berniescb.com

The service is already off to a great start, however, it will have a tough time matching Woot.com’s writing prowess, which quite frequently turns product spec sheets into works of art.

Today’s item is a USB headset. When I started writing this, the price tag was hovering around fifteen bucks. Since then, it’s come down to $12, jumped back up to $16, then dropped again to $10. The change happens every 15 seconds based on supply and demand. The hotter an item is the pricier it gets, and as soon as a user chooses to buy, it locks him or her into that price–even if it fluctuates post-sale. The one catch here is that you’ve only got 45 seconds after hitting the buy button to go through with your purchase and five minutes total to go through checkout, otherwise you’re kicked back out to try your hand again. This is simply a measure to keep people from hunkering down on a low price without buying.

Webware’s Rafe Needleman and I are big fans of Woot.com. Since the introduction of the one-deal-a-day sales site, there have been several clones. However, none have caught my interest like Hoopstick. The site, which currently operates on weekends only, sells just one item a day. The big catch here is that the price tag is constantly changing, meaning patience or pure, dumb luck can get you a deal.

Hoopstick sells things online with a price tag that changes depending on supply and demand.

Hoopstick tracks the price changes throughout the day, which means you can gauge whether you’re on an up or down trend. There is a bit of blind luck though, since a slew of other people trying to buy something can drive up the price at a feverish pace.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

(Credit: Memeorandum )

Television and printed newspapers are clearly stressed by financial pressures, which have been amplified by the ailing economy. While some of the newspapers have leading Web sites, their financial staple–classifieds and job and real estate listings–has been dominated by independent Internet services such as Craigslist, Monster.com, and Redfin. Mainstream television is competing with the likes of YouTube for eyeballs and is still trying to figure out how to swim with the Internet fishes and generate revenue, which at this point is a rounding error.

(Credit: Pew Research Center)

Earlier this month, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducted a survey that rendered two obvious conclusions: the Internet has overtaken newspapers as a source of national and international news, and television, led by CNN, continues to serve as the main source.

New publishing entities, such as Politico, the nonprofit ProPublica, the Huffington Post, and numerous blogs are making original contributions to national and international news, and some are trying to make money while they’re at it.

Memeorandum aggregates and ranks content from leading media outlets and blogs covering politics.

Among Americans under 30, 59 percent (versus 34 percent in 2007) said they get most of their national and international news from the Internet. Television tied with the Internet at 59 percent for that group, but that was a decline from 68 percent in 2007. (The figures add up to more 100 percent, by the way, because people could offer multiple answers.)

While the Internet is growing as the place where people go for news, the revenue simply isn’t catching up fast enough. The less obvious part of the Internet overtaking newspapers as the main source for national and international news is that much of the seed content–the original reporting that breaks national and international news and is subsequently refactored by legions of bloggers–comes from the reporters and editors working at the financially strapped newspapers and national and local television outlets.

According to the Pew survey, 40 percent of respondents (versus 24 percent in 2007) said the Internet is their primary source for national and international news. That compares with 35 percent (versus 34 percent 2007) who rely on newspapers and 70 percent (versus 74 percent in 2007) who use television as their main source. Given the historic presidential campaign and economic woes this year, the large percentage increase year-over-year for the Internet is not surprising.

Most newspapers have figured out that you create content for the Web first and that the print edition is a byproduct of that output. Television programming can be viewed on a TV, PC, smartphone, or digital billboard. But as NBC’s Jeff Zucker said recently, “People had been counting on digital exposure. I had been trying to talk about the fact that even as it grew, it was not necessarily the big growth engine for legacy media companies that were trading those analog dollars for digital dimes. We’re now up to dimes. That’s an improvement. It’s still not a dollar for a dime kind of business that I would like to be in.”

As the financial pressures mount–the outlook for 2009 is dismal–and the cost cutting continues, we can only hope that the original news reporting by top-flight journalists is not a major casualty.

It’s been about 20 years since Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web on the back of the Internet. For more than a billion people on the planet, the Web today is an alternate, digital universe that is gradually overtaking the analog, physical world as a source of information and connections.

Updated at 6:15 p.m. PST with AMD statement about a letter it received from Intel on January 20.

