those promises might have come out of early-2000s research -- after Microsoft specifically targeted the development of search and contextual advertising technologies. A 2003 report says Microsoft tripled its staff to go after search. In November 2003, the company told reporters it was coming out with a new search product to compete with Google. What happened there?

In 2005, Microsoft launched a "Search Technology Center" in Beijing. You'd think maybe the Chinese might have some fresh ideas about how to beat Google -- but apparently not. Otherwise Microsoft wouldn't be so desperate to buy Yahoo.

In January of this year, Microsoft even went out and bought an enterprise search outfit called Fast Search for $1.2 billion. Just last week -- last week! -- a Microsoft exec demonstrated "next-generation search" based on Fast Search at Gates' annual CEO Summit.

If Microsoft has been investing heavily in search-related research since 2003, thinking it had a major search product in 2004, founded a new search center in China in 2005 -- why would its next-generation search demo be based on a company it bought five months ago?

Even if Microsoft has internally developed whiz-bang cool search technology, the company has failed to widely deploy it or use it to win traffic and advertisers. The more Microsoft seems to desire Yahoo's search business, the more search seems like Microsoft's supreme screw-up.

Well, maybe its second worst screw-up, after Vista.

Related Links
TED Flash: Star Wars for Microsoft and Google
Microsoft Swings at Google, but Pulls Its Punch
Google's Second Front Against Microsoft: Will It Work?



Tags: search microsoft google generation said ]]> Tue, 20 May 2008 13:50:00 -0400 tag:croncast.com,4030 Pushed By Icahn, Yahoo Jumps Back Into Ad Deal With Google? http://mashable.com/2008/05/16/pushed-by-icahn-yahoo-jumps-back-into-ad-deal-with-google/ Shared item

According to the New York Post, Yahoo-Google advertising deal is not far from reality. After Carl Icahn announced his plan to seize Yahoo's board of directors, which would consqeuently accept a Microsoft buyout, Yahoo execs are up for an open alliance with Google, and there's a good possibility that an ad deal between two companies wiill be announced next week.

The deal will likely result in (yet another) open platform, which would allow other companies, besides Yahoo and Google, to bid for contextual ads tied to search queries. The big question is: would this open platform be fair to everyone? Not everyone thinks so. Kevin Lee, chairman of search engine marketing firm Did-It, and Michaek Kassan, founder of advertising consulting firm Media Link, both think that such a system would be biased towards Google, who would win in most of the bids.

The advantage of such a system is the fact that it's less likely that it would be called a monopoly, which was the biggest obstacle for the actualization of any advertising deal between Yahoo and Google. Furthermore, an open platform would make it less obvious that Yahoo gave up on Panama (although, clearly, this is what's happening) which would enable them to create more optimistic predictions about their future growth which no one believes in.

One thing is certain, though: in every scenario we've written about so far, Google is always a winner.

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

The Microsoft-Yahoo Dream/Nightmare Lives On: Billionaire Icahn Makes a Move
Yahoo-Google Deal Looking Good; Common Sense Packs Up And Leaves
More Love Notes: Yahoo Responds to Icahn's Master Plan
Who Woulda Thunk It: Google Still Wants Deal With Yahoo
Icahn Announces Plans to Seize Yahoo Board with Help from Mark Cuban
Yahoo Gets Approval for BlueLithium; Is Googclick Next?
The Daily Poll: Is Microsoft-Yahoo Inevitable?




Tags: yahoo google deal open icahn ]]>

According to the New York Post, Yahoo-Google advertising deal is not far from reality. After Carl Icahn announced his plan to seize Yahoo's board of directors, which would consqeuently accept a Microsoft buyout, Yahoo execs are up for an open alliance with Google, and there's a good possibility that an ad deal between two companies wiill be announced next week.

The deal will likely result in (yet another) open platform, which would allow other companies, besides Yahoo and Google, to bid for contextual ads tied to search queries. The big question is: would this open platform be fair to everyone? Not everyone thinks so. Kevin Lee, chairman of search engine marketing firm Did-It, and Michaek Kassan, founder of advertising consulting firm Media Link, both think that such a system would be biased towards Google, who would win in most of the bids.

The advantage of such a system is the fact that it's less likely that it would be called a monopoly, which was the biggest obstacle for the actualization of any advertising deal between Yahoo and Google. Furthermore, an open platform would make it less obvious that Yahoo gave up on Panama (although, clearly, this is what's happening) which would enable them to create more optimistic predictions about their future growth which no one believes in.

One thing is certain, though: in every scenario we've written about so far, Google is always a winner.

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

The Microsoft-Yahoo Dream/Nightmare Lives On: Billionaire Icahn Makes a Move
Yahoo-Google Deal Looking Good; Common Sense Packs Up And Leaves
More Love Notes: Yahoo Responds to Icahn's Master Plan
Who Woulda Thunk It: Google Still Wants Deal With Yahoo
Icahn Announces Plans to Seize Yahoo Board with Help from Mark Cuban
Yahoo Gets Approval for BlueLithium; Is Googclick Next?
The Daily Poll: Is Microsoft-Yahoo Inevitable?




Tags: yahoo google deal open icahn ]]> Fri, 16 May 2008 13:45:09 -0400 tag:croncast.com,4009 The Declining Value Of Redundant News Content On The Web http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Media20Workgroup/~3/284477305/ Shared item Microsoft withdrawing its offer to buy Yahoo is a sufficiently large story to demonstrate the problem of redundant news content on the web. Google News is currently tracking about 2,000 versions of this story. To get a better sense of why it's a problem to have 2,000 stories about the SAME THING, I've reproduced about ten percent of them below just the headlines and ledes. If you have the stomach to scroll through them all to see what else I have to say about it, check out the sources as you scroll:

UPDATE: The Google News example is reproduced here instead. You're reading this in RSS or email a day after I posted it because this post was so large it broke my Feedburner feed. Too much content breaks the web there you have it. Keep reading for my original argument.

If you've made it this far, you may have noticed the absence of blogs from the sources. So this is far from a representative sample of all of the websites that published a version of this news story.

Let's check out Techmeme, again reproduced in its entirety, because seeing is disbelieving:

Yahoo!:
Yahoo! Issues Statement in Response to Microsoft SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 03, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) Roy Bostock, Chairman of Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company issued the following statement today in response to Microsoft Corporation's announcement that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo!:

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion:

RELATED:

Microsoft:
Microsoft Withdraws Proposal to Acquire Yahoo! Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo! Inc. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announced that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO).

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion:

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
MicroHoo: The Odd Couple Meetings Led Nowhere After today's events, I guess you could say Yahoo and Microsoft tried, holding a series of meetings about a possible takeover that ended up proving exactly how incompatible the companies were. Kind of like Oscar Madison and Felix Unger, but not funny in any way at all.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
OK, so what's Microsoft's plan B? With Yahoo apparently off the table, it's time to see what Microsoft's back-up plan looks like. Microsoft has said for some time that it has a strategy with or without Yahoo, but it's a strategy clearly in need of a jump-start.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

DealBook:
Guessing Yahoo's Opening Stock Price Well, Yahoo seems to have gotten what it wanted. The company managed to fend off Microsoft's unwanted advances, even after the software giant sweetened its bid by $5 billion an amount Yahoo felt still wasn't enough.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Offer After Attempt to Bridge Gap in Price Microsoft Corp. said it abandoned its offer for Yahoo Inc., as the two companies failed to bridge a gap between them on price. Microsoft Saturday released a letter from Chief Executive Steve Ballmer

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News.com:
Report: A peek behind the Yahoo-Microsoft meltdown Curious how Microsoft's multi-multi-multi-billion dollar buyout bid for Yahoo sputtered, then crashed? Kara Swisher's BoomTown column in All Things Digital has an interesting account of the missteps, sidesteps

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Yahoo's Nightmare Scenario: I'm From Google and I'm Here to Help! Here's what a top-notch source at Yahoo joked to me tonight, after Microsoft walked away from its unsolicited takeover bid to acquire the long-troubled Internet giant. Google is now officially our best friend. Oh no.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion: Groundswell

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Yahoo's Tough Week Ahead At around 4:30 California time today news broke that Microsoft has formally withdrawn its offer to acquire Yahoo (see Ballmer's email to Microsoft employees here). Among other things, that ends a three month stock party where the market value of Yahoo jumped

