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Flowers Peddles Tapes; Mum's Not the Word
By Tommy Christopher (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 3:05:00 AM
Filed under: Hillary Clinton, 2008
President, Scandal
Does this mean she's withdrawing her
endorsement of Hillary?
According to Vegas Confidential, the
former Bill Clinton lover and current
Feature Performer, Entertainer & Advice
Columnist, has announced plans to sell, at
auction, audiotapes purported to be secretly
taped conversations between Flowers and
the former President:
Gennifer Flowers is putting the tapes of her
recorded conversations with Bill Clinton
during their 12-year affair on the auction
block, Vegas Confidential learned Monday.
Flowers, who came forward during
Clinton's 1992 Presidential election
campaign with details of the relationship,
said she decided to part with the tapes after
renewed interest surfaced.
She was offered $5 million by a Japanese
collector in the 1990s, she said.
Asked about the timing of her
announcement coming out as Hillary
Clinton continues to slide in her
presidential bid, "I don't need to hurt
Hillary. She is doing a fine job of that
herself, along with her idiot husband.
Karma is an interesting thing. If these two
don't get elected, and they are a team, it
will be karma coming back to visit them.
Chris Dodd Endorses Obama
By David Knowles (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 1:23:00 AM
Filed under: Endorsements, Democrats,
Barack Obama, Breaking News, Chris
It's about time."
While it's hard to fault Flowers for trying to
eke out a 16th minute of fame, and some
financial security, her invocation of Karma
is odd, considering the blows that the
mystical force has dealt her: Gennifer had
enjoyed several years of success in her own
nightclub in the New Orleans French
Quarter called The Gennifer Flowers Kelso
Club in which she sang and performed to
audiences from all over the world every
night. But, two storms changed her
life...one was Katrina and the other was a
divorce.
After the jump: What effect will this have
on the current Presidential contest? What
effect will the current Presidential contest
have on this? Why can't I think of any more
floral puns?
If not for the recent, disastrous moves by
Clinton's campaign in stepping up the
negative tenor, this news might have
actually helped Hillary. While some people
express antipathy toward her decision to
"stand by her man", those people are likely
not to view Hillary in any positive light.
For the majority of people, especially
Democrats, the infidelity issue engenders at
least sympathy, if not a measure of
admiration for overcoming it. A crass cash-
in like this would have reminded many
people of what a class act Hillary is
compared to Flowers and her husband.
Dodd, 2008 President
Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has
decided to endorseBarack Obama today. In
addition to the symbolic import of a nod
from one of the most respected Democrats
25/02/08 - 26/02/08
Barring a stunning, overwhelming victory
at tonight's debate, or a precipitous stumble
by Obama in the next week or so, this race
could be over on March 5, which would
wilt Flowers' prospects of a big payday.
With everything else that's going on, this
doesn't figure to affect Hillary much, as it
shouldn't.
Of course, with the punditry flailing at
in congress--and a recent high-profile
LibertyNewsprint.
every political gnat this election season,
they could do worse that to "Ask Gennifer
with a G". This advice pertains to
menopause, but it could just as easily be
applied to our beleaguered pundit class and
their convoluted "Keith" numbers:
Also, taking on a young lover never hurts!
It certainly makes you aware of your body
and makes you feel damn good about
yourself! That advice, of course, will be
criticized but I only say it because it's true!
contender for the nomination--the
endorsement means yet another Super-
delegate is breaking Obama's way. More up
-to-the-minute news of the Supers can be
found here.
My dear lady friends...JUST CHOOSE
HAPPINESS and then work your way
toward it in the way that's most appropriate
for you. You can do it, girls!!
Kisses, Gen
Then, there was her recent advice for John
McCain.
In reading for this story, I've grown to like
Gennifer Flowers, aside from her
broadsides at Hillary. Selling these tapes is
unquestionably sleazy, but who's the real
sleaze here? In this trio, only one person
broke a promise, and it wasn't Gen or
Hillary. If she was my friend, I'd definitely
tell her to sell the tapes. If I was Hillary, I
would offer to buy them and donate the
money to charity. That would be a win-win.
If I was Bill, I'd probably be breathing a
sigh of relief, like the rest of us, that there
was no video.
Tommy Links
Tommy Christopher Uncut l TomMySpace
l TommYoutube
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2 Politics *
Rice Seeks China's Help on North Korea
By Mark Impomeni (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 11:30:00 PM
Filed under: Bush AdministrationIn a tacit
admission that developments in North
Korea are not keeping pace with U.S.
expectations, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, on a tour through Asia,
met with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang
Jiechi and asked for China's help in
influencing the North Koreans. The
Administration now admits that North
Korea is not making progress in
dismantling or declaring its nuclear
weapons programs, which it had agreed to
do by the end of the year in exchange for
deliveries of fuel oil and the release of
North Korean funds held frozen in Asian
banks.
At the end of last year, the Bush
Administration was considering normalized
relations with North Korea, in exchange for
the North's adherence to the schedule of de-
nuclearization it had agreed to in the Six-
Party Talks with the governments of the
United States, China, Japan, South Korea,
and Russia. The U.S.'s chief negotiator in
the talks, Ambassador Christopher Hill,
announced in late October that the
dismantling of the North's Yongbyon
nuclear reactor was "going well," and that
he expected that the December 31st
deadline for the dismantling and the
declaration of past activities would be met.
