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West Brom replaces Bodog with Zoopla

Sat, 26 May 2012 17:47:49 +0000

West Brom replaces Bodog with Zoopla

Premier League club West Bromwich Albion has signed online property company Zoopla as its new shirt sponsor, replacing US betting firm Bodog after just one year.

http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/articl...og-zoopla/

Chobani Yogurt's Success Starts Where a Giant Left Off

Sat, 26 May 2012 17:47:49 +0000

Chobani Yogurt's Success Starts Where a Giant Left Off

Chobani's founder Hamdi Ulukaya tells the story of his company's modest beginnings and current growing pains.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/entrepren...tory01.htm

Why Wasn't Mark Zuckerberg More Involved In The Facebook IPO? (FB)

Sat, 26 May 2012 17:47:49 +0000

Why Wasn't Mark Zuckerberg More Involved In The Facebook IPO? (FB)

Facebook's CFO David Ebersman has become the fall guy for the scandal that's engulfed Facebook's IPO.
He's the guy who told analysts to cut their estimates, which, while within the letter of the law, seems to violate the spirit of the law.
Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, founder, and icon, has skated. He's nowhere near the scandal.
Why is that? Because he had almost nothing to do with the IPO process.
While it's good for him that he's not attached to the mess, it's weird that Zuckerberg, who is 100% focused on Facebook, was so detached on something that's so important to the company and its future.
There's something refreshing about Zuckerberg blowing off Wall Street, and just staying focused on building Facebook, the company, but you would think he'd want to be involved in the details of the IPO.
After all, it was a pretty big deal.
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‘Sing Something’ Is ‘Draw Something’ For Singers

Sat, 26 May 2012 17:47:49 +0000

‘Sing Something’ Is ‘Draw Something’ For Singers

Playing mobile games with your friends just got a little more vocal. Sing Something is like a combination of Draw Something and Karaoke —…

http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/B8oNl4eDPPM/

Will Allen's `Good Food Revolution'

Sat, 26 May 2012 15:45:25 +0000

Will Allen's `Good Food Revolution'

His new autobiography chronicles Allen's unexpected journey from professional basketball player to urban farming pioneer.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/entrepren...tory01.htm

Facebook Aside, Everyone Who Thinks IPO "Pops" Are Good Has Been Brainwashed

Sat, 26 May 2012 15:45:25 +0000

Facebook Aside, Everyone Who Thinks IPO "Pops" Are Good Has Been Brainwashed

Last Friday, after Facebook stock started trading at $42, most observers immediately pronounced the IPO a flop.
Why?
Because the IPO had been priced at $38, which meant that the IPO "pop" was only about 10% above the IPO price.
Facebook stockholders who had bought the IPO the night before had instantly made 10% overnight--a spectacular return. String together a few months of daily returns like that, and you would quickly be one of the most successful investors in history.
But some Facebook speculators had expected to make much more free money overnight--perhaps as much as speculators in LinkedIn and other hot IPOs had made.
So they felt disappointed and ripped off.
And the media, who have been carefully trained by Wall Street and short-term speculators to view IPOs with big pops as "successful" and IPOs with small or no pops as "flops" immediately dissed Facebook as a flop.
Now, there were two serious issues with the Facebook IPO that complicate any discussion focused on this IPO in particular: The NASDAQ screwup that borked at least a day's worth of trading, and the "selective disclosure" scandal, in which the underwriters told their big clients that Facebook's second quarter was weak but did not tell their small clients this.
Both of those issues may well have affected Facebook's first day of trading and contributed to the subsequent price decline. And both of those issues are legitimate sources of frustration, for investors and the company alike. (So please don't bother raising these issues in the comments below: They're separate and apart from the point of this discussion, which is about first-day "pops.")
According to a source very close to the situation, all other issues aside, Facebook was aiming for a 10% pop. Not a 25% pop. Not a 50% pop. A 10% pop. And for most of the first day of trading, that's exactly what Facebook got. In other words, Facebook did exactly what it was hoping to do.
Facebook knew well how this 10% pop would be perceived by the media: As a disappointment.
But Facebook understood what most companies that go public don't:

