The Big Picture | Web/Tech

New Wicki Critical of Pundits & Celebrities

Saturday, May 17, 2008 | 05:30 PM

The biggest danger of the internet: everything eventually devolves to sophomoric humor.

Case in point: Dickipedia

Oh, and sorry about Your Mom . . .

Coming Soon: $200 Apple iPhone 3G

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 | 04:30 PM

in Consumer Spending | Technology | Web/Tech

Hints, signs and portents are starting to pile up that Apple (AAPL) will soon deliver unto the world the 3G iPhone that has been heralded in prophecy ever since the current model was born.

That's according to GMSV, who also note:

* Apple announced there are no more iPhones left in its U.S. and U.K. online stores.

* Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says the devices are in short supply at many of the retail outlets as well.

* AT&T’s product listing includes a new option — “iPhone Black,” the rumored color of the 3G model.

* Apple has confirmed to Fortune that Steve Jobs will deliver a keynote address on June 9, the first day of Apple’s World Wide Developers conference.

* AT&T told retail employees not to schedule any vacation between June 15 and July 12 to ensure sufficient staffing for “an exciting Summer Promotional Launch.”

I have steadfastedly refused to buy the first gen, 2G iPhone. I have no need for a pricey gadget that only works on a slowpoke network, and neither do you. (Not that this small quibble prevented 10 million people from buying the gorgeous toy).

However, combine the above with Fortune's report of a forthcoming AT&T big price cut (bringing the price down to $199 for a 2 year contract) and I don't see how I can avoid becoming part of the iPhone nation. . .

Visual News Aggregator

Tuesday, May 06, 2008 | 02:00 PM

in Digital Media | Financial Press | Web/Tech

Interesting visual news aggregator from MSNBC: Spectra

You can custom select from a variety of news topics and sources.

Here's the official blurb:

Spectra merges the news spectrum and the color spectrum into an expansive news viewing experience. With comprehensive live news coverage, striking design, complete customization, dynamic browsing, human body interaction and many other unique features, Spectra brings A Fuller Spectrum of News to life in our most immersive extension yet.

(Who the hell writes this shit?)

Fed Opens Yahoo Lending Facility (YLF)

Sunday, May 04, 2008 | 07:06 AM

in Corporate Management | Federal Reserve | M&A | Web/Tech

When the Microsoft-Yahoo news came out last night, I suggested that "the Fed ought to kick in the additional $8 billion or so to make this happen."

Someone on the the Yahoo message boards of YHOO itself took the idea a step further:

"In response to recent events Federal Reserve Board voted unanimously to authorize the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to create Yahoo Lending Facility (YLF) to avoid significant stock market distruption and to support Yahoo! Inc shares. Yahoo! Inc and its authorized agents will be able to borrow from the facility to support stock price.

This facility will be available for business on Monday, May 5. It will be in place for at least six months and may be extended as conditions warrant. The interest rate charged on the credit will be the same as the primary credit rate, or discount rate, at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In addition, Yahoo! Inc shareholders who are unable to sell their shares at or above Friday, May 2 closing price, will be able to swap Yahoo! shares for the US Treasuries at the set price of $29.70 per share."

Fed opens Yahoo Lending Facility 3-May-08 11:58 pm

Hat tip: John Borchers

Previously:
Ballmer, Yang Agree to See Other People http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/05/ballmer-yang-ag.html

'Like Watching Dinosaurs Mate'

Thursday, May 01, 2008 | 10:38 AM

in Digital Media | Video | Web/Tech | Weblogs

As we await what is happening with Microsoft and Yahoo, Aaron Task and I discussed the bigger picture as to what happens next on the internet.

This was all pretty off the cuff stuff (in case you cannot tell) but its how I really feel about the players involved:

That headline was actually spontaneous (I can turn a phrase, huh?)

