Archive for August 17th, 2007
Filed under: Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Time Warner (TWX)
There is an interesting piece out of comScore today. The company released its Top 50 Web Rankings for July, and Time Warner Inc.’s (NYSE: TWX) AOL property of Advertising.com looks like it kicked some you know what.
In July, Advertising.com remained on the top of the Ad Focus ranking from comScore. The advertising audience of 180 million Americans tracked put AOL’s Advertising.com as #1 with 158,905 unique visitors, above ValueClick (NASDAQ: VCLK) with 131.9 million users and both Google and Yahoo! having more than 131 million uniue visitors.
It reached some 88% of the more than 180 million Americans online that comScore measures results from. Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Ad Network, which includes Google Adwords and Google AdSense Programs, joined the ranking this month at number four, reaching 73 percent of the U.S. online population. That number is actually shocking if you read it. It isn’t on the number of ads, but it is on the reach. The Time Warner Network is also #3 on the list as far as unique users: 1) Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) with 133,428,000, 2) Google Sites with 123,892,000 and 3) Tme Warner Network with 123,702,000, and 4) Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) with 118,154,000 uniques.
Maybe Dick Parsons can roll back some of that soft guidance for the AOL unit, although this isn’t the same measurement. Be very clear that this isn’t tracking the total time and the like, but that is a substantial number and leaves room for some further exploitation of AOL from Time Warner. If it does follow my belief that AOL will become a unit via the tracking stock toward the end of the year, then AOL should try to keep those metrics higher and higher.
Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com.
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Filed under: Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT)
 After Yahoo!, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) gave its Yahoo! Mail customers unlimited email storage earlier this year, Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Gmail service didn’t budge — it stuck at the 2.8 (roughly) Gigabyte level for its customers. While Google’s Gmail can’t compare to Yahoo! Mail in terms of users and subscribers, word has it that more technically-adept and power email users are flocking to Gmail in greater numbers. Yahoo! Mail is still the world leader in web-based email service and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
Enter Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and its Hotmail web-based email service. Currently at the #2 spot still way ahead of Google’s Gmail service, the software giant announced this week that it will bump the online storage for customers of its free Hotmail service from the current two gigabytes to four gigabytes, and will bump paid Hotmail customers (additional features) from five gigabytes to 10 gigabytes. That leaves Google’s Gmail service as third in both user base and storage capacity. Will Google respond by giving its email customers more storage?
It may not need to — two to three gigabytes of email store is probably enough more most global email users (not all, of course). But, if Google wants the media eye candy of saying “unlimited, free email” or something similar, it may choose to respond. If Google also wants Gmail to eventually try and become as large as email services from Yahoo! and Microsoft, it’ll have to do something to attract new customers — customers that can see all those text ads when viewing messages using a standard web browser. Microsoft’s Hotmail upgrades will roll out over the next few weeks, according to the company.
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Filed under: Google (GOOG), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Intel (INTC), Schlumberger Limited (SLB), Texas Instruments (TXN), EMC Corp (EMC)
On today’s STOP TRADING! Jim Cramer said the bias has changed and they nailed the Fed call. He noted that investors can start focusing on cheap stocks again now that the sky isn’t going to fall and now that the Fed isn’t letting us think they are asleep. He was positive on Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB) reaching $95 again. But he really honed in on tech as his picks:
Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) is his play for the most aggressive share buyback plan in tech, and Cramer still digs Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), and Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO). Oddly enough even though he was positive on EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), he said he is surprised that it has been been a dud since it still owns most of VMware (NYSE: VMW) after the IPO.
We aren’t surprised at all on EMC, even if we think the valuations of VMware are reaching into the stratosphere. The super-low float has a lot to do with this strong performance and there just aren’t enough shares for fund managers to have very much of on their books since EMC is hoarding 87% of the stock. We’ve seen this play book before on widely telegraphed partial spin-offs like this and VMware is really more of a tracking stock right now than they would have you believe. We just covered how Citrix Systems (NASDAQ: CTXS) paid $500 million for a competitor by the name of XenSource. Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) has been invested heavily into virtualization competitors as well, so we expectthe news flow to stay steady in the sector. That is a tiny summary of why EMC is not doing as well as some of the head scratchers were hoping for. Our full newsletter this week (EMC now unemargoed) was on this exact subject.