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Yi-Wyn Yen / Fortune:
Blame it on Google Microsoft CEO Ballmer said the software giant decided to walk away from a bid because Yahoo would become undesirable' if it formed an alliance with Google. (Fortune) Google proved to be the final straw that broke Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's back.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion: MacDailyNews and CNNMoney.com

Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed:
Analysis of the Microsoft Decision, Plus Yahoo's Hari-Kari Here is my first-cut analysis of what has happened here: On the friendly front, Yahoo drew a hard line at $37 per share, well above the $33 that Microsoft now says it told Yahoo this week it was willing to go

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion: broadstuff

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Email From Steve Ballmer To All Microsoft Employees The following email was sent to all Microsoft employees from CEO Steve Ballmer at 5:17 pm PDT (see Breaking: Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Bid; Walks Away From Deal): To: Microsoft - All Employees (QBDG)

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Breaking: Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Bid; Walks Away From Deal (Updated)
Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion:

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten / The Next Web: Microsoft walks away from Yahoo deal

Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft pulls its Yahoo offer
Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion:

Kara Swisher / BoomTo

Tags: microsoft yahoo news google discussion ]]>Microsoft withdrawing its offer to buy Yahoo is a sufficiently large story to demonstrate the problem of redundant news content on the web. Google News is currently tracking about 2,000 versions of this story. To get a better sense of why it's a problem to have 2,000 stories about the SAME THING, I've reproduced about ten percent of them below just the headlines and ledes. If you have the stomach to scroll through them all to see what else I have to say about it, check out the sources as you scroll:

UPDATE: The Google News example is reproduced here instead. You're reading this in RSS or email a day after I posted it because this post was so large it broke my Feedburner feed. Too much content breaks the web there you have it. Keep reading for my original argument.

If you've made it this far, you may have noticed the absence of blogs from the sources. So this is far from a representative sample of all of the websites that published a version of this news story.

Let's check out Techmeme, again reproduced in its entirety, because seeing is disbelieving:

Yahoo!:
Yahoo! Issues Statement in Response to Microsoft SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 03, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) Roy Bostock, Chairman of Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company issued the following statement today in response to Microsoft Corporation's announcement that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo!:

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion:

RELATED:

Microsoft:
Microsoft Withdraws Proposal to Acquire Yahoo! Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo! Inc. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announced that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO).

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion:

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
MicroHoo: The Odd Couple Meetings Led Nowhere After today's events, I guess you could say Yahoo and Microsoft tried, holding a series of meetings about a possible takeover that ended up proving exactly how incompatible the companies were. Kind of like Oscar Madison and Felix Unger, but not funny in any way at all.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
OK, so what's Microsoft's plan B? With Yahoo apparently off the table, it's time to see what Microsoft's back-up plan looks like. Microsoft has said for some time that it has a strategy with or without Yahoo, but it's a strategy clearly in need of a jump-start.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

DealBook:
Guessing Yahoo's Opening Stock Price Well, Yahoo seems to have gotten what it wanted. The company managed to fend off Microsoft's unwanted advances, even after the software giant sweetened its bid by $5 billion an amount Yahoo felt still wasn't enough.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Offer After Attempt to Bridge Gap in Price Microsoft Corp. said it abandoned its offer for Yahoo Inc., as the two companies failed to bridge a gap between them on price. Microsoft Saturday released a letter from Chief Executive Steve Ballmer

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News.com:
Report: A peek behind the Yahoo-Microsoft meltdown Curious how Microsoft's multi-multi-multi-billion dollar buyout bid for Yahoo sputtered, then crashed? Kara Swisher's BoomTown column in All Things Digital has an interesting account of the missteps, sidesteps

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Yahoo's Nightmare Scenario: I'm From Google and I'm Here to Help! Here's what a top-notch source at Yahoo joked to me tonight, after Microsoft walked away from its unsolicited takeover bid to acquire the long-troubled Internet giant. Google is now officially our best friend. Oh no.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion: Groundswell

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Yahoo's Tough Week Ahead At around 4:30 California time today news broke that Microsoft has formally withdrawn its offer to acquire Yahoo (see Ballmer's email to Microsoft employees here). Among other things, that ends a three month stock party where the market value of Yahoo jumped

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Yi-Wyn Yen / Fortune:
Blame it on Google Microsoft CEO Ballmer said the software giant decided to walk away from a bid because Yahoo would become undesirable' if it formed an alliance with Google. (Fortune) Google proved to be the final straw that broke Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's back.

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion: MacDailyNews and CNNMoney.com

Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed:
Analysis of the Microsoft Decision, Plus Yahoo's Hari-Kari Here is my first-cut analysis of what has happened here: On the friendly front, Yahoo drew a hard line at $37 per share, well above the $33 that Microsoft now says it told Yahoo this week it was willing to go

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion: broadstuff

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Email From Steve Ballmer To All Microsoft Employees The following email was sent to all Microsoft employees from CEO Steve Ballmer at 5:17 pm PDT (see Breaking: Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Bid; Walks Away From Deal): To: Microsoft - All Employees (QBDG)

Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Breaking: Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Bid; Walks Away From Deal (Updated)
Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion:

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten / The Next Web: Microsoft walks away from Yahoo deal

Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft pulls its Yahoo offer
Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

Discussion:

Kara Swisher / BoomTo

Tags: microsoft yahoo news google discussion ]]> Mon, 05 May 2008 04:21:15 -0400 tag:croncast.com,3967 Sezmi looks to provide alternative for cable / satellite, confuse everyone http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/281604033/ Shared item Filed under: ,


In case you're not content with just keeping your current cable / satellite / fiber TV service and using the recently launched ZvBox to pull in content from the web, a new startup is aiming to satisfy your bizarre desires. In what's potentially the most befuddling launch of the year, said firm is looking to introduce its 1TB set-top-box to consumers on a city-by-city basis. Put simply (or, as simply as possible), the box will fetch content from a number of places: the built-in OTA receiver will grab locals, and it will use the owner's broadband internet connection to snag IPTV material and web-based content (YouTube, Hulu, etc.). Sezmi plans to launch the product with "3G and DSL" telcos that don't currently have a way to offer a triple-play package, and while some sources say that monthly fees will be as low as "half" of a typical cable / satellite bill, we've also seen Phil Wiser, co-founder, chairman and president, quoted as saying that it will be "roughly comparable" to its rivals. Hit up the links below for loads more info, and join us as we sit back and wait for this entirely-too-complex endeavor to implode.

[Via PC Magazine]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments



Tags: content cable satellite box city ]]>Filed under: ,


In case you're not content with just keeping your current cable / satellite / fiber TV service and using the recently launched ZvBox to pull in content from the web, a new startup is aiming to satisfy your bizarre desires. In what's potentially the most befuddling launch of the year, said firm is looking to introduce its 1TB set-top-box to consumers on a city-by-city basis. Put simply (or, as simply as possible), the box will fetch content from a number of places: the built-in OTA receiver will grab locals, and it will use the owner's broadband internet connection to snag IPTV material and web-based content (YouTube, Hulu, etc.). Sezmi plans to launch the product with "3G and DSL" telcos that don't currently have a way to offer a triple-play package, and while some sources say that monthly fees will be as low as "half" of a typical cable / satellite bill, we've also seen Phil Wiser, co-founder, chairman and president, quoted as saying that it will be "roughly comparable" to its rivals. Hit up the links below for loads more info, and join us as we sit back and wait for this entirely-too-complex endeavor to implode.

[Via PC Magazine]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments



Tags: content cable satellite box city ]]> Thu, 01 May 2008 19:12:00 -0400 tag:croncast.com,3943 Bill Gates Quits Facebook (Ben Worthen/Business Technology) http://www.techmeme.com/080212/p26#a080212p26 Shared item Ben Worthen / Business Technology:
Bill Gates Quits Facebook Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has stopped using the Web site Facebook, the most damning indictment in a week full of bad press for social-networking technology. Social-networking Web sites, which help people share and find information about one another



Tags: facebook technology gates bill networking ]]> Ben Worthen / Business Technology:
Bill Gates Quits Facebook Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has stopped using the Web site Facebook, the most damning indictment in a week full of bad press for social-networking technology. Social-networking Web sites, which help people share and find information about one another



Tags: facebook technology gates bill networking ]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:10:30 -0500 tag:croncast.com,3527 Inaugurating the New York Times Deathwatch http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/pmarca/~3/227737846/inaugurating-th.html Shared item

[With apologies in advance to Martin Nisenholtz, who I believe is genuinely fighting the good fight, and who will no doubt end up with a great job at some fine Internet company.]