Ok, feel free to write what a MSFT basher I am (no arguments from me)

Cognitive Surplus

Sunday, April 27, 2008 | 07:30 PM

in Psychology/Sentiment | Television | Web/Tech

NYU Professor Clay Shirky asks, "What are you doing with your Cognitive Surplus?"

"I was being interviewed by a TV producer to see whether I should be on their show, and she asked me, "What are you seeing out there that's interesting?"

I started telling her about the Wikipedia article on Pluto. You may remember that Pluto got kicked out of the planet club a couple of years ago, so all of a sudden there was all of this activity on Wikipedia. The talk pages light up, people are editing the article like mad, and the whole community is in an ruckus--"How should we characterize this change in Pluto's status?" And a little bit at a time they move the article--fighting offstage all the while--from, "Pluto is the ninth planet," to "Pluto is an odd-shaped rock with an odd-shaped orbit at the edge of the solar system."

So I tell her all this stuff, and I think, "Okay, we're going to have a conversation about authority or social construction or whatever." That wasn't her question. She heard this story and she shook her head and said, "Where do people find the time?" That was her question. And I just kind of snapped. And I said, "No one who works in TV gets to ask that question. You know where the time comes from. It comes from the cognitive surplus you've been masking for 50 years."

So how big is that surplus? So if you take Wikipedia as a kind of unit, all of Wikipedia, the whole project--every page, every edit, every talk page, every line of code, in every language that Wikipedia exists in--that represents something like the cumulation of 100 million hours of human thought. I worked this out with Martin Wattenberg at IBM; it's a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it's the right order of magnitude, about 100 million hours of thought.

And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that's 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television. Or put still another way, in the U.S., we spend 100 million hours every weekend, just watching the ads. This is a pretty big surplus. People asking, "Where do they find the time?" when they're looking at things like Wikipedia don't understand how tiny that entire project is, as a carve-out of this asset that's finally being dragged into what Tim calls an architecture of participation.

Now, the interesting thing about a surplus like that is that society doesn't know what to do with it at first--hence the gin, hence the sitcoms. Because if people knew what to do with a surplus with reference to the existing social institutions, then it wouldn't be a surplus, would it? It's precisely when no one has any idea how to deploy something that people have to start experimenting with it, in order for the surplus to get integrated, and the course of that integration can transform society.

The early phase for taking advantage of this cognitive surplus, the phase I think we're still in, is all special cases. The physics of participation is much more like the physics of weather than it is like the physics of gravity. We know all the forces that combine to make these kinds of things work: there's an interesting community over here, there's an interesting sharing model over there, those people are collaborating on open source software. But despite knowing the inputs, we can't predict the outputs yet because there's so much complexity."

Fascinating stuff . . .

Source:
Gin, Television, and Social Surplus
Clay Shirky
Web 2.0 conference, April 23, 2008 http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html

Dirty Economic Indicator of the Month

Wednesday, April 23, 2008 | 07:30 PM

in Digital Media | Economy | Web/Tech

Of all the indicators I track, this is the one that I find most ~~concerning~~ amusing:

"Economists are citing some dire portents of a recession these days, but they've missed one indicator I find especially disturbing: The porn business has suddenly gone flaccid.

The drop in porn rentals and sales is worrisome on several fronts: Till now, porn has been a recession-proof business. Further, with the country already in a dispirited mood, the fact that porn has gone limp may indicate a true plunge in consumer confidence.

DVD porn is down between 10% and 30%, depending on which nook and cranny of the business you scrutinize. Joy King, executive vice president of Wicked Pictures, and a smart analyst of the business, says the smallest dropoff is in "couples-friendly porn" -- films that embrace something of a storyline. Women account for roughly half of this audience, making their purchases in lingerie boutiques and toy stores (no, not kiddie toys)."

I suspect that the various free porn sites (You Porn, Tiava, etc.) are competing with for pay triple X DVD entertainment sales.

Thanks, Gene!