An excerpt from the AMD statement in the 8-K filing is as follows: “On January 20, 2009 the Company received a letter from Intel Corporation relating to the 1976 and 2001 Patent Cross License Agreement between the Company and Intel (the ‘Cross-Licenses’). In the letter, Intel requests a meeting with the Company to discuss whether The Foundry Company qualifies as a licensed ‘Subsidiary’ under the Cross-Licenses, whether the creation of The Foundry Company is a breach of the provisions of one of the Cross-Licenses and whether either the transaction establishing The Foundry Company or the Company’s 2006 acquisition of ATI constituted a change of control of the Company under the Cross-Licenses.”

The Foundry Company is the chip manufacturing operation that AMD is in the process of spinning off.

Fourth-quarter 2008 revenue came in at $1.162 billion, down 35 percent compared to the third quarter of 2008 and 33 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2007. Fourth-quarter 2008 revenue was down 28 percent sequentially, excluding third-quarter 2008 process technology license revenue of $191 million, AMD said.

AMD provided little future guidance. “In light of the current macroeconomic conditions, very limited visibility and continued corrections in the supply chain, AMD expects first quarter 2009 revenue to decrease from the fourth quarter 2008.”

AMD also disclosed that it received a letter from Intel regarding the two companies’ patent cross-licensing agreement.

Excluding one-time charges, AMD lost 69 cents per share, larger than the loss of 54 cents per share predicted by analysts.

AMD also disclosed on Thrusday in an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it received a letter from Intel relating to the patent cross license agreement between the two companies. The agreement covers the x86 instruction set architecture that the companies use in their processors.

AMD had warned in December that fourth-quarter revenue would be significantly lower than previously expected.

AMD said it “strongly believes that The Foundry Company qualifies as a ‘Subsidiary’ under the Cross-Licenses, that the
creation of The Foundry Company is not a breach of the provisions of either of the Cross-Licenses and that neither the transaction
establishing The Foundry Company nor the Company’s acquisition of ATI constituted a change of control of the Company under the
Cross-Licenses.”

Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday reported a bigger-than-expected net loss of $1.4 billion for the fourth quarter of 2008. This is the chipmaker’s ninth consecutive quarterly loss.

For the year ended December 27, 2008, AMD had revenue of $5.808 billion, while the fiscal 2008 net loss was $3.098 billion. This compares with revenue of $5.858 billion and a net loss of $3.379 billion for fiscal 2007.

AMD, like Intel and TSMC, has seen a precipitous drop in orders from customers.

AMD’s stock has been trading around $2 and has lost more than 50 percent of its value since the end of September when the stock was trading above $5.

AMD receives letter from Intel

The $1.42 billion loss, or $2.34 per share, was below the $1.77 billion loss, or $3.06 per share, reported a year ago but worse than Wall Street analysts had expected

Chief financial officer Bob Rivet said during the earnings conference call Thursday that “factory utilization will be crummy, considering the demand environment.” This sentiment echoes what Intel said last week about abysmal factory utilization due to sinking demand from customers. And clear evidence of this trend was provided Wednesday when Intel said it would close five plants.

“While the original iPhone also helped win customers for AT&T, the faster network speeds of the iPhone 3G (have) proven more appealing to customers that already had access to a 3G network,” Ross Rubin, NPD director of industry analysis, said in a statement.

Apple’s
iPhone 3G apparently created a summertime switch itch: 30 percent of all the smartphone’s buyers bailed on their existing carriers in order to purchase the device, according to an NPD Group report released Monday.

According to the report, which covers June through August, 47 percent of those switching to AT&T to get the iPhone 3G came from Verizon Wireless, 24 percent from T-Mobile, and 19 percent from Sprint.

During that same time frame, the smartphones with the highest unit sales were Apple’s iPhone 3G, followed by Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Curve, RIM’s BlackBerry Pearl, and the Palm Centro, according to NPD.

Prior to launching its 3G version, Apple’s iPhone accounted for 11 percent of the smartphone market in 2008. But since the 3G’s launch, that figure has risen to 17 percent of the market since the start of the year.

“The launch of the lower-priced iPhone 3G was a boon to overall consumer smartphone sales,” Rubin said.

By contrast, about 23 percent of consumers overall switched carriers from June through August.

AT&T has been the iPhone 3G’s exclusive carrier in the U.S. since the smartphone was released in June.

Although the Shanghai Securities News did not cite Microsoft, specifically, in its report, it quoted a source, who referenced Microsoft and its pricing practices.