Jon Ogg is a partner in 24/7 Wall St., publisher of 24/7 Wall St. Special Situation Investing Newsletter and does not own securities in the companies he covers.
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Filed under: Rumors, Products and services, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT)
 My medical records are strewn across Ohio, tucked into various doctor’s offices and catacombs, so when my GP asks about my back CAT scan, I have to remember who took it, when, and hope they are still in business.
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is among many companies developing a solution for this dilemma. According to the blog Google Blogoscoped, Google’s nascent Google Health product, codenamed “Weaver”, will offer consumers the opportunity to create a central repository for their health records, including medications, history, test results and allergies. The blog has a number of screenshots of the program in development.
The upside for consumers is obvious; convenience, comprehensiveness, and better baseline information for their treating physicians. The downsides are also obvious; the government, apparently now permitted to access any information, anywhere at any time, without concern for the law, will have even more info about you. Should hackers find their way into this database, the potential for abuse is enormous. And, of course, Google could make even more billions by selling customizing marketing messages tied to your health challenges.
Google is only one contender in this arena, though. According to the New York Times, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) also has an initiative they plan to unveil in the next few months.
When Google and Microsoft face off, you know big bucks are on the table. The aging boomer’s health care needs are just such a windfall. This field could be a real test of consumers’ confidence in the goodwill and security of internet services. I suspect at least the boomer generation won’t be too interested in sharing their health issues with the Big Brother club of Google and Microsoft.
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Filed under: Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT)
After Yahoo!, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) gave its Yahoo! Mail customers unlimited email storage earlier this year, Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Gmail service didn’t budge — it stuck at the 2.8 (roughly) Gigabyte level for its customers. While Google’s Gmail can’t compare to Yahoo! Mail in terms of users and subscribers, word has it that more technically-adept and power email users are flocking to Gmail in greater numbers. Yahoo! Mail is still the world leader in web-based email service and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
Enter Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and its Hotmail web-based email service. Currently at the #2 spot still way ahead of Google’s Gmail service, the software giant announced this week that it will bump the online storage for customers of its free Hotmail service from the current two gigabytes to four gigabytes, and will bump paid Hotmail customers (additional features) from five gigabytes to 10 gigabytes. That leaves Google’s Gmail service as third in both user base and storage capacity. Will Google respond by giving its email customers more storage?
It may not need to — two to three gigabytes of email store is probably enough more most global email users (not all, of course). But, if Google wants the media eye candy of saying “unlimited, free email” or something similar, it may choose to respond. If Google also wants Gmail to eventually try and become as large as email services from Yahoo! and Microsoft, it’ll have to do something to attract new customers — customers that can see all those text ads when viewing messages using a standard web browser. Microsoft’s Hotmail upgrades will roll out over the next few weeks, according to the company.
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Filed under: Press releases, Rants and raves, Scandals, Politics
 Diebold Inc (NYSE: DBD) said yesterday that it had failed to sell its voting technology unit, Diebold Election Systems, whose products are currently being used in elections across the country. Instead, the company will allow the unit to operate independently, giving the unit a separate board of directors and possibly even a new management structure.
It’s no wonder nobody wants want to touch Diebold Election Systems. Last year, Princeton researchers made a demonstration video on how simple it is to corrupt a Diebold voting machine. The report even highlighted a flaw in Diebold machines that allow a virus to jump from machine to machine, infecting one memory card and using it to spread the virus through other machines.
Diebold’s decision to distance itself from its own Elections unit was made in part because of “the rapidly evolving political uncertainties and controversies surrounding state and jurisdiction purchases of electronic voting systems.” In other words, Diebold “rapidly” discovered that the public lacked any trust in its product, and it was ruining its reputation. Note the new elections unit will operate under a new name, Premier Election Solutions, and lacks one important word within its title: Diebold.
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Filed under: Internet, Rants and raves
If you’re like many Americans you view rappers as negatively as thugs or gangsters, you’re going to be surprised with the amounts of money some “gangsta rappers” are puling in.
A video recently appeared on Forbes.com which broke down the earnings situation among rappers. According to Forbes, Sean Carter (AKA Jay-Z) pulled in about $34 million last year due to his latest album, Kingdom Come, and his entrepreneurial pursuits.