Yesterday's meeting between Secretary
Rice and Foreign Minister Jiechi indicates
that the Bush Administration no longer
shares that view.
President Bush went so far as to address a
'Proud' Clinton
By Greg McNeilly (Political Machine)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 1:29:00 PM
Filed under: Hillary Clinton, AdsHillary
Clinton's effort in Ohio is airing a new spot
featuring Buckeye hero and former U.S.
Senator John Glenn. The :30 second spot is
titled "Proud."
The ad script reads:
letter to North Korea's reclusive ruler, Kim
Jong-Il, last December, respectfully calling
him "Mr. Chairman," and imploring him to
meet the commitments that the North made
at the Six-Party Talks. But the United
States has rejected the North's declaration
of its nuclear programs as incomplete and
now recognizes that progress on the
disablement of Yongbyon is not moving
apace.
Rice, In Beijing, expressed hope that China
and the United States would be successful
in getting the North back on track.
"I believe that all of the parties to the six-
party talks have both an obligation and an
interest to make certain that the obligations
John Glenn: ``Hillary and I both come from
middle-class families in the middle of
America. As long as Annie and I have
known her, Hillary's fought for working
people. She'll end $55 billion in giveaways
to corporate special interest and invest that
money to create jobs in research and
innovation to rebuild the middle class. And
Hillary will fight to change trade deals like
NAFTA. She's been doing that for years.
I'll be proud to call Hillary my president.''
of the first phase are carried out.
We are the cusp of something very special
here. Now it is time to move on because the
denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is
in everyone's interest.
What I am expecting from China is what I
am expecting from others: Use all influence
possible with the North Koreans to
convince them that it is time to move
forward."Yang responded by committing
China to the goals of the Six-Party Talks,
but also subtly put the United States on
notice that China's help with the North
would not come freely. Yang said that it is
incumbent on all parties to the talks to
"create favorable conditions to overcome
the current difficulties and move forward
the six-party process as soon as possible."
Of course, the Bush Administration, like
the Clinton Administration before it, has
been here before with North Korea. If the
North has demonstrated anything in the
various rounds of negotiations that have
been conducted over its nuclear weapons
programs, it has demonstrated that it will
do just enough to win concessions from the
negotiators, and then do no more until it
wins still more concessions. All the while,
it will cheat on its obligations, and continue
to develop weapons in secret. The Bush
Administration seems intent on tying up all
of its foreign policy loose ends before the
end of its term. But like the Clinton
Administration, it has found an unwilling
partner in Kim Jong-Il.
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Hillary Clinton: ``I'm Hillary Clinton and I
approved this message.'' Ohio's primary is
March 4th and it'll send 161 delegates to
the convention in Denver. An average of
current polling shows Clinton at 50.3% and
Obama 40.7%.
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Bush Sees Republican
Victory in November
By Mark Impomeni (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 2:00:00 PM
Filed under: President Bush, John McCain,
2008 PresidentPresident Bush confidently
told an audience at the Republican
Governors Association's annual fundraising
dinner that Republicans will keep the White
House in the presidential elections this fall.
The reason? The president said that it was
all about Iraq.
"I believe the American people understand
that success in Iraq is necessary for the long
-term security of the American people. And
we will elect somebody to the White House
who will keep up the fight to make sure
Iraq is secure and free."The notion of Iraq
being the central issue of the campaign is
probably music to both Sen. John McCain's
and Sen. Barack Obama's ears. McCain is
running on his championing of the troop
surge strategy, now widely recognized as a
success, and Obama is running in part on
his opposition to the war from before it
Conservative Political Action Conference
began. Sen. Hillary Clinton, on the other in Washington. McCain is working to shore
hand, who has had trouble completely
up his position with those conservative
explaining her pro-war vote to the anti-war voters, and may need the president's help in
Democratic base, would probably just as
doing so.
soon have Iraq be a non-issue in the fall.
McCain may also utilize the president as
The president's prediction is not surprising, fundraiser-in-chief. McCain has
given that this was a fundraiser and he was
acknowledged that he doesn't much like
charged with giving a pep talk to the fundraising and isn't very good at it.
attendees. But is does raise the question of
President Bush is an excellent fundraiser,
just how much the president will be raising a record $10.6 million for the
involved in campaigning for Sen. McCain,
Republican Governors at tonight's dinner.
the likely Republican nominee. McCain's Using Bush as the money man would also
campaign has not officially indicated what allow McCain to keep his image as a
the sitting president's role will be, but it politician who puts principle over politics
may like to distance itself from a president
with job approval ratings mired in the low
and is not beholden to corporate interests.
Despite his campaign's likely desire to
30s. break from the White House, Sen. McCain
may find that the president could be a
However, President Bush remains a hugely valuable commodity in the fall.
popular figure with the Republican Party's
conservative base, as evidenced by the Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs |
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president earlier this month at the
Your Click and Print Newspaper
Ellen Shows Up for Clinton
By Greg McNeilly (Political Machine)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 1:55:00 AM
Filed under: Hillary Clinton,
DemocratsMonday night, in Pennsylvania,
Ellen DeGeneres made a surprise
appearance at a Hillary Clinton for
President rally via video up-link.
DeGeneres hosts a one-hour variety talk-
show, airing five times a week. Monday's
video appearance was not an endorsement
and will appear nationally, on Tuesday's,
Ellen show.
