Wholesale Coral Jewelry Set blogs

“Social-network sites are still trying to figure out what sort of advertising works,” Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst who authored the report,replica watches, said in a statement. “Tapping into consumers’ conversations and spreading brand awareness virally has proven more challenging than companies originally thought.”

Still, the market research firm expects the sector to grow by 55 percent in 2008.

eMarketer on Tuesday revised its projections for social-network ad spending in the U.S. this year to $1.4 billion, down from the previous projection of $1.6 billion. The Internet market researcher said the poor economy was partly to blame for the revision.

The researcher also revised its forecast for how much advertising money would be attracted by the two leading social networks, MySpace and Facebook. In its previous prediction, eMarketer said MySpace would bring in $755 million, down 11.2 percent from eMarketer’s original $850 million estimate. Facebook advertisers are expected to spend $265 million, a 12.9 percent drop from the earlier forecast of $305 million.

The revised projections come on the heels of Rupert Murdoch blaming the U.S. economy for putting the squeeze on advertising budgets. Fox Interactive Media,Gucci Watches, which oversees all News Corp. Internet business, including MySpace.com,silver jewelry, announced that it expected to fall $100 million short of its ambitious $1 billion annual revenue goal.

Making money off social-network advertising may prove tougher than originally thought.

Don Reisinger sits down with Tom Merritt of CNET to talk about Blu- ray, the Windows-Yahoo merger and why Don’s conspiracy theory may make sense to some and none to others. After that, Don sits down with the Director of Product Development at Sony to discuss the
PS3 and what the future holds for the console. And of course, Don fields all your comments and emails. Listen now:

Download today’s podcast
EPISODE 2

TODAY’S LINKS: AMD is solid at retail, now the bad news… Verizon: No ‘need’ to degrade P2P traffic…yet Yahoo turning to AOL? Blu-ray exclusives by Best Buy, Netflix deal HD DVD serious blow Microsoft never wanted Yahoo anyway Tom Merritt at Buzz Out Loud Thanks to Sony!

The replacement’s packaging was equally atrocious (seriously, the TV was wrapped in a single layer of bubble wrap inside the box, nothing more), but it appeared to be intact. Most importantly, it worked.

From time to time I’ll post deals on refurbished/recertified items, which are sold at a discount because they didn’t meet a manufacturer’s quality standards or were returned (for one reason or another) and can’t be sold as new. What do you think of these deals? Have you had good luck buying refurb gear, or did you end up regretting it? I’d love to hear your stories–and so would your fellow Cheapskate readers.

(Credit:
Apple)

Yeah, I made a few mistakes along the way (the big one: buying a TV with a built-in DVD player. Those things always break), but it’s the only bad experience I’ve had with refurb gear. How about you? Hit the comments page and share your own tales of woe (or satisfaction).

I’ll kick things off with one of my own. Last year, Mrs. Cheapskate needed an LCD TV with a built-in DVD player. I found a great deal on a 20-inch refurbished model. When it arrived, however, we discovered that the stand had broken clean off the base of the TV as a result of shockingly poor packaging. To the vendor’s credit, they picked up the busted set and shipped a replacement with a minimum of fuss.

In fact, it worked for 15 days, at which point the built-in DVD player refused to play any more DVDs (leaving my poor wife scrambling during a business presentation). And, naturally, the vendor’s return policy for refurbished items expired after–you guessed it–14 days. I thought they’d cut me a break, but no, they sent me to the manufacturer for repairs (bad vendor, bad!).

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

Will Netflix feel jilted by the move? Woods says no, that both companies intended to work with others all along.

CEO Anthony Wood told an audience Wednesday at the Streaming Media West conference in San Jose, Calif., that his company is focused on enabling its set-top box to stream video from any content provider, according to Wired.com.

But Roku isn’t waiting around for Netflix to make those deals.

So who’s next, I wonder? Hulu? YouTube? Amazon? I guess Roku figures if there are lots of fish in the sea, why not swim with them all?

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

It’s been known for a while that Netflix and Roku’s four-month-old relationship isn’t exactly a monogamous one. But it looks like Roku is hoping to play the video-streaming field even more than we initially thought.

Roku makes the $100 Netflix Player, which enables customers to stream movies from the Netflix site to their TVs. It’s a product that could be a hit, if only Netflix could secure partnerships with more of the major movie houses and seriously beef up its “Watch it Now” library.