The hiring of Bill Kristol was the last straw.

I can't take it anymore.

I hereby inaugurate my New York Times Deathwatch, which will continue until the last Sulzberger has left the building.

Recent dispatches that are fit to print:

Leading the way [in terrible end-of-year news from the newspaper industry] was The New York Times Company, where total [quarterly] revenues fell 1.7% to $865.8 million, due mostly to a 4.1% drop in ad revenues... Advertising revenues at the news media group in particular fell 5.6%.

Source: Media Daily News.

Actually, that's being perhaps overly fair, since it takes into account an extra week last year. The straight year over year performance was:

[F]ourth-quarter revenue totaled $865.8 million, down 7.1% from $931.5 million a year earlier. The decline included a 9.1% drop in advertising revenue and a 4% fall in circulation revenue... [T]he company had an extra week in the final quarter of 2006, which boosted the year-earlier quarter's revenue by $50.8 million and its pretax income by $14.3 million.

Yes, we are dealing with a business where missing a single week means the difference between revenue falling 1.7% and 7.1%, and advertising revenue falling 4.1% and 9.1%. Go figure.

Source: Forbes.

Now, normally, beating up on someone like this isn't very much fun. But we are talking about a profession that specializes in passing judgment, often snide, on everyone else. And so, onward...

Turns out that December 2007 was particularly bad, and things may be getting even worse:

Separately, the [New York Times] reported that December ad revenue dropped 25.2%. Excluding an additional week in December 2006, ad revenue declined 12% for the month.

...[W]eakness across several national [advertising] categories including health care, books, technology products and transportation hampered results in the month. Classified ads, the traditional lifeblood of newspapers, saw steep declines in help-wanted, real estate and automotive sales. [Craig, you bad bad boy...]

"To date in January, the percentage decline in advertising revenue is trending similar to that of December..." said Janet Robinson, chief executive of New York Times...

As they say, sometimes it's darkest right before it goes pitch black.

Source: Marketwatch.

How are the company's other papers doing?

The [New York Times-owned] Boston Globe will soon announce cutbacks at the newspaper, including hundreds of layoffs, and an increase in the per copy price of the paper to 75 cents as of Feb. 1...

The Globe saw a nearly 7 percent decrease from 386,417 to 360,695 in its daily circulation between Sept. 2006 and Sept. 2007, according to numbers released in November by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. That report showed the paper's Sunday circulation down about 6.5 percent...

When you have an obsolete, inconvenient physical product that nobody wants in an era of universal online access, the appropriate strategy is clearly to raise the price.

Source: Metro Boston, which amusingly itself is 49 percent owned by the Boston Globe, which is owned by the New York Times.

How about revenue at the Globe?

At the New England Media Group, which includes the Boston Globe, ad revenue fell nearly 16%. Circulation revenue fell 7%.

Source: Marketwatch.

How about the company's smaller newspapers?

The company's regional-media group, including papers in medium-sized markets such as Wilmington, N.C., and Santa Rosa, Calif., saw ad revenue decline almost 17%, while circulation fell 7.4%.

Source: Marketwatch.

Meanwhile, the Times faces its second assault from a major hedge fund in the last two years:

A hedge fund manager who acquired a stake in the New York Times Company and is pushing to gain seats on its board sent a letter to the company on Sunday in which he criticised directors as "ineffective" and called for it to shed more non-core assets.

Scott Galloway, founder of Firebrand Capital, who sent the letter, has joined with another hedge fund, Harbinger, to try to put forward their own nominees for the four independent seats on the media company's 13-member board at its meeting in April. The funds have amassed a combined 4.9 per cent stake in Times' shares.

Source: Financial Times.

An ineffective board? What could they be talking about?

Hmmmmm. That's not the direction you want to see those things go.

Well, given that the Internet is the central force dismantling the company's business, I'm sure that by now they've stocked their board with noted Internet experts. Let's see:

  • Brenda C. Barnes -- CEO of Sara Lee; noted snack cake expert

  • Raul E. Cesan -- former CEO of Schering-Plough; noted Levitra expert

  • Daniel H. Cohen -- president of DeepSee LLC, "an oceanic exploration and submarine leasing company"; noted Jacques Cousteau expert

  • Lynn G. Dolnick -- former head of exhibits for the National Zoologic Park in Washington DC; noted marsupial expert

  • Michael Golden -- current publisher of the International Herald Tribune; former head of the company's Women's Publishing Division; noted sundress expert

  • William E. Kennard -- former head of the FCC; noted "seven dirty words" expert

  • James M. Kilts -- former CEO of Gillette; noted smooth, smooth shave expert; prior to that, unindicted coconspirator at Philip Morris; noted expert on your grandfather's hacking cough

  • David E. Liddle -- here I have to take a pause as I actually know this one; based on what's happening at the company, it could be reasonably asked whether he's actually attending the board meetings.

  • Ellen R. Marram -- former CEO of Nabisco; noted Oreo expert. Oh, wait, she actually ran an Internet company: "From 1999 until 2000, Ms. Marram was president and chief executive officer of efdex Inc. (the Electronic Food & Drink Exchange), an Internet-based commodities exchange for the food and beverage industry." Ooh. I wonder if that ended well.

  • Thomas Middelhoff -- former CEO of Bertelsmann; noted expert on complicated family politics -- well, that's probably coming in handy...

  • Janet L. Robinson -- current CEO of the New York Times Company; noted expert on horrific business implosions

  • Doreen A. Toben -- CFO of Verizon; noted 30-year debenture expert

  • And finally, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. -- the Big Kahuna -- the Man -- the Guy In Charge -- the chairman and scion -- the dude with the cojones to actually defend Judy Miller. Not noted Internet expert.

So, if you want to issue bonds to pay for FCC-approved snack cake manufacturing in a submarine on display at a national park by a sundress-wearing cigarette-puffing Levitra-popping Judy Miller, you're pretty much set.

Go team!



Tags: company noted expert revenue times ]]>

[With apologies in advance to Martin Nisenholtz, who I believe is genuinely fighting the good fight, and who will no doubt end up with a great job at some fine Internet company.]

The hiring of Bill Kristol was the last straw.

I can't take it anymore.

I hereby inaugurate my New York Times Deathwatch, which will continue until the last Sulzberger has left the building.

Recent dispatches that are fit to print:

Leading the way [in terrible end-of-year news from the newspaper industry] was The New York Times Company, where total [quarterly] revenues fell 1.7% to $865.8 million, due mostly to a 4.1% drop in ad revenues... Advertising revenues at the news media group in particular fell 5.6%.

Source: Media Daily News.

Actually, that's being perhaps overly fair, since it takes into account an extra week last year. The straight year over year performance was:

[F]ourth-quarter revenue totaled $865.8 million, down 7.1% from $931.5 million a year earlier. The decline included a 9.1% drop in advertising revenue and a 4% fall in circulation revenue... [T]he company had an extra week in the final quarter of 2006, which boosted the year-earlier quarter's revenue by $50.8 million and its pretax income by $14.3 million.

Yes, we are dealing with a business where missing a single week means the difference between revenue falling 1.7% and 7.1%, and advertising revenue falling 4.1% and 9.1%. Go figure.

Source: Forbes.

Now, normally, beating up on someone like this isn't very much fun. But we are talking about a profession that specializes in passing judgment, often snide, on everyone else. And so, onward...

Turns out that December 2007 was particularly bad, and things may be getting even worse:

Separately, the [New York Times] reported that December ad revenue dropped 25.2%. Excluding an additional week in December 2006, ad revenue declined 12% for the month.

...[W]eakness across several national [advertising] categories including health care, books, technology products and transportation hampered results in the month. Classified ads, the traditional lifeblood of newspapers, saw steep declines in help-wanted, real estate and automotive sales. [Craig, you bad bad boy...]

"To date in January, the percentage decline in advertising revenue is trending similar to that of December..." said Janet Robinson, chief executive of New York Times...

As they say, sometimes it's darkest right before it goes pitch black.

Source: Marketwatch.

How are the company's other papers doing?

The [New York Times-owned] Boston Globe will soon announce cutbacks at the newspaper, including hundreds of layoffs, and an increase in the per copy price of the paper to 75 cents as of Feb. 1...