CNN reports, at the rally, Clinton was also
introduced by Governor Ed Rendell (D-PA)
who told the crowd of mostly college
students that "we won't need to win in
Pennsylvania" in April if Clinton pulls of
wins in Ohio and Texas on March 4.
Rendall added that the young people of
America don't belong to one candidate.
After comedian Ellen asked Clinton if she'd
ban "glitter," things turned more political.
CNN reports on the exchange:
China Traipses Lightly on Human Rights
By Justin Paulette (Political Machine)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 2:05:00 AM
Filed under: Scandal
In response to Beijing's hosting the 2008
Olympic Games, human rights groups have
redoubled their efforts to pressure the
communist regime into international parley.
From its lofty perch as the world's most
prolific jailer of political, journalistic and
religious dissenters, to its continued
enforcement of the infamous (forced
sterilization, forced abortion and
infanticidal) "one-child policy," China
provides ample inspiration for human rights
complaints.
In light of this renewed scrutiny
(accentuated by Steven Spielberg's
resignation as artistic director due to
"As we all know," Degeneres noted,
"Obama has now won 11 states in a row.
What needs to happen to change the
momentum?"
Clinton was ready with an answer about her
now well-known comeback plan, but she
accidentally swapped out one state for
China's role in Sudan), as well as the
potential economic loss which could result
from a boycott, China has recently made
several gestures of good will with regard its
humanitarian shortcomings. Yet gestures
are all that will likely result from China's
empty platitudes to the world community.
First, China proclaimed a potential
breakthrough in Sino-Vatican relations and
hinted at a possible papal visit. The Church,
however, highly suspects the
announcement is mere propaganda. Further,
China announced this week that it was
willing to resume a human rights dialog
with Washington: "We are willing to have
exchanges and interactions with the U.S.
and other countries on human rights on a
basis of mutual respect, equality and non-
interference in each others' internal affairs."
another that must also be on her brain:
"Well, we're going to win Ohio and
Michigan!"
After ten seconds of applause and smiles,
she let the crowd know that her strategy
hadn't taken a suddenly bizarre turn.
"Wait a minute, Ohio and Texas," she
shouted. "We already won Michigan."
Degeneres also asked Clinton if she is
"being given a harder time" because she is
a woman (the question got a loud cheer
from the mostly female audience at George
Washington University).
"I think that it's my opportunity to make my
case the best I can," Clinton said with a
smile, while offering a standard line that
she is up to whatever challenges the White
House may hold.Here's some footage of the
event:
Tonight is another Democrat debate which
is one week from primaries in Ohio, Rhode
Island, Texas
and Vermont.
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Note the emphasis on non-interference - a
stark reminder of the great divide between
words and actions, and a hallmark of
communist-style negotiations. (Earlier
today it was revealed that China is
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO:
Hillary Campaigns in
Vermont
By Mo Rocca (Political Machine)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:11:00 PM
Lost in all the attention being paid to the
"crucial" Texas and Ohio Democratic
contests is the fact that Vermont is also
holding a primary. Hillary is not taking the
Green Mountain state for granted...
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preparing an expansive spy network to
monitor and control media access during
the Games - and this example of Chinese
"fautography" is telling of the state's modus
operandi.)
While the decision to allow China to host
the games is deeply pondersome, at least
there is hope that the focusing of global
attention on China may serve some boon
for the hundreds of millions starving for
freedom within her iron tyranny.
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Politics * Business * 3
MGM Mirage
(MGM): Value play
for high rollers
By Steven Halpern (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 5:52:00 AM
Filed under: Newsletters, Stocks to Buy
"MGM Mirage (NYSE: MGM) is arguably
the world's top publicly traded casino
gaming company; from budget-minded
families at the Excalibur to high-rollers at
the Bellagio, no segment of the market
should slip through the cracks," says value
investor Nathan Slaughter.
In Half-Priced Stocks, he explains, "But
this is just the beginning: the firm has
ambitious plans to leverage its brands and
take its gaming/hospitality experience to
other growing markets around the world."
"Thanks in part to a landmark merger with
cross-town rival Mandalay Group several
years ago, MGM is now the dominant
player on the booming Las Vegas Strip.
The merger also brought together two
complementary property portfolios, adding
Mandalay's low/mid-tier casinos to MGM's
mid/high-end resorts.
"The company also has upscale resorts in
other high-profile markets, including
Atlantic City's Borgata, Detroit's MGM
Grand, and the Beau Rivage on
Mississippi's Gulf Coast. Combined, the
firm operates around 20 properties
featuring more than 42,000 hotel rooms.
"And looking ahead, a busy development
pipeline and global expansion plans should
keep both of those totals moving briskly
forward. The company recently celebrated
the introduction of MGM Grand Detroit
last October, and that property has already
hit the ground running and emerged as a
market leader.
Continue reading MGM Mirage (MGM):
Value play for high rollersPermalink |
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4 Politics * Business *
Chuck Norris on Janet
Huckabee
By Dave (Political Machine)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 1:53:00 AM
Filed under: Mike Huckabee, 2008
President, Scandal, Media
Chuck Norris talks about Janet Huckabee,
apparently not giving up:
This is probably the first presidential race
in history in which the contenders' spouses
all have been subjected to intense scrutiny,
too. Still true, however, is the maxim:
Behind every great man is a great woman.