>

Source:
Hard times ahead as porn goes soft?
Apatow, Segel look below the belt for laughs
Peter Bart
Variety, Fri., Apr. 18, 2008, 3:15pm PT
http://www.variety.com/VR1117984246.html

Fortune 1000

Monday, April 21, 2008 | 11:15 AM

in Corporate Management | Valuation | Web/Tech

The full Fortune 1000 list is out, and as always, its rather interesting if just for the surprises:

Fortune 1000 Top 20

1. Wal-Mart Stores 378,799.0 12,731.0

2. Exxon Mobil 372,824.0 40,610.0

3. Chevron 210,783.0 18,688.0

4. General Motors 182,347.0 -38,732.0

5. ConocoPhillips 178,558.0 11,891.0

6. General Electric 176,656.0 22,208.0

7. Ford Motor 172,468.0 -2,723.0

8. Citigroup 159,229.0 3,617.0

9. Bank of America Corp. 119,190.0 14,982.0

10. AT&T 118,928.0 11,951.0

11.
Berkshire Hathaway 118,245.0 13,213.0

12. J.P. Morgan Chase
116,353.0 15,365.0

13. AIG 110,064.0 6,200.0

14. Hewlett-Packard 104,286.0 7,264.0

15. IBM 98,786.0 10,418.0

16. Valero Energy 96,758.0 5,234.0

17. Verizon Communications
93,775.0 5,521.0

18. McKesson 93,574.0 913.0

19. Cardinal Health 88,363.9 1,931.1

20. Goldman Sachs Group 87,968.0 11,599.

Some surprises on the list: I hadn't expected to see Ford come in at #7, or Berkshire Hathaway at 11, and Goldman Sachs at 20.

Fortune slices and dices the info in a variety of ways: Investment Returns by Industry; You can also see the 20 Most Profitable companies.

I also like the nice mashup of Google Maps and the list -- this views is "25 Most Profitable firms."

>

Source:
Fortune 500
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/

Real Scoop: Television Pundit Analyzer

Monday, April 21, 2008 | 10:00 AM

in Psychology/Sentiment | Television | Video | Web/Tech

How would you like to have this attachment on your TV ?

"RealScoop utilizes leading voice analysis technology to analyze statements made by public figures. The BELIEVABILITY METER™ analyzes each video second by second, displaying the real-time results in a color-coded manner from left to right. The most believable statements are green, gradually turning red as they become more questionable.

Here's what it looks like in action:

>
CEO of Bear Stearns (3 Days Before Collapse)
click for video

If I were philosopher king, I would mandate that be installed on every television set.

Aggregating the Aggregators

Friday, April 18, 2008 | 11:00 AM

in Web/Tech | Weblogs

Over the past few weeks, I have featured several economics/market web aggregators. They all tend to have a focus on business, though many come from overall aggregators that have tabs for different topics.

Since I like to recursively get all meta on you, here's my aggregation of all a few dozen blog aggregators, primarily in the Business, Tech and Video space:

(Let me know in the comments which ones I missed, if any . . .)

>
click on any of these to be taken to their site
>
Abnormal Returns

Alltop

Bloglines

Blogniscient

BlogRolling

the DailyTube

Digg Business/Finance

Economics Roundtable

Feedbite

Continue reading "Aggregating the Aggregators"

Google's Black Box

Friday, April 18, 2008 | 10:00 AM

in Earnings | Web/Tech

My friend Paul asks, "Why Was Everyone Wrong-sided on Google?"

I am not sure, but an anonymous emailer has a theory. He notes that like GE Google (GOOG) also has their own form of a Black Box. Its the magic in between Google AdWords and Google AdSense.

"Stupid bloggers have no idea what they are getting paid for their Google ads. What is the CPM? You don't know. That gives Google a tremendous financial flexibility to "adjust" the payout on the fly to make up any revenue shortfall."

That all might be true -- it could account for some of the 42% revenue growth -- but it doesn't explain how Google managed a 20% click through rate on ads.