For its part, Netflix announced deals Monday with CBS and the Disney Channel that will allow the movie rental service to stream episodes from current seasons of shows. In July, Microsoft said it would allow Xbox 360 owners with Netflix accounts to stream “Watch Now” movies and TV shows through their game console, without any extra hardware or software.

“We’re opening up the platform to anyone who wants to put their video service on this box,” Wired cites Wood as saying. “We’re going to release the software developer kit, so anyone can publish any channel, and users can access Web content on their TVs.”

The Netflix Player by Roku

“They made a small investment in us…and they knew from the beginning that we were interested in working with other (content providers), just like they’re interested in partnering with other boxes,” he said.

iStorez, a company that collects specials and coupons from online stores and bundles them together to help visitors find savings across the Web, announced Monday that it obtained $2.3 million in first-round funding from Norwest Venture Partners

iStorez is owned by the Kriyari network, which “powers Web 2.0-style online malls for media, lifestyle, content, and social-network publisher sites.” In essence, Kriyari, with the help of iStorez, aims at creating interactive “malls” filled with online stores and brands. As each visitor clicks on a product, it dynamically adapts to create a “mall” that’s tailored to the user’s interests.

Although it’s competing with services like Savings.com and SilkFair, iStorez doesn’t focus as much on the social element of savings like the others do. Instead, iStorez offers a series of weekly newsletters from major online retailers and coupons that allow visitors to save a little extra cash before they make a purchase.

iStorez, which has been in operation since January, will take that vision and the new funding to offer a more robust offering, the company claims.

Investors had been concerned that Google would post weak results Thursday, given the doom-and-gloom forecasts from research companies that monitor paid-clicks and traffic.

Google’s shares closed with a 20 percent gain Friday, marking the largest-ever one-day gain for the Internet giant.

Update at 1:15 p.m. PDT April 18: Google ends trading day up 20 percent, capturing largest one-day gain

Update at 10 a.m. PDT April 18: Google’s gains have now reached 21 percent.

ComScore’s share price took an 8 percent hit in after-hours trading after Google reported its first quarter results, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. By morning trading on Friday, though, its stock regained most of its ground.

(Credit:
Yahoo Finance)

“While last night’s report provided relief that trends had not materially worsened, growth is slowing and margins are pressured,” Moran said in his research note. “As such, we maintain a somewhat cautious view and a ‘hold’ rating.”

The last time Google’s shares had such a tremendous rocket ride was on October 22, 2004, when it jumped 15 percent in one day, according to analysts. The company’s stock that day soared to $172.43 a share, up from $149.38 the previous day.

Driving that October jump was Google’s first earnings report as a public company. Newly minted public companies are always especially concerned about their first earnings report because missing revenue and earnings numbers can put a company in the penalty box with investors for a very long time.

Moran also expressed concern over Google’s growth rate.

Google’s stock closed at $539.41 per share, up $89.87 from the previous day when Google reported after the market’s close its first-quarter earnings and blew past analysts’ estimates.

During intra-day trading Friday, Google’s stock rose as high as $545.11 a share, climbing 21 percent, before edging back a bit.

Mark Mahaney, an analyst with Citigroup Global Markets, for example, upped Google’s 2008 revenue estimates to nearly $16 billion, up from $15.6 billion. He also bumped up his earnings estimate to $16.80 per share, up from $16.17 a share.

Clayton Moran, an analyst with the Stanford Group, increased his earnings per share to $20.63 for 2008, up from his previous forecast of $19.50.

Analysts, meanwhile, were busy this morning, pumping out their revised Google estimates.

“We continue to remain concerned at the rate of deceleration in paid clicks,” Mahaney said in his research note. “(But) on the other hand, cost-per-click growth remained strong.”

ComScore, prior to Google’s earnings release, put out figures that Google’s paid-click growth in the U.S. grew a paltry 1.8 percent in the first quarter, compared with the same period last year. That gave investors a scare, as they feared Google’s growth was slowing.

Google, however, actually posted a 10 percent increase in paid-click growth in the U.S., and a 20 percent jump worldwide, in the first quarter, according to Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst with Collins Stewart.