And epitomizing that accolade is Janet
Huckabee, who deserves highlighted
attention in this final installment of my
endorsement series, especially because her
character is also now under attack. The
more I've gotten to know about her the
more impressed I've become.
...
If the media's only accusation of her is to
drop innuendos of her bad taste and choice
of hotels, then Janet's standing on very
solid ground. The truth is liberal
broadcasting agencies are on a biased
smear campaign to ensure a Republican
doesn't sit in the Oval Office -- and they
even will malign their spouses now to
guarantee it. From John McCain to Janet
"McCain," how much lower can select
media go in their attempts to aid and even
Sam Zell sees real estate turnaround
this spring
By Zac Bissonnette (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 5:37:00 AM
Filed under: HousingSam Zell is one of the
best real estate investors around and
therefore one of the few people whose
prognostications for the housing market are
actually worth listening to.
And that's good news because, speaking on
CNBC's Squawk Box this morning, Zell
had this to say about the housing market: "I
think starts have already pretty much
bottomed out," Zell said. "I think the
housing market this spring will begin its
orchestrate a Democratic win in
November?
This is apparently in response to the
"Hooters Hotel" incident of last week, as
reported by the San Francisco Chronicle:
That eye-opening combination - a title bout
in Sin City, which celebrates gambling,
drinking and all things wild, along with a
hospitality chain favoring buxom
waitresses in low-cut garb - could
potentially shock the armies of evangelical
conservative Christians who have made her
husband, the former governor of Arkansas,
the only remaining GOP opponent to party
front-runner John McCain.
The article also noted that room space was
extremely limited, and Janet was there to
see a local Arkansas resident in a prize
fight. Which shows that despite the lede
above, there isn't much to this. Not really
eye opening at all, just some tight room
space and a little bit of yellow journalism,
assuming (without evidence) the reactions
of Christian conservatives.
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recovery phase."
If the recovery will indeed begin that
quickly -- and the bottom has already been
reached -- than beaten-down REITs have to
be considered for investment.
If you're willing to invest based on the idea
that Zell is likely to be right but aren't
comfortable picking REITs on your own,
Vanguard's REIT ETF (AMEX: VNQ) may
be worth a look. After a big drop in 2007,
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The End is Nigh
By David Knowles (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 12:21:00 AM
Filed under: Hillary Clinton, Democrats,
Featured Stories
"You probably like that it has come down
to Texas. If she wins Texas and Ohio, I
think she will be the nominee. If you don't
deliver for her then I don't think she can be.
It's all on you."
--Bill Clinton, addressing a rally in
Beaumont, Texas.
Survey USA's latest Texas poll numbers:
Barack Obama 49%
Hillary Clinton 45%
"Make no mistake, if she loses either Texas
or Ohio, this thing is done."
--Clinton supporter James Carville.
The latest CBS/NY Times national poll:
Obama, coming off 11 straight pirmary and
caucus victories, had the support of 54
percent of the Democratic primary voters
nationally. Clinton had 38 percent support.
In a CBS News poll taken three weeks ago,
shortly before Super Tuesday, Obama and
Clinton were tied at 41 percent. Clinton led
by 15 points nationally in January.
Unfortunately for Clinton, her slew of
recent attacks are backfiring. From Politico:
With a week to go before climactic tests in
Texas and Ohio, Hillary Rodham Clinton's
campaign team has slipped into full
recriminations mode. Looking backward,
interviews with a cross-section of campaign
aides and sympathetic outsiders suggest a
team consumed with frustration and finger-
pointing about the apparent failure of
several recent tactical moves against
Barack Obama.
Political machine has detailed the "tactical
moves" here, here and here. If the trends of
this race continue in their current direction,
we'll be hearing a concession speech very
soon.
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With an 8.9% home
price drop, W out-
destroys his dad
By Peter Cohan (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 5:07:00 AM
Filed under: Market matters, Politics,
Presidential elections, Recession
Reuters reports that U.S. home prices fell a
record 8.9% in 2007. The last time home
prices fell anywhere near as much as in
1991 when they lost 2.8% of their value.
That was when the current president's
father was in office. And he presided over a
$200 billion government bailout of the
savings and loan industry.
This is an impressive accomplishment for
junior. But it does not appear to be the end
-- although it may mark the beginning of
the end. That's because, as you may have
read by now, two million homeowners are
expected to foreclose on their homes by the
end of 2009. The reason is that variable rate
mortgages are resetting to rates higher than
many borrowers can afford.
It's too early to tell how much the current
president's housing market problems will
cost the economy. Although, so far, he is
doing a good job of keeping the
government from formally bailing out the
housing market. That is unless you take
into account the skyrocketing stagflation
resulting from the Fed's interest rate cuts
and the credit crunch.
Maybe the U.S. needs a break from Bushes
in power.
Peter Cohan is President ofPeter S. Cohan
& Associates. He also teaches management
at Babson College and edits The Cohan
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Your Click and Print Newspaper
CBS lower despite earnings RadioShack (RSH) soars
that beat estimates after crushing Q4 estimates
By Brent Archer (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 4:08:00 AM
Filed under: Earnings reports, Bad news,
CBS Corp 'B' (CBS), Options, Technical
AnalysisCBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS)
stock is trading lower this morning after the
company reported fourth-quarter profit of
54 cents per share, above estimates of 52
cents per share. Investors don't like the fact
that radio and TV profits slipped along with
earnings from CBS's publishing division. If
you think this stock won't be rising too far
in the coming months, then it could be a
good time to look at a bearish hedged play
on CBS.