Question: Can (and does) Google change the rates they pay to meet their quarterly numbers?

Previously:

Kryptonite Caused GE's Miss
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/04/ge-loses-the-ma.html

House Price Crash Calculator

Tuesday, April 15, 2008 | 02:30 PM

in Real Estate | Web/Tech

In the UK, you can calculate what price your home would be worth, based on what type of Home you have, where you live (London, Wales, Yorkshire, etc.), and the final variable -- what year your Home's valuation returns to:

Via FT's Alphaville

Help Wanted ?

Sunday, April 13, 2008 | 08:21 PM

in Web/Tech

My workload continues to rise. It has now reached a point where many of my favorite writings -- linkfest and Street.com columns -- are falling by the wayside.

Rather than totally dropping some favorites, I am thinking of adding some assistance, perhaps an intern or two to help me out.

On top of that, on deck is a large, complex research project that I have not yet accepted. If I decide to do this, it is going to require one or two research assistants.

A few friends have suggested hiring some college interns.

What are people's thoughts on working with interns? Should I reach out to local colleges (NYU or Columbia)? Any specific ideas, suggestions, experiences to share?

Architecture of Information

Friday, April 11, 2008 | 12:00 PM

in Data Analysis | Web/Tech

A reader emailed me this wicked cool site: A series of graphs, charts, tables -- infoporn all -- covering various aspects of the United States: Richard Saul Wurman's Understanding USA.

The data is 10 years old, but the site is a marvel of information communication from the book of the same name:

Source:
Richard Saul Wurman's Understanding USA
http://www.understandingusa.com/intro.html

Hotpads Foreclosure Heat Map

Wednesday, April 09, 2008 | 11:45 AM

in Data Analysis | Real Estate | Web/Tech

Real estate website Hotpads has several of these way interesting interactive maps. You cans elect whatever region/city of your choosing. I picked NY & San Francisco. (I didn't have the heart to do Southern California, Las Vegas or South Miami . . . )

San Francisco:

New York:

Via GMSV

Google Trend: Bailout

Tuesday, April 08, 2008 | 12:30 PM

in Credit | Real Estate | Web/Tech

Interesting to see how this goes higher as the "Mortgage Rescue" bill works its way through Congress:

click for user definable Google Trend goodness

Google Trend
http://www.google.com/trends

New Video Aggregator: Modern Feed

Monday, April 07, 2008 | 03:00 PM

in Video | Web/Tech

Very nice video aggregator/organizor:

Note one of my favorite shows is highlighted: ROBOT CHICKEN ! (Hysterical stuff)

(We are not investors on the company)

Thanks, Gene!

Google: Search One Day Into The Future

Tuesday, April 01, 2008 | 08:30 AM

in Technology | Web/Tech

Terrific new technology offering from the brainiacs at Google, allowing you to search precisely one day into the future.

Q: What about insider trading?
A: Let me search tomorrow's Google news to find out!

Excerpt:

A new Google program powered by artificial intelligence allows internet users to search web pages 24 hours before they're created, the company said today.

Google Australia said the new beta search technology which drives the gDay search feature can accurately predict future internet content – and even future events.

The gDay technology – developed in the company's Sydney engineering centre – uses machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques from a system called MATE, or Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation.

The feature then creates a sophisticated model of what the internet will look like 24 hours from a given point by using the company's index of historic, cached web content and a combination of recurrence plots and "fuzzy measure" analysis.

(rubbing hands gleefully together) Excellent !

Source:
New Google search tool 'can see into future'
News Limited, April 01, 2008 06:30am
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23460961-5014239,00.html

Delay Cost

Monday, March 31, 2008 | 04:00 AM

in Web/Tech

Another cool widget:

Poodwaddle.com

The Secret Formula for Blogs

Friday, March 28, 2008 | 11:38 AM

in Financial Press | Web/Tech | Weblogs

Hardly a secret, and not exactly a formula, but fun stuff nonetheless:

Goddamned, I look huge. The diet starts yesterday.