The Globe saw a nearly 7 percent decrease from 386,417 to 360,695 in its daily circulation between Sept. 2006 and Sept. 2007, according to numbers released in November by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. That report showed the paper's Sunday circulation down about 6.5 percent...

When you have an obsolete, inconvenient physical product that nobody wants in an era of universal online access, the appropriate strategy is clearly to raise the price.

Source: Metro Boston, which amusingly itself is 49 percent owned by the Boston Globe, which is owned by the New York Times.

How about revenue at the Globe?

At the New England Media Group, which includes the Boston Globe, ad revenue fell nearly 16%. Circulation revenue fell 7%.

Source: Marketwatch.

How about the company's smaller newspapers?

The company's regional-media group, including papers in medium-sized markets such as Wilmington, N.C., and Santa Rosa, Calif., saw ad revenue decline almost 17%, while circulation fell 7.4%.

Source: Marketwatch.

Meanwhile, the Times faces its second assault from a major hedge fund in the last two years:

A hedge fund manager who acquired a stake in the New York Times Company and is pushing to gain seats on its board sent a letter to the company on Sunday in which he criticised directors as "ineffective" and called for it to shed more non-core assets.

Scott Galloway, founder of Firebrand Capital, who sent the letter, has joined with another hedge fund, Harbinger, to try to put forward their own nominees for the four independent seats on the media company's 13-member board at its meeting in April. The funds have amassed a combined 4.9 per cent stake in Times' shares.

Source: Financial Times.

An ineffective board? What could they be talking about?

Hmmmmm. That's not the direction you want to see those things go.

Well, given that the Internet is the central force dismantling the company's business, I'm sure that by now they've stocked their board with noted Internet experts. Let's see:

  • Brenda C. Barnes -- CEO of Sara Lee; noted snack cake expert

  • Raul E. Cesan -- former CEO of Schering-Plough; noted Levitra expert

  • Daniel H. Cohen -- president of DeepSee LLC, "an oceanic exploration and submarine leasing company"; noted Jacques Cousteau expert

  • Lynn G. Dolnick -- former head of exhibits for the National Zoologic Park in Washington DC; noted marsupial expert

  • Michael Golden -- current publisher of the International Herald Tribune; former head of the company's Women's Publishing Division; noted sundress expert

  • William E. Kennard -- former head of the FCC; noted "seven dirty words" expert

  • James M. Kilts -- former CEO of Gillette; noted smooth, smooth shave expert; prior to that, unindicted coconspirator at Philip Morris; noted expert on your grandfather's hacking cough

  • David E. Liddle -- here I have to take a pause as I actually know this one; based on what's happening at the company, it could be reasonably asked whether he's actually attending the board meetings.

  • Ellen R. Marram -- former CEO of Nabisco; noted Oreo expert. Oh, wait, she actually ran an Internet company: "From 1999 until 2000, Ms. Marram was president and chief executive officer of efdex Inc. (the Electronic Food & Drink Exchange), an Internet-based commodities exchange for the food and beverage industry." Ooh. I wonder if that ended well.

  • Thomas Middelhoff -- former CEO of Bertelsmann; noted expert on complicated family politics -- well, that's probably coming in handy...

  • Janet L. Robinson -- current CEO of the New York Times Company; noted expert on horrific business implosions

  • Doreen A. Toben -- CFO of Verizon; noted 30-year debenture expert

  • And finally, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. -- the Big Kahuna -- the Man -- the Guy In Charge -- the chairman and scion -- the dude with the cojones to actually defend Judy Miller. Not noted Internet expert.

So, if you want to issue bonds to pay for FCC-approved snack cake manufacturing in a submarine on display at a national park by a sundress-wearing cigarette-puffing Levitra-popping Judy Miller, you're pretty much set.

Go team!



Tags: company noted expert revenue times ]]> Sat, 02 Feb 2008 08:44:11 -0500 tag:croncast.com,3474 Ballmer's letter to the Yahoo Board [Acquisitions] http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/valleywag/full/~3/227239760/ballmers-letter-to-the-yahoo-board Shared item BallmerHighway.jpgMicrosoft just offered to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion or $31 a share. That's a 62 percent increase over yesterday's close. The offer came as a letter from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Yahoo's board. Here's your copy.

Dear Members of the Board:

I am writing on behalf of the Board of Directors of Microsoft to make a proposal for a business combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!. Under our proposal, Microsoft would acquire all of the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 based on Microsoft's closing share price on January 31, 2008, payable in the form of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. Microsoft would provide each Yahoo! shareholder with the ability to choose whether to receive the consideration in cash or Microsoft common stock, subject to pro-ration so that in the aggregate one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be exchanged for shares of Microsoft common stock and one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be converted into the right to receive cash. Our proposal is not subject to any financing condition.

Our proposal represents a 62% premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock of $19.18 on January 31, 2008. The implied premium for the operating assets of the company clearly is considerably greater when adjusted for the minority, non-controlled assets and cash. By whatever financial measure you use - EBITDA, free cash flow, operating cash flow, net income, or analyst target prices - this proposal represents a compelling value realization event for your shareholders.

We believe that Microsoft common stock represents a very attractive investment opportunity for Yahoo!'s shareholders. Microsoft has generated revenue growth of 15%, earnings growth of 26%, and a return on equity of 35% on average for the last three years. Microsoft's share price has generated shareholder returns of 8% during the last one year period and 28% during the last three year period, significantly outperforming the S&P 500. It is our view that Microsoft has significant potential upside given the continued solid growth in our core businesses, the recent launch of Windows Vista, and other strategic initiatives.

Microsoft's consistent belief has been that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! clearly represents the best way to deliver maximum value to our respective shareholders, as well as create a more efficient and competitive company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. In late 2006 and early 2007, we jointly explored a broad range of ways in which our two companies might work together. These discussions were based on a vision that the online businesses of Microsoft and Yahoo! should be aligned in some way to create a more effective competitor in the online marketplace. We discussed a number of alternatives ranging from commercial partnerships to a merger proposal, which you rejected. While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing.

In February 2007, I received a letter from your Chairman indicating the view of the Yahoo! Board that "now is not the right time from the perspective of our shareholders to enter into discussions regarding an acquisition transaction." According to that letter, the principal reason for this view was the Yahoo! Board's confidence in the "potential upside" if management successfully executed on a reformulated strategy based on certain operational initiatives, such as Project Panama, and a significant organizational realignment. A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved.

While online advertising growth continues, there are significant benefits of scale in advertising platform economics, in capital costs for search index build-out, and in research and development, making this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers. Synergies of this combination fall into four areas:

-- Scale economics: This combination enables synergies related to scale economics of the advertising platform where today there is only one competitor at scale. This includes synergies across both search and non-search related advertising that will strengthen the value proposition to both advertisers and publishers. Additionally, the combination allows us to consolidate capital spending.

-- Expanded R&D capacity: The combined talent of our engineering resources can be focused on R&D priorities such as a single search index and single advertising platform. Together we can unleash new levels of innovation, delivering enhanced user experiences, breakthroughs in search, and new advertising platform capabilities.

Many of these breakthroughs are a function of an engineering scale that today neither of our companies has on its own.

-- Operational efficiencies: Eliminating redundant infrastructure and duplicative operating costs will improve the financial performance of the combined entity.

-- Emerging user experiences: Our combined ability to focus engineering resources that drive innovation in emerging scenarios such as video, mobile services, online commerce, social media, and social platforms is greatly enhanced.

We would value the opportunity to further discuss with you how to optimize the integration of our respective businesses to create a leading global technology company with exceptional display and search advertising capabilities. You should also be aware that we intend to offer significant retention packages to your engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.

We have dedicated considerable time and resources to an analysis of a potential transaction and are confident that the combination will receive all necessary regulatory approvals. We look forward to discussing this with you, and both our internal legal team and outside counsel are available to meet with your counsel at their earliest convenience.

Our proposal is subject to the negotiation of a definitive merger agreement and our having the opportunity to conduct certain limited and confirmatory due diligence. In addition, because a portion of the aggregate merger consideration would consist of Microsoft common stock, we would provide Yahoo! the opportunity to conduct appropriate limited due diligence with respect to Microsoft. We are prepared to deliver a draft merger agreement to you and begin discussions immediately.

In light of the significance of this proposal to your shareholders and ours, as well as the potential for selective disclosures, our intention is to publicly release the text of this letter tomorrow morning.

Due to the importance of these discussions and the value represented by our proposal, we expect the Yahoo! Board to engage in a full review of our proposal.