After hitting a one-year high of $35.75 in
July, the stock hit a one-year low of $21.34
in January. This morning, CBS opened at
$24.59. So far today the stock has hit a low
of $24.25 and a high of $24.74. As of
10:20, CBS is trading at $24.61, down 39
cents (-1.6%). The chart for CBS looks
neutral and improving, while S&P gives the
stock its lowest 1 STAR (out of 5) strong
sell rating.
For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I
A combined Microsoft-Yahoo! -- would it be the blind
leading the blind?
By Brian White (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 4:22:00 AM
Filed under: Deals, Microsoft (MSFT),
Yahoo! (YHOO)Although we're all still
waiting for the outcome of Microsoft Corp.
(NASDAQ: MSFT)'s acquisition of Yahoo,
Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), the question
remains: can a merged Micro-Hoo even
catch Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) in
the internet search engine advertising
revenue race? Is that even Microsoft's
strategy here?
Most of the media world believes Microsoft
needs a new arsenal to catch up to Google
would consider a June bear-call credit
spread above the $27.50 range. A bear-call
credit spread is an options position that
combines the purchase and sale of call
options to hedge risk in case the stock
doesn't do what you think but still leverage
nice returns. This particular trade will make
an 8.7% return in four months as long as
CBS is below $27.50 at June expiration.
CBS would have to rise by more than 11%
before we would start to lose money.
CBS hasn't been above $27.50 by more
than a few cents since November and has
shown resistance around $25.50 recently.
This trade could be risky if the US writers'
strike does not adversely impact CBS's next
quarter, but even if that happens, this
position could be protected by resistance
CBS might find at its 50 day moving
average, which is currently around $25 and
falling.
Brent Archer is an options analyst and
writer at Investors Observer. At publication
time, Brent neither owns nor controls
positions in CBS. Permalink | Email this |
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so that it can begin reaping the rewards of
search engine and text advertising.
Microsoft already has an ad platform for
this (adCenter), as does Yahoo! (Project
Panama). Both have failed to make even a
dent in Google's search advertising
dominance, so why would a combined
Micro-Hoo think it can do any better? Is a
combined search advertising market share
really the meat of this merger, or would a
combined company just be the blind
leading the blind against first-mover
Google?
Yahoo! has already rebuffed Microsoft's
offer, which already sets the stage for
By Brent Archer (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 3:44:00 AM
Filed under: Major movement, Earnings
reports, Good news, RadioShack Corp
(RSH), Options, Technical
AnalysisRadioShack Corp. (NYSE: RSH)
shares are trading higher this morning after
the company posted a fourth-quarter profit
of $101 million, or 77 cents per share,
beating analyst expectations of 72 cents per
share. RSH was helped by lower operating
costs, which counteracted a drop in same-
store sales. If you think that the company
won't fall by too much in the coming
months, then now could be a good time to
look at a bullish hedged trade on RSH.
After hitting a one-year high of $35.00 in
June, the stock hit a one-year low of $13.31
in January. RSH opened this morning at
$17.03. So far today the stock has hit a low
of $17.00 and a high of $19.00. As of
10:40, RSH is trading at $18.50, up $2.76
(17.5%). The chart for RSH looks neutral
and improving slightly, while S&P gives
the stock a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold
rating.
nastiness should a merger occur. Microsoft
would empty its entire cash pile to buy
Yahoo!, and would be betting the farm that
For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I
would consider an April bull-put credit
spread below the $15 range. A bull-put
credit spread is an options position that
combines the purchase and sale of put
options to hedge risk in case the stock
doesn't do what you think but still leverage
nice returns. This particular trade will make
an 8.7% return in just two months as long
as RSH is above $15 at April expiration.
RadioShack would have to fall by more
than 18% before we would start to lose
money.
RSH hasn't been below $15 by too much in
the past year and has shown support around
$15.10 recently. This trade could be risky if
the US economy continues to worsen, but
even if that happens, this position could be
protected by the support the stock might
receive due to its positive announcement
today.
Brent Archer is an options analyst and
writer at Investors Observer. At publication
time, Brent neither owns nor controls
positions in RSH.Permalink | Email this |
Comments
it can at least compete with Google in the
lucrative advertising arena while it
replenishes its cash pile from its software
business. So, what could Yahoo! mean to
Microsoft? It would bring hundreds of
millions of customers to Microsoft -- that's
a given. But if you can't properly monetize
that huge swath of customers (which
Yahoo! has severely struggled with), what's
the point? Microsoft may fear that Google
could become as big as it is some day in
terms of revenue and power -- and that
could be the driving force: heading it off at
the pass. Or, trying to at least.Read |
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Business * 5
Research In Motion
(RIMM) lower on
weak economic news
By Brent Archer (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 4:52:00 AM
Filed under: Bad news, Research in Motion
(RIMM), Options, Technical Analysis,
Economic dataResearch In Motion Ltd.