Despite Google’s better-than-expected performance and Wall Street’s increased estimates, analysts still issued words of caution.

Google’s year-over-year growth in paid clicks rose 20 percent worldwide in the first quarter, but fell short of its 30 percent growth in the fourth quarter.

The folks at ComScore explained the discrepencies in a blog posting, noting they only count U.S. paid search clicks, while Google’s figures include not only international figures but also “affiliate site ads.”

But ARM processors have been powering small, low-power devices since 1985. There was the Psion series of handhelds, the Apple Newton, Nintendo DS, and, today, products like the
Microsoft Zune. All used or use ARM architecture chips.

(Credit:
ARM)

(Credit:
Miha Ulanov)

The Apple iPhone is full of ARM silicon and technically a MID

1999 Psion Revo Plus PDA looks a lot like MIDs today.

And this conspicuous PC-style branding strategy will carry over to Intel MIDs and Netbooks too. Lest consumers forget, maybe ARM should do a little more in-your-face branding.

ARM lists other devices like the Nokia N95, the BlackBerry 8700g, and the Motorola Q. All powered by ARM silicon.

Listening to Intel, a casual observer might believe that the world’s largest chipmaker is single-handedly creating the class of tiny devices called mobile Internet devices or MIDs.

And ARM is not exaggerating. If anything ARM is understating the case. As one of the most understated chip architectures today, few consumers know the name. And almost no one listening to their Zune or
iPod or talking on their Nokia phone knows that there is ARM silicon inside. But consumers can hardly miss the flashy Intel, AMD, ATI, or Nvidia branding on their PCs.

On a Web page titled Mobile Internet Devices, ARM now posts this marketing message: “It is clear that the future of mobile computing rests in devices that are truly mobile, always connected and providing a rich Internet browsing experience–ARM calls these devices Mobile Internet Devices (MID).” Intel does too.

The Web page continues: “ARM licenses the intellectual property that powers MIDs. This includes all the technology required by the chips at the heart of these devices: the microprocessor, digital signal processing, embedded memory, graphics acceleration, (and) fabric interconnect.”

The
iPhone is a mobile Internet device. Just in case you forgot, ARM wants to remind you that before the Intel Atom processor there was the iPhone and its handful of ARM processors. Yeah, it’s a MID too.

Now it’s make-or-break time for Jerry Yang.

Earlier Thursday, Yahoo announced that Microsoft was no longer interested in pursuing a deal. Into the breach steps Google CEO Eric Schmidt with a search advertising arrangement that could be worth as much as $800 million to Yahoo.

Steve Jobs: Been there, done that

•  The agreement is nonexclusive. Yahoo can display paid search results from Google, other third parties, as well as its own Panama marketplace. (Here are more details on Yahoo’s search ad-pact with Google.)

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET News.com)

•  During the first year after implementation, Yahoo expects the deal to generate an estimated $250 million to $450 million in incremental operating cash flow.

After all the “sturm und drang” revolving around a possible Microsoft deal, this much-rumored Google tie-up comes as a bit of an anticlimax. But at least Yahoo has chosen a direction, moving beyond the endless muddling of the last five months.

Some will dismiss the deal as an acknowledgment that Yahoo wasted millions of dollars developing its Panama search advertising platform (not to mention the $1.6 billion it paid in 2003 to buy Overture Services). There’s some truth there but it may be too harsh a judgment. Besides, the Google arrangement may turn out to be a clever move if it fosters the two companies’ respective strength in search and display advertising.

If his gambit succeeds, Yang will be feted as the second coming of Steve Jobs, reviving the glory of a one-time technology bellwether. If not, he’ll join Terry Semel and Tim Koogle on the roster of failed Yahoo CEOs.

Of course, that goes with the territory. Yang never wanted to see Yahoo get swallowed by Microsoft. He wanted the opportunity to direct the turnaround, and now he’s got his wish. Is Yang equal to the challenge? Beats me. He’s super-smart and knows the company backwards and forwards. But he is not a charismatic leader and he turned in an uneven performance on the conference call announcing the Google deal. He tripped over words and sounded unsure as he spoke, leaving No. 2 Sue Decker to handle the hard questions. I wouldn’t read too much into appearances, but strong CEOs know how to put on a good show.