Thanks for all the kind words, Aaron.

Source:
Barry Ritholtz's Secret Formula for Blogs
Aaron Task
Tech Ticker, Mar 28, 2008 07:30am EDT
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/9176/Barry-Ritholtz's-Secret-Formula-for-Blogs

Bloomberg vs CNBC Video: Bleccch

Thursday, March 27, 2008 | 07:07 AM

in Financial Press | Television | Video | Web/Tech

Yesterday, I noted how pokey and bug laden the videos are on CNBC.com, saying "I sure wish CNBC would get hip to embeddable flash media, like BrightCove. The klunky old windows media players crash all the time. (I don't understand why they went with this 10 year old technology)."

Turns out there is an even worse Video feed from a major news organization than CNBC.com: Its Bloomberg.com/news/av/

At least CNBC -- crash-prone, buggy, ugly and slow -- will play on a Mac.

The Bloomberg video -- also crash-prone, buggy, ugly and slow -- is Windows only! I can play the video, but not the audio, on a Safari or Firefox browser for OSX.

And speaking of bugs, Bloomberg is the one of that odd collection of web based video that can't/won't be captured by a screen grab on a Windows machine. That means that any Bloomberg video you see here (like this one) is the result of watching and coding it on a Dell in the office, than grabbing the (silent audio) video part on the Mac at home, and combining the two.

Don't you want people promoting your brand and your content?

Its not like Bloomie doesn't know what embeddable flash is -- if you go to this page, their promotional video is not WMP -- its flash based! No loading delay, no glitches, just straight up video.

~~~

Hey Bloomberg.com & CNBC.com:

You folks are paying for the shooting, editing, storing, hosting and bandwidth usage of all this video. I assume you actually want people to see it -- to sell subscriptions, to roll adverts, to brand your product. You are spending all of this money for a product that sends people running in the opposite direction.

Every time I post a video from either of your sites, I get email telling me it crashed their browser, or even worse their computer. It is slow, ugly and to be blunt, unprofessional. Your online video product is in fact damaging your brands. (CNN/Money's video auto roll is another bit of annoyance, but we'll save that for another day).

Of all the major Financial media that run video, only WSJ and NYT seem to have gotten it right.

Um, its 2008. Can we get with program? The embeddable flash video is circa 2006. Can you find it in your business models to only be 2 years -- not 10 -- behind the technological adoption curve?

~~~

New Aggregator: Real Clear Markets

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 | 02:00 PM

in Markets | Web/Tech

A new link aggregator hits the web: Real Clear Markets. This is the sister site to Real Clear Politics, and Real Clear Sports.

The sites sport crisp, clean designs, well organized by date and topic, and also contain a god selection of video links.

Weaknesses? Well, the original content has not yet found its voice. That's been the case for many of the link aggregators, and only a few -- think Nouriel Roubini's RGE -- seem to do both well. I suspect that's a process that takes some time.

And, the otherwise well chosen links are occasionally polluted with an excess of politics. Its one thing to run economic pieces by Krugman & Kudlow (How's that combo for a show?), but its another to go way off topic with purely political writings. Editors need to decide if they want traffic, or influence, and adjust accordingly.

If they can manage to avoid the non-money running political hacks, the site will become even more useful as a source. (Suggested Goal: Avoid linking to people who make their readers "poor and stupid").

But other than those quibbles, a real nice effort.

click for link

Top 20 Biggest Music Industry Screw Ups

Thursday, March 13, 2008 | 06:30 PM

in Digital Media | Music | Web/Tech

Blender has released their Top 20 Biggest Music Industry Screw Ups, and we have a new chart topper!

Previously, the biggest music industry gaffe was Dick Rowe's billion-dollar screw up in passing on The Beatles. That has now been surpassed. The new winner in terms of biggest music industry snafus: The Industry turning its back on the internet has moved into the #1 spot with a bullet.