(NASDAQ: RIMM) stock is declining this
morning on news that consumer confidence
dropped to a 75.0 reading from a 87.3
reading last month, according to the
Conference Board. Wall Street is also
feeling pressure this morning from a 0.4%
gain in the core Producers Price Index, a
key indicator of inflation. Both pieces of
news are reinforcing worries that the
economy is suffering from stagflation, a
combination of a weakening economy and
rising costs. This could be a bad sign for a
company like RIMM that produces high-
cost, often discretionary goods. If you think
this stock won't be rising too far in the
coming months, then it could be a good
time to look at a bearish hedged play on
RIMM.
After hitting a one-year low of $42.93 in
April, the stock hit a one-year high of
$137.01 in November. This morning,
RIMM opened at $108.03. So far today the
stock has hit a low of $105.01 and a high of
$108.45. As of 11:00, RIMM is trading at
$106.93, down $1.78 (-1.6%). The chart for
RIMM looks neutral and improving, while
S&P gives the stock a positive 4 STARS
(out of 5) buy rating.
Continue reading Research In Motion
(RIMM) lower on weak economic
newsPermalink | Email this | Comments
6 Business * Tech Gadgets *
Google getting clobbered -- Perot Systems (PER): Shares
even I'm surprised cycle in bullish 'pennant'
By Sheldon Liber (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 5:22:00 AM
Filed under: Major movement, Forecasts,
Bad news, Rants and raves, Google
(GOOG)
In the past two years I have written many
posts about how I thought Google Inc.
(NASDAQ: GOOG) was overvalued. A lot
of analysts' predictions over this time
would make quite a piece of fiction, and I
have taken a lot of flack from the Google
dreamers for saying so.
Today, however, I think the investing
masses have it all wrong. Not that I think
Google will see another meteoric rise any
time soon, but as usual the pendulum can
swing wildly and today that may be the
case. It seems that a little bad news is
causing a mighty stir.
UBS cut its price target on Google Inc.
after U.S. paid-search data for January
showed Google's sponsored clicks, the
basis for its advertising revenue, fell 7
percent sequentially. Google's January
sponsored clicks were flat on a year-over-
year basis, according to comScore. "While
Avalon Bay (AVB): More
renters boost apartment REIT
By Steven Halpern (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 3:55:00 AM
Filed under: Newsletters, Stocks to Buy,
Housing, Recession
"A decline in home ownership is good for
companies who have apartments to rent,"
notes The Dave Dyer Newsletter. To
benefit from this trend, he looks at Avalon
Bay (NYSE: AVB)." Here is his review.
"After a 10 year period of consistent
increases from 1995 to 2005, the trend
toward increasing home ownership has
reversed and is now clearly in decline. The
subprime problems and tighter credit
policies will only serve to increase the
decline.
"One of the easiest ways to invest in this
Google's search volumes were decent (up
39 percent year-on-year), actual paid clicks
were flat...continuing a decidedly negative
trend," analyst Benjamin Schachter said in
a note. The analyst cut his price target on
the stock to $590 from $650, while
continuing to rate it 'buy.'
So UBS analyst Schachter cuts his price
target. But he still rates the stock a buy -- so
why is everyone running for the exits? The
stock is down about 7% so far today from
yesterday's close of $486.44, to about $458
and wavering. That after losing $21
yesterday.
Continue reading Google getting clobbered
-- even I'm surprisedPermalink | Email this |
Comments
trend is to buy shares in a REIT that owns
apartment properties. Avalon Bay (NYSE:
AVB.) is a REIT that manages high quality
apartment communities in the high barrier-
to-entry markets like California, the Pacific
Northwest, the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.
"In some cases, they develop their own
properties; in others, they buy and remodel
existing apartment complexes. They
currently own 182 properties with about
52,000 apartments in total. AVB has 19
more properties under constructions and
development rights for another 52.
Continue reading Avalon Bay (AVB):
More renters boost apartment
REITPermalink | Email this | Comments
formation
By Larry Schutts (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 4:37:00 AM
Filed under: Earnings reports, International
Business Machines (IBM), Electronic Data
Systems (EDS), Technical Analysis, Stocks
to Buy
Perot Systems Corporation (NYSE: PER)
offers information technology, business
process outsourcing and strategic
consulting services through its operations
in the US, Mexico, Europe and India.
Offerings include applications
development, systems integration, claims
processing, call center operations,
enterprise analysis and research. The
company serves clients in banking,
insurance, healthcare, manufacturing,
telecommunications, travel, energy and
Dell's XPS 630 gaming desktop gets official,
reviewed
By Darren Murph (Engadget)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 2:45:00 AM
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming
Hailed as a rig that "gamers won't
outgrow," the XPS 630 that we originally
peeked at CES is finally official. As
expected, the tower is ATI CrossFire and
NVIDIA SLI-ready and will support Intel's
Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Extreme
processors on the nForce 650i SLI chipset.
You can beef things up with 4GB of DDR2
RAM, 1TB of HDD space or an optional
Blu-ray drive and AGEIA PhysX
accelerator, and you'll have plenty of room
for all those peripherals thanks to six total
USB 2.0 ports, an optional 19-in-1 media
Your Click and Print Newspaper
defense. Electronic Data Systems (NYSE:
EDS) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) are major
competitors.
The firm pleased investors earlier in the
month, when it reported Q4 EPS of 35
cents and revenues of $732 million.