Any press grumbling about "disappointments" and "small pops" will be quickly forgotten.
The only investors who benefit from "pops" are short-term flippers who won't help the company long term and don't deserve free money
"Pops" cost the company and its existing shareholders hundreds of milions of dollars (in Facebook's case, billions)
"Pops provide no advantage to the company other than a bit of extremely expensive and ephemeral excitement and PR
Pricing the IPO high enough to have only a small pop meant raising millions or billions more dollars that would subsequently be worth milions or billions of dollars to the company

Specifically, in Facebook's case, if Facebook had priced the IPO at, say, $30, instead of $38, it would have raised ~$12.5 billion in the IPO instead of $16 billion.
In exchange for a bigger "pop," happier speculators, and a more enthusiastic press reception, in other words, Facebook and its selling shareholders would have sacrificed $3.5 billion that they can now use to create real value for the company and its shareholders (including its new shareholders).
$3.5 billion is real money.
Blowing $3.5 billion on making speculators and financial reporters happier would have been the height of short-term thinking. And, like other great companies, Facebook doesn't make decisions aimed at creating short-term value. It makes decisions designed to create long-term value.
The extra $3.5 billion Facebook raised by aiming for 10% pop will create at least $3.45 billion more value for Facebook over the long term than a bigger "pop" would have. (The short-term press hyperventilation and speculator euphoria may create some value for a company, but not much. And it may even be harmful to the company by making everything after the IPO seem like an anti-climax.)
But, but, but!
What about the IPO investors?
Shouldn't Facebook and other IPO companies want to make investors happy?
Shouldn't they be less greedy and give investors a reward for taking a chance on them?
Yes.
IPOs should not be priced "at market value." They should be priced just below market value This rewards initial investors for taking the chance on the IPO pricing (which is always risky--no one knows exactly what "market value" will be). And it gives the investors an incentive necessary to do the research on the company before it goes public. Without that, the investors might just wait to see where the stock traded and do the research then.
But any investor who thinks they need more than a 5%-10% overnight return as a reward for placing an order on the IPO is unbelievably greedy.
Again, a 10% return overnight is a spectacular return.
A 10%-20% return, which is what early-stage IPOs should aim for, is an even more spectacular return.
So any investor who thinks they deserve more than that is just greedy.
But What About "Broken IPOs" -- They're Terrible, Right? [No]
What if the "market value" for a company on the first day of trading is higher than a conservative market value that a conservative investor would place on it? What if the stock drops below the IPO price after the first couple days of trading? What if the company has a "broken IPO?"
Yes, what about that.
This is where Wall Street's brainwashing of clients and the media about IPOs has been most insidious and effective.
So, really, what if a company has a "broken IPO?" Isn't that a huge disaster?
No.
In fact, it's hardly worth mentioning.
What it means is that investors who placed orders for the IPO at certain prices and were intending to hold the stock for more than the first day of trading and were unwilling to tolerate a drop below the IPO price were too aggressive in their bids.
That's the investors' fault, not the company's fault. And the resulting disappointment and disgruntlement is called "buyers' remorse." And it happens all the time, in almost every industry and type of transaction on the planet.
Let's use a real-estate analogy.
Let's say a beautiful house is being put up for sale. The agent hired (and paid) to sell the house advertises it everywhere, so all potentially interested buyers know about it. Then the agent calls for bids. The agent explains that there will be only one round of bidding, so bidders need to submit their highest and best offers. Then the agent and the homeowner look at all the bids and pick one, probably the highest. And then the house is sold at that price.
The day after the deal, it is highly unlikely that the buyer would be able to resell the house for the price he or she just paid--because he or she offered the highest bid around. The true "market value" for the house, in other words--the average price paid by most buyers and sellers--might actually be below the price the buyer paid.
The seller of the house, meanwhile, has gotten full market value for the house--just as he or she should.
No one complains that there wasn't a "pop" in the house price.
No one thinks the buyer "got screwed."
No one says the agent should have sold the house at 25% below market value just to give the buyer a "pop."
In fact, if the buyer ever complains that he or she paid too much for the house, everyone will tell the buyer to grow up and look in the mirror if he or she wants to figure out who to blame.
And it's exactly the same for IPOs.
Any "pop" in the stock price on the first day is the difference between the IPO price and the market value.
The market value is not, perhaps, a "conservative value that only a cautious prudent investor would pay," but the market value--the average value that all investors, conservative and aggressive, are paying.
Any investor who chooses to pay market value for an IPO needs to accept that. And if he or she doesn't want to accept that, then he or she just shouldn't place a bid. (This is voluntary stock speculation, after all: We're not talking about selling water and air.)
"But It's Not Like Selling A House... It's Like Selling Apartments!" [No, It Isn't]
There's one more argument that sophisticated "pop" defenders invoke. And that's this:
Selling an IPO is not like selling a house. It's like selling an apartment in a big apartment building with lots of apartments. What you're trying to do with the first sale, the pop defenders say, is generate excitement for the stock, by showing how much money can be made if buyers start speculating on the apartments. If you give away a lot of free money to the first few buyers, this story goes, others will see how much money is being made and then they'll pile in and start buying. And the value of all the apartments will go up!
That argument sounds sophisticated and intelligent, but it's wrong.
Why?
Because the shares in an IPO are sold all at once, not one after the other.
And future sellers of shares in the company--existing shareholders--will not be selling any more shares for months after the deal, at which point the trading price of the stock will be determined by the first day "pop" on the IPO but by what has happened in the interim.
"No!" the IPO pop defenders shout.
"The first-day pop determines everything! Investors who don't get a pop will storm off in disgust, and they'll never come back! The company's stock price will be lower forever, because burned investors will always want to punish the company!"
I hope no one seriously believes this.
The reality is that after a stock settles in the weeks and months after the IPO, what happened on the first day of trading is quickly forgotten. Potential buyers and sellers of the stock react to "news"--to what is happening in the market and industry and at the company--not because of some collective market memory about the IPO price. And, in any event, even in a huge deal like Facebook, the investors who played the IPO are only a tiny fraction of all available investors out there, so even if the investors who didn't get their free-money pop remain disgruntled, plenty of other investors will rush in to fill the gap.
So, if IPOs pops are actually bad, why does everyone think they're so good?
A few reasons:

Everyone loves free money, so when a handful of speculators get lucky and make a lot of it (when an IPO is underpriced), they're very loud in celebrating their brilliance and success
Pops are exciting and controversial! Pops give the press an excuse to write breathless stories about the IPO, in which they can rave about the "instant overnight millionaires and billionaires" and the "popular madness and delusions of crowds" and other age-old stories that sell newspapers and cause viewers to tune in (and get clicks).
Wall Street has brainwashed companies and the media into thinking that pops are good. Why? Because a healthy "pop" makes it easier for Wall Street to keep both kinds of clients happy--not just the issuer (company) client but the investor clients. Wall Street deals with issuer clients only every once in a while, when companies do IPOs or secondary offerings. But Wall Street deals with investor clients every day. So Wall Street loves to dole out favors to those investor clients at the expense of issuer clients. And those favors often come in the form of huge IPO pops.

What a small IPO pop like Facebook's really means is that the underwriter has correctly assessed market value (often hard to do) and then priced the stock just below market value. In other words, they've done a great job for their issuer client and a fine job for their investor clients. Especially on a hot offering, this is extremely hard to do. That's why I said last week that Morgan Stanley had priced Facebook perfectly.
Yes, in the week since its IPO, Facebook has traded down sharply. But a lot of that sell-off is due to the NASDAQ screwup and the now-widespread understanding that Facebook is having a weak second quarter (something that was only known by institutions). And a lot of it is also probably due to the fact that many, many players placed orders for Facebook only because they were hoping to get a huge IPO pop.
These speculators--and that's what they are, speculators--did get a nice modest pop. Again, on the first day of trading, unless they were burned by the NASDAQ screwup, they could have sold their stock for 5%-10% more than they bought it for the day before--a spectacular return. And if this was still disappointing to them, well, then, that's because they were greedy.
Meanwhile, Facebook raised $16 billion at a good price, one that--at the time it priced the stock--was just below the market value.
The extra cash that Facebook raised by pricing its stock 10% below market instead of, say, 25%, will create value for the company for decades to come.
If the company executes well, meanwhile, memories of the "broken IPO" will quickly be forgotten.
And anyone who doesn't believe this should just take a look at Amazon.
Back in 1997, when Amazon went public, the stock quickly "broke" the IPO price.
As it was for much of its early history, Amazon was shellacked in the press for this.
15 years later, Amazon is up about 75X from the IPO price.*
And the shellacking has long since been forgotten.
SEE ALSO: EXCLUSIVE: Here's The Inside Story Of What Happened With The Facebook IPO