Whether Carl Icahn and the investor class agree–we’ll know Friday morning when Wall Street opens up for business. Icahn could do nothing Thursday but count his losses as shares of Yahoo plummeted after the company announced the collapse of the Microsoft talks. If the Google deal fails to do much to revive the stock price, they’ll naturally call for Yang’s scalp.

Yang’s immediate task is to find a way to sell the Google deal to regulators. The agreement won’t officially kick in for another three and a half months because of antitrust sign-offs. Yahoo can probably persuade Washington to give the green light.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang

To make them safer and reduce environmental dangers, German scientists have turned to tetrazoles–synthetic compounds that derive most of their explosive energy from nitrogen instead of carbon, as do many conventional explosives. Tetrazoles are already used to generate the gas to fill the airbags in some
cars.

(Credit:
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t M?nchen)

New environmentally friendly, nitrogen-based explosives could deliver more of a bang while being safer to handle than traditional charges, according to chemists at the University of Munich in Germany.

Chemists at the University of Munich made tiny bombs from two tetrazoles called HBT and G2ZT, which not only proved more stable than conventional explosives but more powerful as well, according to researcher Thomas Klap?tke. Here’s a video that shows it in action.

When detonated, common explosives now used in military and industrial applications such as TNT and RDX generate toxic gases that pollute the environment. They’re also dangerous to handle: They don’t like to be dropped or bumped and are super sensitive to electrical sparks.

The Lone Star State is the sole holdout in MySpace.com’s comprehensive partnership with the rest of the country’s attorneys general, and now Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has come out and explained why.

The reason, he said, is that he does not believe any social-networking site can be safe for minors until significant improvements in technology are achieved.

(Credit:
Texas State Attorney General’s Office)

But that hasn’t stopped the attorneys general from every state except Texas, in addition to the District of Columbia, from agreeing to work with the News Corp.-owned MySpace. Abbott’s office, at least for the time being, is the only dissenter.

“Although we believe that MySpace.com, along with other state attorneys general, is working to protect social-network users, we cannot endorse any initiative that fails to implement a reliable age verification system. Doing so would give Texas parents and their children a false sense of security.”

“We are concerned that our signing the joint statement would be misperceived as an endorsement of the inadequate safety measures contained therein,” Abbott’s letter to DeWolfe continued.

“We believe that social-networking sites, including MySpace.com, do not adequately protect young users,” Abbott wrote Monday in an open letter directed to MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe. “As a result, Texas is unable to join the ‘joint statement’ that MySpace.com and other state attorneys general issued this week.”

Age verification technology, as Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal stressed during a press conference Monday announcing the coalition, is a point of contention, even for those law enforcement authorities that have opted to work with MySpace. The attorneys general believe that such technology is either feasible at present or will be in the very near future; representatives from MySpace, including chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam, have stated that more research and development is necessary.

“In our view, the remedial measures delineated in the joint statement constitute a starting point rather than a point of conclusion. That is, the protective steps memorialized in the joint statement improve online safety and security but still fail to adequately protect child users,” Abbott continued, adding that he thinks the wording of the joint statement is too vague. “We do not believe that MySpace.com–or any social-networking site–can adequately protect minors until an age verification system is effectively developed and implemented.”

Texas maverick: Greg Abbott, the only state attorney general not to sign onto MySpace’s new safety measures.

commentary

CIO.com addresses the souring economy with this counsel for CIOs:

When IT directors take the time to build a business case demonstrating the ROI for these kinds of projects [training, etc.], they tend to get funded. Businesses aren’t really interested in cutting costs for the sake of doing it, they just want to eliminate waste and get the most from every dollar spent on IT services. It falls to the CIO to demonstrate the value of IT initiatives to the business in real economic terms, and to counter the image of IT as a cost center.

Given that the CIO is generally the last person to know about the rising tide of open source within her walls, perhaps the savvy CIO should get out of her corner office a bit more and talk to her architects and developers more in this recessionary period to find out what open-source initiatives are going on, and which should be fed (or killed). I suspect there’s a heck of a lot of efficiency gains to be had by dumping BEA for JBoss, Oracle for MySQL, etc.

In a bull market, it’s easy to overspend on technology that you don’t really need, and which never realizes its potential (or perhaps does, and there’s the problem…). In a downward cycle, it’s a good time to make some calculated bets. Open source should be one of them.