My leadership team and I would be happy to make ourselves available to meet with you and your Board at your earliest convenience. Depending on the nature of your response, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!'s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.

We believe this proposal represents a unique opportunity to create significant value for Yahoo!'s shareholders and employees, and the combined company will be better positioned to provide an enhanced value proposition to users and advertisers. We hope that you and your Board share our enthusiasm, and we look forward to a prompt and favorable reply.

Sincerely yours,

/s/ Steven A. Ballmer

Steven A. Ballmer
Chief Executive Officer
Microsoft Corporation




Tags: microsoft yahoo proposal common board ]]>BallmerHighway.jpgMicrosoft just offered to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion or $31 a share. That's a 62 percent increase over yesterday's close. The offer came as a letter from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Yahoo's board. Here's your copy.

Dear Members of the Board:

I am writing on behalf of the Board of Directors of Microsoft to make a proposal for a business combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!. Under our proposal, Microsoft would acquire all of the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 based on Microsoft's closing share price on January 31, 2008, payable in the form of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. Microsoft would provide each Yahoo! shareholder with the ability to choose whether to receive the consideration in cash or Microsoft common stock, subject to pro-ration so that in the aggregate one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be exchanged for shares of Microsoft common stock and one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be converted into the right to receive cash. Our proposal is not subject to any financing condition.

Our proposal represents a 62% premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock of $19.18 on January 31, 2008. The implied premium for the operating assets of the company clearly is considerably greater when adjusted for the minority, non-controlled assets and cash. By whatever financial measure you use - EBITDA, free cash flow, operating cash flow, net income, or analyst target prices - this proposal represents a compelling value realization event for your shareholders.

We believe that Microsoft common stock represents a very attractive investment opportunity for Yahoo!'s shareholders. Microsoft has generated revenue growth of 15%, earnings growth of 26%, and a return on equity of 35% on average for the last three years. Microsoft's share price has generated shareholder returns of 8% during the last one year period and 28% during the last three year period, significantly outperforming the S&P 500. It is our view that Microsoft has significant potential upside given the continued solid growth in our core businesses, the recent launch of Windows Vista, and other strategic initiatives.

Microsoft's consistent belief has been that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! clearly represents the best way to deliver maximum value to our respective shareholders, as well as create a more efficient and competitive company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. In late 2006 and early 2007, we jointly explored a broad range of ways in which our two companies might work together. These discussions were based on a vision that the online businesses of Microsoft and Yahoo! should be aligned in some way to create a more effective competitor in the online marketplace. We discussed a number of alternatives ranging from commercial partnerships to a merger proposal, which you rejected. While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing.

In February 2007, I received a letter from your Chairman indicating the view of the Yahoo! Board that "now is not the right time from the perspective of our shareholders to enter into discussions regarding an acquisition transaction." According to that letter, the principal reason for this view was the Yahoo! Board's confidence in the "potential upside" if management successfully executed on a reformulated strategy based on certain operational initiatives, such as Project Panama, and a significant organizational realignment. A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved.

While online advertising growth continues, there are significant benefits of scale in advertising platform economics, in capital costs for search index build-out, and in research and development, making this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers. Synergies of this combination fall into four areas:

-- Scale economics: This combination enables synergies related to scale economics of the advertising platform where today there is only one competitor at scale. This includes synergies across both search and non-search related advertising that will strengthen the value proposition to both advertisers and publishers. Additionally, the combination allows us to consolidate capital spending.

-- Expanded R&D capacity: The combined talent of our engineering resources can be focused on R&D priorities such as a single search index and single advertising platform. Together we can unleash new levels of innovation, delivering enhanced user experiences, breakthroughs in search, and new advertising platform capabilities.

Many of these breakthroughs are a function of an engineering scale that today neither of our companies has on its own.

-- Operational efficiencies: Eliminating redundant infrastructure and duplicative operating costs will improve the financial performance of the combined entity.

-- Emerging user experiences: Our combined ability to focus engineering resources that drive innovation in emerging scenarios such as video, mobile services, online commerce, social media, and social platforms is greatly enhanced.

We would value the opportunity to further discuss with you how to optimize the integration of our respective businesses to create a leading global technology company with exceptional display and search advertising capabilities. You should also be aware that we intend to offer significant retention packages to your engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.

We have dedicated considerable time and resources to an analysis of a potential transaction and are confident that the combination will receive all necessary regulatory approvals. We look forward to discussing this with you, and both our internal legal team and outside counsel are available to meet with your counsel at their earliest convenience.

Our proposal is subject to the negotiation of a definitive merger agreement and our having the opportunity to conduct certain limited and confirmatory due diligence. In addition, because a portion of the aggregate merger consideration would consist of Microsoft common stock, we would provide Yahoo! the opportunity to conduct appropriate limited due diligence with respect to Microsoft. We are prepared to deliver a draft merger agreement to you and begin discussions immediately.

In light of the significance of this proposal to your shareholders and ours, as well as the potential for selective disclosures, our intention is to publicly release the text of this letter tomorrow morning.

Due to the importance of these discussions and the value represented by our proposal, we expect the Yahoo! Board to engage in a full review of our proposal.

My leadership team and I would be happy to make ourselves available to meet with you and your Board at your earliest convenience. Depending on the nature of your response, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!'s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.

We believe this proposal represents a unique opportunity to create significant value for Yahoo!'s shareholders and employees, and the combined company will be better positioned to provide an enhanced value proposition to users and advertisers. We hope that you and your Board share our enthusiasm, and we look forward to a prompt and favorable reply.

Sincerely yours,

/s/ Steven A. Ballmer

Steven A. Ballmer
Chief Executive Officer
Microsoft Corporation




Tags: microsoft yahoo proposal common board ]]> Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:06:42 -0500 tag:croncast.com,3336 Web 2.0 Faces a Squeeze http://feeds.portfolio.com/~r/portfolio/top5/~3/225718737/Fred-Wilson-Tech-VC-Slump Shared item Global financial turmoil caused by the subprime-mortgage meltdown, and the resulting credit crunch threatens to pour cold water on the red-hot technology venture capital market, a leading New York investor said.

Promising startups may be starved of capital, said Fred Wilson, general partner at Union Square Ventures, as investors pull back amid market volatility that is damping the market for initial public offerings. Wilson, added, however, that his $125 million venture capital firm will actively look to "take advantage" of any slowdown by investing in startups at lower valuations.

Wilson also said that he thinks News Corp. chairman and C.E.O. Rupert Murdoch made a strategic mistake by declining to make the Wall Street Journal's website free. Ending the subscription-based model would not only attract more readers and generate additional revenue, it would ensure that the Journal remains at the center of the business world's conversation as readers migrate to the Web.

The full Q&A of Wilson's interview can be found here. Video highlights of his remarks about venture capital are here, and video highlights of his thoughts on Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal are here.

Wilson's primary concern, though, is the current financial turmoil. He sees it having a domino effect that could stifle the booming Web 2.0 venture capital market.

"There has been a real 'de-risking' of the market, which will certainly affect the I.P.O. market," said Wilson, whose firm was an early investor in the social bookmarking site del.icio.us, which Yahoo bought, and Twitter, a site that combines social networking with blogging.

"That will impact the late-stage venture market," Wilson added, "because the I.P.O. market drives the late-stage venture market. And that will slowly impact the early-stage venture market."

As investors move out of equities and into fixed income and other usually safe investments, equity prices will drop across the board, he predicted, creating bargains.

"Valuations will come down," Wilson said. "There will be less exuberance about venture capital investments. What will probably take place is a flight to quality. Venture capitalists will want to invest more in the companies that look like they're going to be successful and be a little less willing to take fliers on things that are hard to really handicap.

"If the financing environment changes," Wilson added, "we'll try to take advantage of that and invest in companies at lower valuations than we would otherwise be paying."

In the interview, conducted in Union Square Ventures' office, in the Flatiron district of New York, Wilson also characterized Murdoch's strategy for the Journal's website as "a mistake" based on "short-term thinking."

"Anything that is news or opinion needs to be free on the Web," Wilson said, "because the Web is this very fluid medium that is very much driven by links and the flow of visitors through a discussion. If you're going to make people pay to see your opinion piece or your news piece, that kind of activity is not going to happen.

"People say, 'The Wall Street Journal has such a profitable business on the Web,'" Wilson added. "That's fine, but they could have such a better business on the Web if they embraced the way the medium is really designed to be used. And they're not doing that, so it's a mistake."