* No, I don't think Facebook is going to go up 75X from the IPO price. This is in part because Facebook went public at a far more mature stage than Amazon. When Amazon went public, it was valued at $500 million. When Facebook went public, it was valued at $104 billion. It's a lot harder to create oodles of future value from a $104 billion level than it is from a $500 million one.
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Read “Rules of the Hunt” and Start Playing Successfully in Business

Sat, 26 May 2012 15:45:25 +0000

Read “Rules of the Hunt” and Start Playing Successfully in Business

To say that Rules of the Hunt: Real World Advice for Entrepreneurial and Business Success is one of the most unusual business books I’ve ever read or reviewed would be an understatement. The whole experience of getting this book and reviewing it was rather serendipitous.
As is the usual case, I received an email from a publicist who asked if I’d be interested in reviewing the book. Of course, I said “Yes.” The book arrived and I opened the envelope Read MoreFrom Small Business TrendsRead “Rules of the Hunt” and Start Playing Successfully in Business

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SmallBusi...eview.html

Astronauts: SpaceX Dragon Has That ‘New Car Smell’

Sat, 26 May 2012 15:45:25 +0000

Astronauts: SpaceX Dragon Has That ‘New Car Smell’

A day after the unmanned SpaceX Dragon spacecraft berthed with the International Space Station and made aerospace history, NASA astronaut Donald Pett…

http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/3BhSvmB3zxI/

AOL's Stock Has Quietly Climbed To Within A Dollar Of Its All Time High (AOL)

Sat, 26 May 2012 12:58:28 +0000

AOL's Stock Has Quietly Climbed To Within A Dollar Of Its All Time High (AOL)

AOL has been getting hammered by activist shareholder Starboard Value LP lately.
The funny thing about that is that AOL's stock has actually done decently as of late. Since bottoming out in October, AOL has climbed 131% to $27.48, which is a dollar within its high point since becoming a public company again.
As Kara Swisher at All Things D notes, if shareholders are going to complain now, AOL can tell them to stuff it.

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Are You Game for Tetris: The Movie? [VIDEO]

Sat, 26 May 2012 12:58:28 +0000

Are You Game for Tetris: The Movie? [VIDEO]

They made a movie out of Battleship, right? So why not Tetris?
That’s the plausible conceit behind this (unfortunately fake) trailer for a mo…

http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/-ViQEY4wYoE/

Use These 9 Gadgets To Take Your iPhone Photography Skills To The Next Level

Sat, 26 May 2012 10:06:32 +0000

Use These 9 Gadgets To Take Your iPhone Photography Skills To The Next Level

Taking photos using the iPhone's native camera is pretty simple.
The photos and videos typically come out great without much effort due to the excellent camera.
But what if you want to take your photo/video skills to the next level?
Check out these awesome accessories that will take your iPhone photography skills from amateur to pro.iPhone SLR Mount

This awesome mount is in fact real and takes pictures using either a Canon EOS or Nikon SLR lenses (not included) to give your phone powerful depth of field and manual focus. Telephoto, wide angle, macro, or your fixed-fifty lenses all attach to this mount.
Price: $249.99
Pico Flex Skater Dolly

This dolly adds stability and smoothness to your recordings. Use it for your next person Hollywood production. Another awesome feature is that this dolly can be set up in 30 seconds.
Price: $74.99
iPhone Lens Dial

This case attaches to your phone and gives you Fisheye, Wide Angle and Telephoto lenses all in one. The case is built from aluminum and is pretty sturdy and to switch between lenses is as easy as turning the dial.
Price: $249.99
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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New Computer Algorithm Knows Your Phony Smile [VIDEO]