Here's the top 20:

20. As grunge dawns, one label bets on hair metal
19. The industry kills the single—and begins its own slow demise
18. BMG dumps Clive Davis, begs him to return
17. Thomas Edison disses jazz, industry standards
16. Warner pays for Wilco record twice
15. MCA’s teen-pop calamity
14. Stax Records unintentionally gives away the store
13. One label’s big spending single-handedly ends “alt-rock” boom
12. Geffen pumps millions into (the nonexistent) Chinese Democracy
11. Geffen sues Neil Young for making “unrepresentative” music
10. Columbia Records loses Alicia Keys, drops 50 Cent
9. “Digital-rights management” backfires even more badly than usual
8. Warner junks Interscope
7. Music publisher gives away Bob Dylan
6. Casablanca rides strong sales straight to the poorhouse
5. The RIAA sues a struggling single mom for digital piracy
4. Indie promoters take the major labels to the cleaners
3. Motown sells for a pittance
2. Decca Records A&R exec tells Fab Four, “No, thanks”
1. Major labels squash Napster

Notably missing: When John Fogerty left Creedence Clearwater Revival to begin his recording solo, his record company sued him, claiming the songwriter had plagiarized himself. The entire tale is sordid and ugly and makes the labels look even worse than they really are, which is kinda hard to do. (See this: Fogerty's Fabled Fantasy Fight).

Any other notable omissions?

Sources:
20 Biggest Record Company Screw-Ups of All Time
Jon Dolan, Josh Eells, Fred Goodman
Blender March 11 2008
http://www.blender.com/20BiggestRecordCompanyScrewUps/articles/18696.aspx

War against Web tops music biz "screw-ups" list
Reuters, Wed Mar 12, 2008 6:24pm EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1151953920080312

Fun with Google Trends: Stagflation

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 | 01:32 PM

in Economy | Inflation | Web/Tech

According to Google Trends, it really is true: Stagflation = Recession plus Inflation
>

Stagflation

Recession

Inflation

World Clock

Sunday, March 09, 2008 | 06:00 AM

in Science | Web/Tech

I love that all of these are now totally embeddable . . .

Poodwaddle.com

Internet Returns!

Tuesday, March 04, 2008 | 02:13 PM

in Web/Tech

Internet has been down all day -- posting should resume shortly . . .

Active Denial System: non-lethal, directed-energy weapon

Monday, March 03, 2008 | 05:00 AM

in Science | War/Defense | Web/Tech

Fascinating report on the Pentagon's Active Denial System, a/k/a the Pentagon Ray-gun:

Quick excerpt:

What if we told you the Pentagon has a ray gun? And what if we told you it can stop

1.	Wal-Mart Stores	378,799.0	12,731.0
2.	Exxon Mobil	372,824.0	40,610.0
3.	Chevron	210,783.0	18,688.0
4.	General Motors	182,347.0	-38,732.0
5.	ConocoPhillips	178,558.0	11,891.0
6.	General Electric	176,656.0	22,208.0
7.	Ford Motor	172,468.0	-2,723.0
8.	Citigroup	159,229.0	3,617.0
9.	Bank of America Corp.	119,190.0	14,982.0
10.	AT&T	118,928.0	11,951.0
11.	Berkshire Hathaway	118,245.0	13,213.0
12.	J.P. Morgan Chase	116,353.0	15,365.0
13.	AIG	110,064.0	6,200.0
14.	Hewlett-Packard	104,286.0	7,264.0
15.	IBM	98,786.0	10,418.0
16.	Valero Energy	96,758.0	5,234.0
17.	Verizon Communications	93,775.0	5,521.0
18.	McKesson	93,574.0	913.0
19.	Cardinal Health	88,363.9	1,931.1
20.	Goldman Sachs Group	87,968.0	11,599.