Is the fat lady about to sing for free, mashup ready API’s? Google rumored to be planning maps fees. If true, this could also be a great opportunity for Yang and Co. at Yahoo Maps to steal a little thunder if they are paying attention.
While API charges could add up, advertising revenue is still the primary source for search: Yahoo buys an advertising tech company while Google promises to make targeted advertising more transparent.
More smoke mirrors and outright E-Parasite lies. Lawmaker and industry advocate can’t agree on whether it’s a DMCA re-write. In this case, I think we’ve seen a rare glimpse of accidental honesty by the lawmaker.
Yes we can! President Obama nominates two more lawyers as FCC commissioners. Unfortunately, the Senate is also dominated by kindred ambulance chasers, so they’ll likely be confirmed. If successful, look for more legal maneuvering in Chairman Genachowski’s relentless power grab. At risk? A free and open Internet. Meanwhile , VP Joe Biden proclaims the internet should remain free and open, At least in Russia and China.
Indelible proof that Twitter has completely devolved from techie toy to a graffiti wall for teeny boppers.
Just when you thought the microprocessor business had gone from speed wars to core wars……..
… as it was not for lack of trying.
The FTC had alleged that Google misrepresented its privacy claims because it led Gmail users to believe they could choose to join Buzz. Instead, Google Buzz, Google’s first attempt at a social network, was integrated into Gmail. This resulted in Buzz users’ e-mail contacts being made public. That didn’t go over well.
By the end of March, Google has apologized for its blunder. Alma Whitten, Google’s Director of Privacy, wrote, “User trust really matters to Google. That’s why we try to be clear about what data we collect and how we use it-and to give people real control over the information they share with us.”
She continued, “That said, we don’t always get everything right. The launch of Google Buzz fell short of our usual standards for transparency and user control-letting our users and Google down. While we worked quickly to make improvements, regulators-including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission-unsurprisingly wanted more detail about what went wrong and how we could prevent it from happening again. Today, we’ve reached an agreement with the FTC to address their concerns. We’ll receive an independent review of our privacy procedures once every two years, and we’ll ask users to give us affirmative consent before we change how we share their personal information.”
If you read the order, FTC has a 20 year whip against Google. Google blew it and now they pay the piper. What’s worse is now, you got a beef with Google, write a letter to the FTC. Google must now respond. It might end up better than filling in one of their silly online forms.
Task.
Netflix Inc. (NFLX) dropped the most in seven years after the video-rental service said it lost 800,000 U.S. subscribers in the third quarter, more than expected, and predicted more cancellations over a price increase.Netflix plunged 37 percent to $75.28 at 9:39 a.m. New York time, for the biggest intraday decline since October 2004. The stock closed at an all-time high of $298.73 on July 13, according to Bloomberg data.
The outlook suggests Netflix has been unable to contain a subscriber revolt over a price increase and aborted plan to force subscribers into separate streaming and DVD services. The company now forecasts losses in 2012 because of costs to offer content in the U.K. and Ireland, and will delay further expansion until profitability is restored.
The institutionals are now trying to understand if this is just a blip or something more long term. –
investors are trying to gauge the extent of the fallout from the price increase and aborted plan to put DVD customers on a new service called Qwikster.
“To show even modest U.S. subscriber growth in the fourth quarter will require significant ramp-up in Netflix’s marketing spending,” said Paul T. Sweeney, director of research for Bloomberg Industries.
Hastings downplayed the likelihood of a big increase in marketing efforts.
“Our streaming marketing has been very effective in the past two years,” Hastings said. “We are going to work on improving the user interface, expanding to more platforms and delivering more content. There’s no grand gestures, there’s just a lot of steady and intense efforts.”
Domestic streaming subscriptions are forecast to decline this month, level off in November and rebound in December to end at 20 million to 21.5 million, Netflix said. DVD subscriptions will fall “sharply” to 10.3 million to 11.3 million customers.