Sat, 26 May 2012 10:06:32 +0000

New Computer Algorithm Knows Your Phony Smile [VIDEO]

Have you ever wondered how genuine that smile really is?
If your intuition isn’t stellar at gauging real versus fake smiles, this information m…

http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/USnzXmMxCjs/

CHART OF THE DAY: Facebook Has The Worst IPO Of The Decade (FB)

Sat, 26 May 2012 07:56:27 +0000

CHART OF THE DAY: Facebook Has The Worst IPO Of The Decade (FB)

Facebook's IPO has been the worst performing IPO of the decade after five days, according to this chart from Bloomberg.

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11 Hilarious ‘Men in Black’ Parodies

Sat, 26 May 2012 07:56:27 +0000

11 Hilarious ‘Men in Black’ Parodies

A few weeks ago we found out a lot of people like to dress up with their friends as the Avengers? It turns out, a lot more of you like the Men in Blac…

http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/754OPOcckmk/

Oracle Exec Slams Sun Hardware, Saying 'We Bought A Dog' (ORCL, HPQ)

Sat, 26 May 2012 05:50:32 +0000

Oracle Exec Slams Sun Hardware, Saying 'We Bought A Dog' (ORCL, HPQ)

It's Hewlett-Packard's turn to show off a bunch of juicy emails. They show Oracle executives badmouthing Sun hardware.
HP and Oracle are like the enterprise technology world's Hatfields and McCoys. They've been suing each other over Oracle's decision to stop making software for HP's expensive Itanium servers. And they've been using the court of public opinion to make their case.
Last week, Oracle wrote a public letter to HP customers and included a bunch of emails trying to show how HP lied to them about how long Itanium would be around.
So turnaround is fair play. Arik Hesseldahl of AllThingsD posted a cache of emails on Scribd, a document-sharing site of e-mails admitted as testimony in the case. In them, Oracle executives have allegedly been caught saying nasty things about Sun's hardware.
In an archived IM exchange between Oracle executives identified as Keith Block (VP, North America sales and consulting) and Anje Dodson (Oracle's VP of HR), Block says this about Sun hardware:
"We bought a dog. Mark wants us to sell the dog. ... Nobody wants to sell Sun. ... It baaaallllloooooooows."
There's also some interesting stuff about how the two decided the bonus of someone named Linda and stuff about hating Mark Hurd. (She seemed to get $33,000).
Here's a snapshot:

After all of these emails on both sides, one thing is clear. There are no nice guys here—and neither HP nor Oracle seems to care that much about the customer. IBM should be eating this up!
Don't miss: Oracle Drops A Bomb In It's Fight With HP: Lots Of Damaging Emails
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‘Dear Photograph’ Turns 1, Spawns Book, Prepares for App Launch

Sat, 26 May 2012 05:50:32 +0000

‘Dear Photograph’ Turns 1, Spawns Book, Prepares for App Launch

Surreal. Humbling. Grateful. One year after unleashing Dear Photograph, a blog showcasing photos within photos, Taylor Jones describes his emoti…

http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/bP-m6dZw6nU/

We're Skeptical That Smartphone-Tablet Hybrids Will Take Off

Sat, 26 May 2012 03:25:03 +0000

We're Skeptical That Smartphone-Tablet Hybrids Will Take Off

This post is from Business Insider Intelligence, a new research and analysis service that's currently in beta testing. Check out our free trial offer here.
Yesterday, ABI Research released a report about smartphone-tablet hybrids -- which the firm calls "phablets" -- predicting that 239 million of them would ship by 2016. (See chart.)
The firm defines a hybrid as a device with phone functionality and a touch screen between 4.6 and 5.5 inches. That's larger than most smartphones, but smaller than the smallest tablets like the Kindle Fire, which has a 7-inch screen.
The canonical example of this kind of device is Samsung's Galaxy Note.
It was widely panned by reviewers at its release last year -- particularly for its included stylus, which seemed like an old-fashioned anachronism since the success of the touch-only iPad. But the device has been a surprise hit, with more than 5 million sold in five months, according to Samsung.
So does the early success of the Note translate to a new market in hybrids? We're skeptical, and here's why.
ABI told us that it made several assumptions in its report. We evaluate each one below.