Wilson speculated that Murdoch ran the numbers and concluded: "We would have to cause our audience to grow 10 times, and we would have to sell ads at this price to replace all this revenue."

"But that's short-term thinking," Wilson said. "They could have been able to increase their audience and become a dominant voice that would feed back into the other things they want to do." The best example of potential synergies, he said, is the new Fox Business News cable channel.

Wilson suggested that the Journal's online competitorsfrom the New York Times to TheStreet.comlet out a collective sigh of relief upon hearing Murdoch's decision not to go free.

Related Links
Rational Exuberance, and a Word of Caution
Tech Start-ups: How Old Is Too Old?
Blackstone: The First of Many Private Equity IPOs



Tags: wilson market venture said web ]]>Global financial turmoil caused by the subprime-mortgage meltdown, and the resulting credit crunch threatens to pour cold water on the red-hot technology venture capital market, a leading New York investor said.

Promising startups may be starved of capital, said Fred Wilson, general partner at Union Square Ventures, as investors pull back amid market volatility that is damping the market for initial public offerings. Wilson, added, however, that his $125 million venture capital firm will actively look to "take advantage" of any slowdown by investing in startups at lower valuations.

Wilson also said that he thinks News Corp. chairman and C.E.O. Rupert Murdoch made a strategic mistake by declining to make the Wall Street Journal's website free. Ending the subscription-based model would not only attract more readers and generate additional revenue, it would ensure that the Journal remains at the center of the business world's conversation as readers migrate to the Web.

The full Q&A of Wilson's interview can be found here. Video highlights of his remarks about venture capital are here, and video highlights of his thoughts on Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal are here.

Wilson's primary concern, though, is the current financial turmoil. He sees it having a domino effect that could stifle the booming Web 2.0 venture capital market.

"There has been a real 'de-risking' of the market, which will certainly affect the I.P.O. market," said Wilson, whose firm was an early investor in the social bookmarking site del.icio.us, which Yahoo bought, and Twitter, a site that combines social networking with blogging.

"That will impact the late-stage venture market," Wilson added, "because the I.P.O. market drives the late-stage venture market. And that will slowly impact the early-stage venture market."

As investors move out of equities and into fixed income and other usually safe investments, equity prices will drop across the board, he predicted, creating bargains.

"Valuations will come down," Wilson said. "There will be less exuberance about venture capital investments. What will probably take place is a flight to quality. Venture capitalists will want to invest more in the companies that look like they're going to be successful and be a little less willing to take fliers on things that are hard to really handicap.

"If the financing environment changes," Wilson added, "we'll try to take advantage of that and invest in companies at lower valuations than we would otherwise be paying."

In the interview, conducted in Union Square Ventures' office, in the Flatiron district of New York, Wilson also characterized Murdoch's strategy for the Journal's website as "a mistake" based on "short-term thinking."

"Anything that is news or opinion needs to be free on the Web," Wilson said, "because the Web is this very fluid medium that is very much driven by links and the flow of visitors through a discussion. If you're going to make people pay to see your opinion piece or your news piece, that kind of activity is not going to happen.

"People say, 'The Wall Street Journal has such a profitable business on the Web,'" Wilson added. "That's fine, but they could have such a better business on the Web if they embraced the way the medium is really designed to be used. And they're not doing that, so it's a mistake."

Wilson speculated that Murdoch ran the numbers and concluded: "We would have to cause our audience to grow 10 times, and we would have to sell ads at this price to replace all this revenue."

"But that's short-term thinking," Wilson said. "They could have been able to increase their audience and become a dominant voice that would feed back into the other things they want to do." The best example of potential synergies, he said, is the new Fox Business News cable channel.

Wilson suggested that the Journal's online competitorsfrom the New York Times to TheStreet.comlet out a collective sigh of relief upon hearing Murdoch's decision not to go free.

Related Links
Rational Exuberance, and a Word of Caution
Tech Start-ups: How Old Is Too Old?
Blackstone: The First of Many Private Equity IPOs



Tags: wilson market venture said web ]]> Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:00:00 -0500 tag:croncast.com,3294 Al Gore's Current Files For $100M IPO http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/224760128/current_files_for_ipo.php Shared item Current Media, the parent company of Current TV and Current.com, has filed for a $100 Million IPO on NASDEQ. Current was famously co-founded by ex Vice President Al Gore. IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) have been thin on the ground in the Web 2.0 era, but in Current's case the money will be used for expansion of their TV network as well as their website offering. We covered Current TV's internet plans in July last year and their new user-generated website Current.com in October.

In the IPO filing, Current describes their media model as "innovative but unproven".

The differences include Current "interacting with our TV network to provide a participatory "two-screen" experience"; "enabling user-generated content and participation", which it says differentiates it from "traditional "top-down" news and information websites such as CNN.com, NewYorkTimes.com and Yahoo!"; and "providing programming assistance and editorial oversight, as compared to other social news sources, such as del.icio.us and digg.com."

For an in-depth analysis of the Current media model, which utilizes the Internet and user generated content far more than its TV network rivals, here is another look at our product-focused report on Current:

Introduction to Current

Current was founded by Joel Hyatt and Al Gore and launched August 1, 2005. Gore serves as its Chairman and has understandably been the focus of much of the media coverage Current has received. [FWIW I sat in Al Gore's office in my visit, although the man himself wasn't present] The TV Network and accompanying website specifically targets "young adults" - i.e. the MySpace and Facebook generation. The 'read/write' principle is very much in effect on the Network and website, because Current encourages TV viewers to create content and engage with it on a very interactive level. For example viewers can create their own ads, called vcams (for 'viewer created ads'; I was told that viewers much prefer them to professional ads). As of now, the Current TV Network reaches 52 M people worldwide, 42 M of those in the US.


Current's Pod format - more on this below

As a Reuters report on the current.com launch noted, Current aims to be "the first fully integrated online and television network". Website users can create their own content, and there is a digg-style interface for voting on it. Comments on stories may include text, video, photos and other forms of media. For example users can post a YouTube video. The Current folks told me that in the private beta, they noticed that users would post videos and other media that was only tangentially related to the original story - which they said produced a more diverse conversation around a topic. Current.com was in a private beta for about 8 weeks before its launch last week.

Another thing to note is that Current is not purely user-generated - it has a strong editorial voice and many of the frontpage stories are editorially selected.

Viewpoints

The first innovative feature I want to highlight is Viewpoints, which is a part of the .com site that Al Gore himself envisaged. It's a facewall based around a specific topic; usually political or current affairs based. When you first navigate to the Viewpoints page, there is a tagcloud of topics, which then desolves into a facewall of the main topic - today it is "Torture In War". When you click on a face, a 1 minute video of that person opens. There are 11-12 topics currently, many of them related to the US election. Al Gore himself has posted to Viewpoints, but the Current team were quick to tell me that Gore is just one of the wall of faces - and doesn't get special treatment. Gore hopes this type of system will encourage politicians to become more topic-focused in the election and other politcal issues.

The design is stunning, but more importantly the format works - you're limited to 1 minute to make your point and the community can vote and respond with their own 1-minute videos. The example below shows a video with a 73% disapproval rating and it was responded to by 1 person. The Current folks told me that this format results in more nuanced, personal opinions. Because it is "peer to peer" (in the human sense), people can quickly influence their peers by uploading their viewpoint. What's more, the best of these clips will be run on Current's TV shows.

'On TV' and the Concept of Pods

The other main feature on the Current.com website that impressed me was the wagon wheel-like TV programming guide. It is under the tab labeled On TV. It uses a concept called "pods", which were described to me as Current's form of programming. Each pod is a chunk of content, displayed on an interactive wheel. Here is a screenshot:

As with Viewpoints, the pods are visually very slick and interactive. I really have to tip my hat to the Current designers, they have done a great job with the site.

The philosophy behind the pod is fascinating too. It's designed to cater to their young audience - who are prone to multi-tasking. I was told that 70-75% of Current's audience has a computer in the room while they watch TV. And while they are watching TV, they are interested in learning more about what they're watching - e.g. constantly refreshing the website and getting content from their community. That's the theory anyway, and the pod format was built around it. The UI makes it very simple to consume the media (video, music), click on responses (uploaded community videos), find related information, even do "assignments" about the topic. As well as showing what times the shows are on TV, of course.