News to the investors — Its long term fellas. This is the opening that the likes of RedBox and Dish were looking for. Dish already has their ads out with their BlockBuster streaming service. RedBox will be shortly to follow. NetFlix will go from being a one horse race to a three ring circus. What makes the sitatuion worse is that NetFlix instead of being the destructive darling will be the legacy loon if RedBox follows through on their pricing strategy ($2.99 streams).
The thing that NetFlix forgot is that they are in a market that is extremely price sensitive. Entertainment is not an essential utility service. Hence consumer reaction to price changes can be huge. Confusing the customer only mkaes the matter worse.
Bleak indeed. Can NetFlix respond?
The Dutch are pushing towards nationwide 1GB service. Jealous? The money spent on lobbying and takeovers by the telcos and cable guys over the last decade could have made it happen here.
Get ready to pay a really, really high price for earbuds if you want to listen via the fruit.
Salesforce has a record quarter. SAS that is a reasonably good value is still hot.
HP has a decent quarter, but plans a shake up. After his Web OS disaster, new CEO talks up ditching hardware while spending large for an ERP product. So much for sticking with what’s working. There isn’t currently enough demand for HP software and services and even with a new ERP venture this plan won’t take up the slack. When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and the man at the helm of HP came from SAP. My take: the board made yet another really bad CEO hire. It has to get it right next time and next time should be soon if they expect their shares to have any value.
Did you apply for a government job online recently? Good news! The feds lost your resume.
AT&T ditches $10 text plan, but is still has the $20 plan available. Tell me again how good of a deal it will be for consumers when there is no T Mobile?
“They’re going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs,” writes IBM’s Middle East and Africa CTO Mark Dean in a company blog post.“When I helped design the PC,” Dean writes, “I didn’t think I’d live long enough to witness its decline. But, while PCs will continue to be much-used devices, they’re no longer at the leading edge of computing.”
Dean, who now uses a tablet as his “primary computer”, believes that computing is no longer centered around devices, but instead on people’s interaction with them.
“These days,” he writes, “it’s becoming clear that innovation flourishes best not on devices but in the social spaces between them, where people and ideas meet and interact.”
It is, of course, to be noted that Dean is toeing the company line. IBM is extricating itself from making devices, and through its Smarter Planet initiative is focusing more on outcomes and usage models than mere hardware.
Dean acknowledges this. “An essential part of our continuous transformation is a strategy of leaving commodity businesses and expanding in higher-value markets,” he writes. “Over the past 10 years, in addition to leaving the PC business, we also exited disk drives and printers.”
I understand why IBM is doing it, they can’t compete with Taiwan on the low end of the scale. So rather than find a way to beat the Tigers, IBM is going after services as its salvation. Problem is IBM though it has a service arm, will find that just as competitive as making hardware.
But the PC dying? People said this when laptops became the rage. Didn’t happen, fact sales of desktops increased. Tablets will be an essential tool no doubt. But there is something appealing about a $200 beige box that you can do anything with. Graphics too slow? Slap in a high end graphics card. Need to convert to fiber 10Gb ethernet? Buy a card and stick it in there. Need a router? More ethernets and free software. The customizaton is endless with that architecture. Can’t do that with a tablet.
Essentially that ole beige box was and is the 1957 Chevy for the IT community. Like its namesake in the auto world it can be morphed cheaply to fulfill many roles. That is why is has and will persist for quite some time to come.
The reports of the PC’s death are entirely premature.
Artist group perpetuates IP law insanity. When trolling gets profitable, everyone wants in.
Mark Cuban on patent law.
The web turns 20.
Comcast launches $10 broadband, but not for most of us. We’ll be subsidizing it.
Eric Schmidt wants in on the payment biz. Google checkout went nowhere, will wallet follow?
Gamers show off their custom cased computers.
Apple’s latest security vulnerability? Batteries!
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