Between 7 and 10 hybrid devices will be on the market this year. TRUE. This seems reasonable. ABI lists seven that are already on the market, or coming soon: the Samsung Galaxy Note, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC One X, Sony Xperia Ion, LG Optimus 4X HD, and the Huawei Ascend D1.

Every major phone manufacturer will have a model with a big screen by 2015. IMPOSSIBLE TO JUDGE. This will depend on the market success of the early models. If they flop, handset makers will stop building them.

Apple will release a smartphone-tablet hybrid in 2013. DOUBTFUL. This is where ABI's reasoning may break down. Rumors from usually reliable sources say that Apple is releasing a small iPad this fall, but that device will have a 7- to 8-inch screen, and will not make phone calls. Apple has also reportedly put out orders for 4-inch screens for its next iPhone. But neither of those are hybrids, and Apple has little reason to put one out: the iPhone and iPad are both smash hits, with sales increasing every quarter every quarter. Many consumers have both devices. Why cannibalize iPad sales with a larger iPhone?

We'd add the following notes as well:

Apart from the Galaxy Note, past hybrids have flopped.This includes early models from Microsoft partners using the brief-lived Pocket PC for Smartphones platforms and the Dell Streak (which ran Android). This suggests limited demand for a phone that requires two hands to use.

Microsoft is focusing on a different kind of hybrid. Microsoft is entering the tablet market in a big way in 2012, but the company is explicitly focusing on blending tablets with traditional notebook PCs -- not with smartphones. While Windows Phone is moving to the same core technology as Windows 8, the user interface and features of each platform are expected to remain distinct. Microsoft also has a very good business reason not to promote blended devices: it reportedly charges between $30 and $150 for an OEM license of Windows, versus less than $20 for a license for Windows Phone. That said, some PC OEMs might experiment by putting Windows 8 or Windows RT (the ARM-based variant of Windows) into a small tablet and adding a telephony stack.

In conclusion, despite the early success of the Galaxy Note, it's too early to tell whether phone-tablet hybrids will be a real business, and ABI's predictions of 200 million sold by 2015 should be treated with healthy "show me" skepticism.
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Startup Partners With Top Designers, Celebrities on High-End Capsule Collections

Sat, 26 May 2012 03:25:03 +0000

Startup Partners With Top Designers, Celebrities on High-End Capsule Collections

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your st…

http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/MGpTks-x2q4/

BBC retains Premier League highlights package

Sat, 26 May 2012 02:36:10 +0000

BBC retains Premier League highlights package

The BBC has retained the rights to broadcast the free-to-air Premier League highlights until the end of 2015/16 season.

http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/articl...s-package/

APPLE SLAPS BACK: Government's E-Books Case Is 'Fundamentally Flawed' (AAPL, AMZN)

Sat, 26 May 2012 01:10:40 +0000

APPLE SLAPS BACK: Government's E-Books Case Is 'Fundamentally Flawed' (AAPL, AMZN)

The government's antitrust complaint against Apple and six book publishers over e-book pricing is "fundamentally flawed as a matter of fact and law," according to a response it's filed with the court overseeing the case.
Ars Technica says that Apple "pulls no punches" in its response, which accuses the government of siding with Amazon, which Apple says is the real monopolist in the market for electronic books. Amazon, Apple points out, sold 9 out of every 10 e-books before Apple introduce its iBookstore.
The company also states repeatedly that Apple "lacks sufficient information and belief" to respond to most of the government's allegations.
Translated from the legalese, that's a fancy lawyer way of saying "We have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."
That's a feisty response, which means this is going to be a fun case to watch.
Historically, books have been sold like most physical goods—purchased at a wholesale price and sold at a retail price. That's how Amazon sold print books, and that's how it started out selling e-books. It took a loss on some e-books in order to keep prices low and spur sales of its Kindle e-reader.
Publishers worried that Amazon's low prices would set consumers' expectations for e-books prices at a permanently lower level than what physical books sold for. (Never mind that those expectations are probably pretty reasonable and something consumers would arrive at on their own.)
Apple, meanwhile, always sold media and apps, including some e-book apps, through an agency model—taking a cut of the transaction rather than profiting from the difference between the wholesale and retail price. Under the agency model, book publishers, just like app makers in the app store, picked a price for the e-books they published.
Apple makes a big deal out of its prior use of the agency model in its response.
Meanwhile, Amazon has argued that publishers have a monopoly on the titles they publish. Which, in a sense, they do: Copyright law doesn't let one publisher go around and sell another publisher's books. If you want a particular title, you have to go to that publisher.
That's the argument Amazon offered when it had a spat with Macmillan and briefly pulled all of the publisher's titles—both print and electronic—from its website, then acceded to Macmillan's demands that it adopt agency pricing.
Call this case Jeff Bezos's revenge.
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Are You Game for Tetris: The Movie? [VIDEO]