Current's Joshua Katz (President of Marketing) described the pod to me as "what FM radio used to be in the early days", when one song led to another and there were connections - and (back then) there was still a wide variety of content.

A note on the Current demographic: it is roughly 18-34 years old, but perhaps more importantly they're targeting "influencers" - people who want new info constantly, share it via the Web, and have on average 25-60 people who they interact with online (IM with, etc). This is the Internet age audience, not couch potatoes with a remote control glued to their hand.

Conclusion: Reaching for New Form of TV

What I like about Current, apart from the awesome design, is that they're attempting to change the way television is consumed and created. It's a much more interactive experience, where the audience participates and creates.

I buy the theory that young people are watching tv and on a computer accessing the Web at the same time. So the pod format is, in my view, an innovative new UI built around this new form of television watching. It's a bit like when Google created Gmail - they built it for the Web, rather than copying the desktop paradigm. Likewise, Current has developed their pod UI based on a new form of TV/Web experience, rather than copying traditional TV programming formats.

Of course, for any TV Network, the content has to be compelling - so it remains to be seen how Current fares long-term on that count. But on the technology and concepts behind Current, what do you think? Is this type of TV/Web format the future of TV?



Tags: current tv gore network content ]]>Current Media, the parent company of Current TV and Current.com, has filed for a $100 Million IPO on NASDEQ. Current was famously co-founded by ex Vice President Al Gore. IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) have been thin on the ground in the Web 2.0 era, but in Current's case the money will be used for expansion of their TV network as well as their website offering. We covered Current TV's internet plans in July last year and their new user-generated website Current.com in October.

In the IPO filing, Current describes their media model as "innovative but unproven".

The differences include Current "interacting with our TV network to provide a participatory "two-screen" experience"; "enabling user-generated content and participation", which it says differentiates it from "traditional "top-down" news and information websites such as CNN.com, NewYorkTimes.com and Yahoo!"; and "providing programming assistance and editorial oversight, as compared to other social news sources, such as del.icio.us and digg.com."

For an in-depth analysis of the Current media model, which utilizes the Internet and user generated content far more than its TV network rivals, here is another look at our product-focused report on Current:

Introduction to Current

Current was founded by Joel Hyatt and Al Gore and launched August 1, 2005. Gore serves as its Chairman and has understandably been the focus of much of the media coverage Current has received. [FWIW I sat in Al Gore's office in my visit, although the man himself wasn't present] The TV Network and accompanying website specifically targets "young adults" - i.e. the MySpace and Facebook generation. The 'read/write' principle is very much in effect on the Network and website, because Current encourages TV viewers to create content and engage with it on a very interactive level. For example viewers can create their own ads, called vcams (for 'viewer created ads'; I was told that viewers much prefer them to professional ads). As of now, the Current TV Network reaches 52 M people worldwide, 42 M of those in the US.


Current's Pod format - more on this below

As a Reuters report on the current.com launch noted, Current aims to be "the first fully integrated online and television network". Website users can create their own content, and there is a digg-style interface for voting on it. Comments on stories may include text, video, photos and other forms of media. For example users can post a YouTube video. The Current folks told me that in the private beta, they noticed that users would post videos and other media that was only tangentially related to the original story - which they said produced a more diverse conversation around a topic. Current.com was in a private beta for about 8 weeks before its launch last week.

Another thing to note is that Current is not purely user-generated - it has a strong editorial voice and many of the frontpage stories are editorially selected.

Viewpoints

The first innovative feature I want to highlight is Viewpoints, which is a part of the .com site that Al Gore himself envisaged. It's a facewall based around a specific topic; usually political or current affairs based. When you first navigate to the Viewpoints page, there is a tagcloud of topics, which then desolves into a facewall of the main topic - today it is "Torture In War". When you click on a face, a 1 minute video of that person opens. There are 11-12 topics currently, many of them related to the US election. Al Gore himself has posted to Viewpoints, but the Current team were quick to tell me that Gore is just one of the wall of faces - and doesn't get special treatment. Gore hopes this type of system will encourage politicians to become more topic-focused in the election and other politcal issues.

The design is stunning, but more importantly the format works - you're limited to 1 minute to make your point and the community can vote and respond with their own 1-minute videos. The example below shows a video with a 73% disapproval rating and it was responded to by 1 person. The Current folks told me that this format results in more nuanced, personal opinions. Because it is "peer to peer" (in the human sense), people can quickly influence their peers by uploading their viewpoint. What's more, the best of these clips will be run on Current's TV shows.

'On TV' and the Concept of Pods

The other main feature on the Current.com website that impressed me was the wagon wheel-like TV programming guide. It is under the tab labeled On TV. It uses a concept called "pods", which were described to me as Current's form of programming. Each pod is a chunk of content, displayed on an interactive wheel. Here is a screenshot:

As with Viewpoints, the pods are visually very slick and interactive. I really have to tip my hat to the Current designers, they have done a great job with the site.

The philosophy behind the pod is fascinating too. It's designed to cater to their young audience - who are prone to multi-tasking. I was told that 70-75% of Current's audience has a computer in the room while they watch TV. And while they are watching TV, they are interested in learning more about what they're watching - e.g. constantly refreshing the website and getting content from their community. That's the theory anyway, and the pod format was built around it. The UI makes it very simple to consume the media (video, music), click on responses (uploaded community videos), find related information, even do "assignments" about the topic. As well as showing what times the shows are on TV, of course.

Current's Joshua Katz (President of Marketing) described the pod to me as "what FM radio used to be in the early days", when one song led to another and there were connections - and (back then) there was still a wide variety of content.

A note on the Current demographic: it is roughly 18-34 years old, but perhaps more importantly they're targeting "influencers" - people who want new info constantly, share it via the Web, and have on average 25-60 people who they interact with online (IM with, etc). This is the Internet age audience, not couch potatoes with a remote control glued to their hand.

Conclusion: Reaching for New Form of TV

What I like about Current, apart from the awesome design, is that they're attempting to change the way television is consumed and created. It's a much more interactive experience, where the audience participates and creates.

I buy the theory that young people are watching tv and on a computer accessing the Web at the same time. So the pod format is, in my view, an innovative new UI built around this new form of television watching. It's a bit like when Google created Gmail - they built it for the Web, rather than copying the desktop paradigm. Likewise, Current has developed their pod UI based on a new form of TV/Web experience, rather than copying traditional TV programming formats.

Of course, for any TV Network, the content has to be compelling - so it remains to be seen how Current fares long-term on that count. But on the technology and concepts behind Current, what do you think? Is this type of TV/Web format the future of TV?



Tags: current tv gore network content ]]> Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:21:53 -0500 tag:croncast.com,3279 Huge Fraud Rocks Banking http://feeds.portfolio.com/~r/portfolio/top5/~3/222319880/Huge-Fraud-Rocks-Banking Shared item
Socit Gnrale says it uncovered last weekend a fraud "exceptional in its size and nature," executed by a single trader, that has generated a loss of 4.9 billion euros, or $7.1 billion. As a result, France's second-largest bank says it will seek emergency funds.

The size of the fraud dwarfs the $1.4 billion loss created by Nick Leeson that caused the collapse of Barings Bank in 1995.

And it comes at an unusually vulnerable time for the banking system. The credit crunch has forced the major central banks to take aggressive steps to increase liquidity. But big banks in Europe and the United States are still reeling from losses on their investments that are tied to American subprime mortgages.

The huge fraud is "everyone's worst nightmare," Richard Fuld, the chief executive of Lehman Brothers, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to Reuters.

The fraud is especially surprising given Socit Gnrale's stellar reputation for trading complex derivatives and for managing risk. Indeed, the bank has had little exposure to the subprime turmoil.

Socit Gnrale did not identify the trader, who was based in Paris. In a conference call, the bank's chairman, Daniel Bouton, said he did not know where the trader was but believed he still had his passport. The bank said it appeared that the trader did not stand to benefit directly from his fraud.

The bank added that the trader was "responsible for plain-vanilla futures hedging in European equity-market indices."

But the trader had instead taken "massive fraudulent directional positions." He concealed these positions by creating fictitious hedges, the bank said. He was able to do so because he knew the bank's control procedures so well as a result of having previously worked in the back office.

Socit Gnrale said that it detected the positions on Saturday, and quickly sold or unwound them by Wednesday.

"The decision was made to unwind this position because it was impossible for the bank to maintain," said Mr. Bouton, according to the Financial Times.