Analysts had been looking for 30 cents and
$707.9 million. The CEO attributed the Wii sees homebrew
solid results to new business, globally-
delivered projects and existing client
expansion. Management also guided Q1
hackery aplenty,
EPS to 21-23 cents (21 cent consensus) and
Q1 revenues to $665-$680 million
official update
($673.52M consensus). By Donald Melanson (Engadget)
Continue reading Perot Systems (PER): Submitted at 2/26/2008 3:30:00 AM
Shares cycle in bullish 'pennant'
formationPermalink | Email this | Filed under: GamingIt's only been a short
Comments
snag your own for as little as $1,249 right
now. Click on through for more of the
breakdown. Oh, and if you're interested to
see how this beast stacks up, you can check
out reviews from PC Mag, Hot Hardware
and Computer Shopper.
Gallery: Dell's XPS 630 gaming desktop
gets official
Continue reading Dell's XPS 630 gaming
desktop gets official, reviewed
card reader, gigabit Ethernet, audio in / out,
FireWire and even PS/2 mouse and Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
keyboard connectors. Also of note, it's the
first pre-fab PC to support the Enthusiast
System Architecture (ESA), and you can
Your Click and Print Newspaper
WII
continued from page 6
while since we saw the first successful
attempts at Wii homebrew, but things now
look to have busted wide open, with hacks
seemingly turning up left and right these
days. Most notably, the folks from the
GameCube Linux project have recently let
loose a proof of concept Linux "mini-
distro" that makes use of the now infamous
Twilight Princess hack to turn the Wii into
a tiny (and so far not very useful) Linux
box. If that's a bit too much you, however,
you may be interested in some of the tamer
homebrew fare that recently made its debut,
including an MP3 player and, you guessed
it, an SNES emulator. In related news,
Nintendo also just pushed out an official
ACU dishing out iPhone / iPod
touch to all incoming freshmen
By Darren Murph (Engadget)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 3:54:00 AM
Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio,
Portable Video
Never heard of Abilene Christian
University? We're guessing a wide majority
of the general public hasn't either, but the
institution is definitely getting its name out
there by promising each incoming
freshman this fall an iPhone or iPod touch.
Granted, these aren't being explicitly
marked as "free," but similar to Duke's
efforts in years past, ACU plans on using
these devices for educational enrichment.
Reportedly, the handhelds will enable
updated to the Wii OS (version 3.2), but
contrary to what the timing would suggest,
it apparently doesn't do anything to block
you from getting your homebrew fix.
Read - GameCube Linux project
Read - TehSkeen, SNES emulator
Read - Wii News, Wii Mode MP3 Player
Read - MaxConsole Forums, Wii Update
3.2
[Thanks to everyone who sent these in]
Permalink | Email this | Comments
students to "receive homework alerts,
answer in-class surveys and quizzes, get
directions to their professors' offices, and
check their meal and account balances" --
and that's just for starters. Interestingly, we
aren't told whether or not the folks already
enrolled will be left out -- nor what
determines which Apple you get -- but we
do know that the entity is hoping to
"expand the program in the future."
[Thanks, Byzil]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Poll: How about them MacBook
updates?
By Paul Miller (Engadget)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 3:04:00 AM
Filed under: Features, Laptops
We all knew this day was coming. Apple's
previous MacBook Pro revision was
certainly getting long in the tooth, a
MacBook spec bump never hurt anything,
and hey, Penryn isn't getting any younger.
Still, it's pretty obvious that quite a few of
the Apple faithful feel like the MacBook
Pro and its cute little MacBook sidekick are
in some serious need of a form factor
iPhone and iPod touch get 1.1.4 firmware update
By Paul Miller (Engadget)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 5:31:00 AM
Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio,
Portable Video
Apple's 1.1.4 firmware update for the
iPhone and iPod touch just hit the wires,
courtesy of iTunes 7.6.1.9. Nobody knows
what exactly is in store (SDK support,
perhaps?), so obviously those jailbreakers
out there might want to hold off while the
braver souls among us give it a shot. For
Checking out Sony's S-AIR, BDP-S350, and S550 at EHD
By Ryan Block (Engadget)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 5:51:00 AM
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Those at all curious for some thoughts and
initial reactions to Sony's new S-AIR
wireless system and their first big Blu-ray
player launches since the end of the format
refresh, and perhaps a little bit of SSD. We
can understand Apple not wanting to steal
the MacBook Air's thunder, and to be fair
most major manufacturers put the new
Penryn chips inside existing form factors,
but that doesn't mean it's wrong for you to
be upset. So, how do you really feel?
View Poll
Permalink | Email this | Comments
the record, no SDK has hit Apple
Developer Connection yet, so take that for
what you will. So far those who've
war, head on over to Engadget HD! We'll
have more for you from Sony's Open
Tech Gadgets * 7
Creative drops Zen
pricing -- 8GB Zen
now $149
By Nilay Patel (Engadget)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 4:27:00 AM
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable
Video
Creative keeps slashing Zen prices -- just a
couple weeks after cutting the 32GB model
to $299, it's back with price cuts to the
midrange. The 4GB Zen is now just $99,
while the 8GB model falls to $149 -- the
same price as the 4GB iPod nano, for those
of you keeping score at home. Not bad, not
bad at all -- but we'll wait to see what
comes of this Zen Share rumor first.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
successfully updated haven't seen any
changes, but we'll keep you posted.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Read - iPhone update direct link
Read - iPod touch update direct link
Read - TUAW's live coverage
Permalink | Email this | Comments
House 2008 shortly.