Sat, 26 May 2012 01:10:40 +0000

5 Business Conversations to Have Today

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:09:11 +0000

5 Business Conversations to Have Today

Welcome to the 'We Economy.' It's time for people to navigate change and create a positive work environment where everyone works as a team to achieve goals.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/entrepren...tory01.htm

This Is Why Your Company Won't Ditch Microsoft For Apple (APPL)

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:09:11 +0000

This Is Why Your Company Won't Ditch Microsoft For Apple (APPL)

Apple still really hasn't figured out how to make it big in the enterprise—even though it's having a lot of accidental luck there as employees bring in their own iPhones, iPads and Macs.
But it doesn't care. It's banking that the Bring Your Own Device trend will continue and that it won't need to cater to IT departments. And that's a shame for a lot of reasons.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster—who predicts that Apple shares will hit $1,000—says that Apple is taking the "long road" toward enterprise adoption.
In a research note issued today, he writes:
"We believe that Apple thinks about the consumer and enterprise opportunities as significantly different verticals. If Apple's intent was to dominate the enterprise markets, we believe the company would employ a meaningfully different sales and Marketing strategy."
For instance, Apple isn't interested in offering a lot of long-term support for older operating systems. But enterprises often want to stick with what works. Many are still using Windows XP and only now moving to Windows 7, even though XP is more than a decade old.
Plus Apple doesn't really have a clue on how to deal with malicious hackers. As it gets more popular, it is attracting more interest from people keen on exploiting security holes.
Apple botched its first really big challenge: When a researcher reported to Apple that it had found 600,000 infected Macs working together in a hacker botnet, Apple tried to shut down the researcher.
Businesses want companies to quickly fix security flaws. So stories like that don't make enterprises want to yank out Microsoft and spend millions with Apple instead.
Now, Apple hasn't had to cater to business users ... yet. It's been focused on making the best products for consumers and letting those consumers bring their products to work.
But that is surely a missed opportunity. As Munster writes, "We do not expect Apple to make any significant changes on how it addresses the enterprise opportunity, thus it may still be a moderate road to majority market share at the corporate level in phones and longer road in computers. While we expect future iPhone and iPad growth in the enterprise, we don’t expect the Mac to have the same enterprise success."
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Tom Byun of Yahoo! Small Business: Solutions For The Overwhelmed

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:09:11 +0000

Tom Byun of Yahoo! Small Business: Solutions For The Overwhelmed

It’s no secret, many small business owners are overwhelmed. If that sounds like you, you’re not alone. Too much to do, too many choices, too little time, not enough money. Wouldn’t it be great if you could have one central place to manage tools that was cost efficient while providing time savings as well? Look no further. Tom Byun, Vice President & General Manager of Yahoo! Small Business, joins Brent Leary to provide a solution.
* * * * *Read MoreFrom Small Business TrendsTom Byun of Yahoo! Small Business: Solutions For The Overwhelmed

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Headed Out for Memorial Day? Pack These Apps

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:09:11 +0000

Headed Out for Memorial Day? Pack These Apps

Headed out for a Memorial Day weekend road trip? Before you hit the road, take a few minutes to check out the places you’ll be going. Rea…

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Kellogg's Rice Krispies Squares launches 3D ad