Related Links
Equity Derivatives House of the Year
Daily Brew
Copying: A Trendy Bill Now On The Hill, Part 3



Tags: bank fraud said trader gnrale ]]>
Socit Gnrale says it uncovered last weekend a fraud "exceptional in its size and nature," executed by a single trader, that has generated a loss of 4.9 billion euros, or $7.1 billion. As a result, France's second-largest bank says it will seek emergency funds.

The size of the fraud dwarfs the $1.4 billion loss created by Nick Leeson that caused the collapse of Barings Bank in 1995.

And it comes at an unusually vulnerable time for the banking system. The credit crunch has forced the major central banks to take aggressive steps to increase liquidity. But big banks in Europe and the United States are still reeling from losses on their investments that are tied to American subprime mortgages.

The huge fraud is "everyone's worst nightmare," Richard Fuld, the chief executive of Lehman Brothers, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to Reuters.

The fraud is especially surprising given Socit Gnrale's stellar reputation for trading complex derivatives and for managing risk. Indeed, the bank has had little exposure to the subprime turmoil.

Socit Gnrale did not identify the trader, who was based in Paris. In a conference call, the bank's chairman, Daniel Bouton, said he did not know where the trader was but believed he still had his passport. The bank said it appeared that the trader did not stand to benefit directly from his fraud.

The bank added that the trader was "responsible for plain-vanilla futures hedging in European equity-market indices."

But the trader had instead taken "massive fraudulent directional positions." He concealed these positions by creating fictitious hedges, the bank said. He was able to do so because he knew the bank's control procedures so well as a result of having previously worked in the back office.

Socit Gnrale said that it detected the positions on Saturday, and quickly sold or unwound them by Wednesday.

"The decision was made to unwind this position because it was impossible for the bank to maintain," said Mr. Bouton, according to the Financial Times.


Related Links
Equity Derivatives House of the Year
Daily Brew
Copying: A Trendy Bill Now On The Hill, Part 3



Tags: bank fraud said trader gnrale ]]> Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:00:00 -0500 tag:croncast.com,3214 Sun Buys MySQL for $1B and Wall Street Mourns http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/217814436/ Shared item

Sun Microsystems said today it would pay $1 billion to buy privately held open-source database maker MySQL, a move that strengthens Sun's ability to offer an alternative to proprietary software. The purchase, while smaller than the $8.5 billion Oracle-BEA deal that was also unveiled today, is notable because MySQL was a highly anticipated IPO candidate, and had long rebuffed suitors interested in buying it.

For other technology firms planning IPOs, the deal may be as welcome as a kick in the head. While 58 technology firms went public in the last 12 months, the market began to soften in the final quarter, with companies such as Classmates.com and Applied Precision pulling their plans for public offerings and only strong contenders, such as NetSuite, managing to make it out the door. Indeed, Peter Falvey, a managing director with tech investment bank Revolution Partners, says 2008 isn't looking good for the tech IPO market.

Volatile markets are lousy for high-growth tech IPOs, and I think the markets are going to be choppy for some time, Falvey told me this morning. The tech stocks have gotten hammered, and I think public company investors will be looking to be more conservative in 2008. Companies will continue to file and be ready in case the window opens, but I think [the] first half of 2008 is going to be soft.

Sun (JAVA) has agreed to pay $800 million in cash and assume $200 million in options for MySQL, which had raised $38.5 million from venture and strategic investors including Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, SAP, Intel Capital and Red Hat. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz explains in his blog that the deal gives Sun a product in the $15 billion-a-year database market; it's also the final piece needed for Sun's open-source operating system for the Internet.

So why is this important for the internet? Until now, no platform vendor has assembled all the core elements of a completely open source operating system for the internet. No company has been able to deliver a comprehensive alternative to the leading proprietary OS. With this acquisition, we will have done just that - positioned Sun at the center of the web, as the definitive provider of high performance platforms for the web economy. For startups and web 2.0 companies, to government agencies and traditional enterprises. This creates enormous potential for Sun, for the global free software community, and for our partners and customers across the globe. There's opportunity everywhere.

MySQL and its development community are behind the deal. MySQL Chairman (and venture backer) Kevin Harvey said it gives MySQL customers one-stop shopping for all of their Web 2.0 infrastructure.

MySQL is the database for many of the new economy's hottest companies, including Google and Facebook. For Sun, it not only closes a gap in the company's open-source software plans, but offers a way to sell Sun hardware to the current generation of startups.



Tags: sun mysql tech source open ]]>

Sun Microsystems said today it would pay $1 billion to buy privately held open-source database maker MySQL, a move that strengthens Sun's ability to offer an alternative to proprietary software. The purchase, while smaller than the $8.5 billion Oracle-BEA deal that was also unveiled today, is notable because MySQL was a highly anticipated IPO candidate, and had long rebuffed suitors interested in buying it.

For other technology firms planning IPOs, the deal may be as welcome as a kick in the head. While 58 technology firms went public in the last 12 months, the market began to soften in the final quarter, with companies such as Classmates.com and Applied Precision pulling their plans for public offerings and only strong contenders, such as NetSuite, managing to make it out the door. Indeed, Peter Falvey, a managing director with tech investment bank Revolution Partners, says 2008 isn't looking good for the tech IPO market.

Volatile markets are lousy for high-growth tech IPOs, and I think the markets are going to be choppy for some time, Falvey told me this morning. The tech stocks have gotten hammered, and I think public company investors will be looking to be more conservative in 2008. Companies will continue to file and be ready in case the window opens, but I think [the] first half of 2008 is going to be soft.

Sun (JAVA) has agreed to pay $800 million in cash and assume $200 million in options for MySQL, which had raised $38.5 million from venture and strategic investors including Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, SAP, Intel Capital and Red Hat. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz explains in his blog that the deal gives Sun a product in the $15 billion-a-year database market; it's also the final piece needed for Sun's open-source operating system for the Internet.

So why is this important for the internet? Until now, no platform vendor has assembled all the core elements of a completely open source operating system for the internet. No company has been able to deliver a comprehensive alternative to the leading proprietary OS. With this acquisition, we will have done just that - positioned Sun at the center of the web, as the definitive provider of high performance platforms for the web economy. For startups and web 2.0 companies, to government agencies and traditional enterprises. This creates enormous potential for Sun, for the global free software community, and for our partners and customers across the globe. There's opportunity everywhere.

MySQL and its development community are behind the deal. MySQL Chairman (and venture backer) Kevin Harvey said it gives MySQL customers one-stop shopping for all of their Web 2.0 infrastructure.

MySQL is the database for many of the new economy's hottest companies, including Google and Facebook. For Sun, it not only closes a gap in the company's open-source software plans, but offers a way to sell Sun hardware to the current generation of startups.



Tags: sun mysql tech source open ]]> Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:54:26 -0500 tag:croncast.com,3122 Eames stamps coming this summer http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/771-eames-stamps-coming-this-summer Shared item

After 10-years in the works, the Eames House, Lounge Chair, La Chaise, Crosspatch, House of Cards, and other famous Eames designs will get your mail from point A to point B this summer. More from the Chairman of the Board of the Eames Foundation.



Tags: eames house summer point foundation ]]>

After 10-years in the works, the Eames House, Lounge Chair, La Chaise, Crosspatch, House of Cards, and other famous Eames designs will get your mail from point A to point B this summer. More from the Chairman of the Board of the Eames Foundation.



Tags: eames house summer point foundation ]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:58:00 -0500 tag:croncast.com,2874 Tax Rebates to Fight Recession? http://feeds.portfolio.com/~r/portfolio/news/~3/213786082/Tax-Rebates-to-Fight-Recession Shared item
Indeed, in a speech in Chicago on Monday, the president tried something of a balancing act, by indicating his concern about the economy while suggesting that the economy was resilient all the same.

Now Michael Phillips in the Wall Street Journal reports that immediate stimulus measures are on the table and may be announced in the president's State of the Union address on January 28.

Among the measures being considered are "a tax rebate of perhaps $500 for individuals to encourage spending and a change in tax laws that would allow companies to deduct from their taxes a substantial portion of investments in equipment," the Journal says.

Such steps would echo the tactics used in 2001, when the country was clearly in a recession and most households received rebates of $300 to $600.

Such a stimulus could well find support in a Democratic Congress, as leading Democrats including Barack Obama have made similar calls for tax credits.

One of the differences between 2001 and today, of course, is that Congress is now controlled by the Democrats.

Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post says partisan