According to the Associated Press, rapper 50 Cent earned roughly $32 million last year with his G-Unit record label and clothing line. 50 Cent should top the list next year as he cashes out of Vitamin Water for $400 million — a topic covered by our own Zac Bissonnette here.
Other prominent rappers on the list included Diddy ($28 million), Dr. Dre ($20 million), and Eminem ($18 million).
One has to begin wondering if rapping about the ghetto will grow old. It seems like many of the well-known rappers makes 500-10,000 times what the average American makes. Not so ghetto anymore, yo.
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Filed under: Amazon.com (AMZN), Mattel, Inc (MAT)
The toy recall that is still gripping the attention of parents inside and outside the U.S. has brought even more scrutiny onto the problem of quality control on products made in China. Due to several high-profile food-related recalls this year (including a toothpaste and pet food recall) the Chinese supply chain was already well under fire. Additionally, some parents have indicated that they blame the companies that distributed the toys as much as they blame the Chinese manufacturers who made them.
Who is stepping in to provide damage control? Why, retailers of course. The stores that are most directly affected by parents’ disinclination to buy toys right now are already deep in the game this week. Companies such as Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), eToys.com and the online division of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) — Walmart.com — have all been communicating with online customers via email about how to take the guesswork out of product recalls. In other words, providing lists of what is and isn’t on the recall list, and how to properly dispose of those toys that are being recalled. It’s a great strategy to retain customers and put yourself ahead of the perceived “non-caring” retailers.
Continue reading Online retailers doing Mattel recall grunt work on notifying parents
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Filed under: Google (GOOG), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Intel (INTC), Schlumberger Limited (SLB), Texas Instruments (TXN), EMC Corp (EMC)
On today’s STOP TRADING! Jim Cramer said the bias has changed and they nailed the Fed call. He noted that investors can start focusing on cheap stocks again now that the sky isn’t going to fall and now that the Fed isn’t letting us think they are asleep. He was positive on Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB) reaching $95 again. But he really honed in on tech as his picks:
Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) is his play for the most aggressive share buyback plan in tech, and Cramer still digs Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), and Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO). Oddly enough even though he was positive on EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), he said he is surprised that it has been been a dud since it still owns most of VMware (NYSE: VMW) after the IPO.
We aren’t surprised at all on EMC, even if we think the valuations of VMware are reaching into the stratosphere. The super-low float has a lot to do with this strong performance and there just aren’t enough shares for fund managers to have very much of on their books since EMC is hoarding 87% of the stock. We’ve seen this play book before on widely telegraphed partial spin-offs like this and VMware is really more of a tracking stock right now than they would have you believe. We just covered how Citrix Systems (NASDAQ: CTXS) paid $500 million for a competitor by the name of XenSource. Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) has been invested heavily into virtualization competitors as well, so we expectthe news flow to stay steady in the sector. That is a tiny summary of why EMC is not doing as well as some of the head scratchers were hoping for. Our full newsletter this week (EMC now unemargoed) was on this exact subject.
Jon Ogg is a partner in 24/7 Wall St., publisher of 24/7 Wall St. Special Situation Investing Newsletter and does not own securities in the companies he covers.
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Filed under: Earnings reports, Conventions and conferences, Target Corp. (TGT), Gap Inc (GPS), Staples Inc (SPLS), Abercrombie and Fitch (ANF)
.gif) Monday August 20
Tuesday August 21
Wednesday August 22
- CA Incorporated (NYSE: CA) annual meeting of stockholders at 10am.
- Abercrombie & Fitch Co (NYSE: ANF) to report Q2 earnings; conference call at 4:30pm.
- Richmond Federal Bank President Lacker to speak at 12:30pm in Charlotte, NC about the U.S. Economic Outlook.
Thursday August 23
Friday August 24
- H.J. Heinz Company (NYSE: HNZ) to report Q1 earnings; conference call at 8:30am.
- PDUFA Date for IDM Pharmaceutical Inc’s (NASDAQ: IDMI) MTP-PE (Mifamurtide), formerly Junovan, newly diagnosed resectable high grade osteosarcoma (bone cancer) in combination with chemotherapies.
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