The Chinese news agency also reported that some local companies were contemplating filing antitrust lawsuits, based on a new law that is set to take effect August 1.

The antitrust agency’s statement was a response to a Wednesday report by the Shanghai Securities News saying the Intellectual Property Office was investigating allegations that large software companies were using their market position to gain favorable pricing, as well as curtail research and development by local Chinese companies.

China’s State Intellectual Property Office on Thursday denied reports that Microsoft and other software behemoths were under investigation, according to an Associated Press report.

YouTube this week handed authorities in Finland an opportunity to stop a mass killing.

YouTube bans graphic violence and pornography and removes such content once flagged by users. In most cases, the site doesn’t work proactively to censor speech. To be sure, there are plenty of videos at YouTube advocating the destruction of one group or another.

After spotting several threatening videos allegedly posted to YouTube by student Matti Saari, Finnish police tracked down and questioned the 22-year-old man on Monday. Authorities there are now answering questions about why they freed Saari, who on Tuesday gunned down 10 classmates and then killed himself at the vocational school he attended.

The sick trend of school shootings continues: Columbine, Virginia Tech, and last November’s Jokela High School Massacre, also in Finland. What was different this time was that police were in a position to prevent the slaughter once they saw Saari’s videos on YouTube. The clips featured Saari firing a handgun and making threats. One showed him pointing a gun at the camera and saying: “You will die next.”

There’s no question that hate speech and threats of violence are disturbing and ugly. But if YouTube starts scrubbing the site of such videos, then the public has less information about those who promote these ideas.

In the wake of last November’s slaughter at Jokela High School by Pekka-Eric Auvinen, when the high school student went on a shooting rampage that left nine people dead, some argued that YouTube should do more to block hate speech or clips that promote violence. The thinking here is that YouTube may be the vehicle that inspires and emboldens teens and others to take lives. I’ll just point out the obvious: School shootings were occurring long before YouTube hit the scene.

The way I see it, when the next deranged soul chronicles his preparations for murder by posting a video to YouTube in the way that Saari did, perhaps the clips will help authorities stop him. YouTube can act as an early warning system.

Screen shot taken from murder suspect's video

An example of that preventive characteristic may have come as I write this. The Associated Press is reporting that police in Sweden on Thursday arrested a 16-year-old-boy after viewing a suspicious clip he allegedly posted to YouTube.

I think it’s better to know your enemy, especially when he or she might be preparing to harm you.

But there has been a debate about whether videos like the ones Saari posted should even exist on YouTube. Following the latest shooting, YouTube’s “hand’s off” approach toward such content is once again under scrutiny.

Stability is a major concern, the app cries for an in-app browser, and Zagat To Go calibrates your location twice every time you open it, a repetition that quickly wears thin. Providing advanced search options to find, for instance, sushi restaurants nearby for under $30 would make the app immediately more winning.

Regrettably, Zagat To Go ‘09 for the iPhone and iPod Touch ($9.99 per year) isn’t markedly different.

(Credit:
CNET)

The components to a great mobile app are all there–venerable content, click-to-call, a Web site link, OpenTable reservations for some restaurants, and search and sorting filters–but the whole is somehow less than the sum of its parts.

It’s also true that Zagat To Go will best serve the foodies who want to “cut through the garbage” found on Yelp’s and Urbanspoon’s
iPhone apps and be funneled to finer dining. Big-city diners dedicated to Zagat’s yearly survey have in this iPhone app a slightly more economical and much more convenient and interactive option than toting the book with them on travels near and far, or viewing the cramped mobile Web site from the
Safari browser.

Despite being a fan of Zagat’s restaurant surveys, I’ve never been overly impressed with the mobile applications for Windows Mobile Smartphone and PocketPC, BlackBerry, and Palm.

iTunes App Store reviewers have also thoroughly picked a bone with the app over a “cheesy” link to other apps created by Zagat’s mobile publishing partner, Handmark, and “frustrating,” “misleading” information about the cities and countries covered. It’s true that Zagat Survey is strongest in metropolitan US cities, with passable international coverage in the UK, Italy, and France, and some world cities, like Tokyo, Toronto, London, and Rome. Handmark should more explicitly list those cities to minimize the backlash.

Update: 12/2/08 at 3:40 PM. Handmark commented in an e-mail that a new release being submitted to iPhone’s App Store for approval today will request location access upon launching the app for the first time. A button on the main search screen will let you manually update your new location.