Sony BDR-S350 and S550 profile 2.0
player hands-ons
Sony S-AIR hands-on
Permalink | Email this | Comments
8 Tech Gadgets * Technology * Social Net *
Goldmund's Eidos 20 BD Blu-ray player
costs $17k
By Darren Murph (Engadget)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 2:29:00 AM
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
At first glance, we didn't really believe
anyone would create a Blu-ray player with
a $16,900 sticker. Then we saw it was
produced by Goldmund. Continuing its
long heritage of offering up grossly
overpriced wares for those with more
money than sense, the firm is now
trumpeting a Blu-ray player more pricey
iTunes now number two US music retailer
By Nilay Patel (Engadget)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 4:48:00 AM
Filed under: Portable AudioLooks like
there's something to this "downloading
music" thing after all -- just eight months
after topping Amazon, iTunes has now
passed Best Buy to become the number two
music retailer in the US. Apple says 50
million customers have bought over 4
billion songs, with 20 million sold on
Christmas day alone. That leaves just Wal-
Mart in first place, but with the percentage
than most low-end automobiles -- and we're
not even sure it's Profile 2.0. What we do
know is that the Eidos 20 BD includes an
AC-Curator power supply circuit, the
outfit's own Magnetic Damper for lowering
read errors and a chassis only a mother
could love. To each his / her own, we
guess.
[Via CNET]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
of digital music sales growing each quarter,
ol' Wally may not be safe for long.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Everex's Cloudbook now in stock at Wal-
Mart, finally
By Donald Melanson (Engadget)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 5:08:00 AM
Filed under: LaptopsIt's been a long time
coming, but after some confusion and a few
false starts, Everex's Eee PC-competing
Cloudbook is now finally available to order
from Wal-Mart's website. As we've
mentioned, now that ZaReason has dropped
it, Wal-Mart is also now the only place you
can get your hands on the budget-priced
Mochila Now Lets You Add BBC Videos
To Your Blog
By Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 7:43:58 AM
If you are looking for some stock videos to
add to your blog or Website, Mochila just
added about 800 clips from the BBC
Motion Gallery, the licensing arm of the
BBC. It doesn’t include news clips
unfortunately, but there are plenty of
science and culture videos. If you need a
nicely produced video of striped fish or
how to make a Singapore Sling, you can
find it on Mochila and embed it on your
blog. You will have to sign up first and
agree to Mochila’s licensing terms.
Mochila offers a large syndication library
from 350 different content partners,
including news articles, photos, and videos.
You can find content from Reuters, the AP,
Hearst and Getty Images and put it in a
post, or mix and match items to create your
laptop, at least for the time being (though
you can get the identical Packard Bell-
branded model in the UK). Hit up the read
link below if you're ready to part with that
$400, just be sure you know what you're
getting yourself into.
[Via Laptoping]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
own customized channel that appears in a
constantly changing widget. Mochila serves
ads in the widget and splits the proceeds 40
percent to the content owner, 30 percent to
the Website or blog that publishes it, and
keeps 30 percent for itself.
We are seeing more and more of these
types of syndication platforms for
spreading traditional media content out to
the Web. ClipSyndicate, for instance, does
something similar for news video clips
from ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox affiliates,
as well as Bloomberg and AP video.
Mochila cuts the licensing deals with the
big media companies on behalf of bloggers
and Websites, and gives them legal access
Your Click and Print Newspaper
Google Talk Turns
Into a Chat Widget
By Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 5:40:19 AM
A new Google Talk feature called Chatback
lets you put up a widget on your website
which lets visitors send messages directly
to your Google Talk account. Your visitors,
however, don’t need a Google talk account;
they can simply start writing messages
directly into the widget. The chat opens up
in a new window, so visitors can leave the
actual site and keep chatting.
Chatback is based on an iframe, so it’s not
only for blogs; you can put it up pretty
much on any website you want. Just go to
the official Chatback page and grab the
code.
If you’re worried about visitors swarming
your Google Talk accounts with silly
questions, Google has thought of that; if
you set your status to “busy,” visitors won’t
be able to send you messages. Neat.
ShareThis
to the content, with a little rev-share of the
advertising proceeds thrown in. Says CEO
Keith McAllister:
The core technology is around licensing.
We allow content owners to set custom
content licensing around their content down
to the asset level.
So the BBC can set parameters around what
types of sites can show its videos, and even
block specific sites it does not want to be
associated with. And blogger scan create
their own custom content channels. It is a
good model. All it needs is better content.
C r u n c h B a s e
InformationMochilaClipSyndicateInformati
on provided by CrunchBase
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Your Click and Print Newspaper
Yahoo Buzz Launches:
Popular Stories To Go On
Yahoo Homepage
By Michael Arrington (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 9:00:47 PM
Yahoo launches the much
anticipatedYahoo Buzz tonight - a Digg-
like site that takes stories from pre-
approved news publishers (100 to start) and
let’s users vote on stories and push them up
to the top of the page.
To see it in action, click on the buzz button
at the end of this, or any, of our posts
(update: button functionality won’t be live
until Tuesday). Like Digg, the more users
that vote for a story, via the embedded
button or on the Buzz site, the higher the
story goes on Buzz. But user voting isn’t
the only factor in how well stories do.
Yahoo is also looking at their search engine
logs in real time to determine hot or
breaking news. Stories on that topic will get
an extra boost in the rankings.
But there’s another part of Buzz that will
get publishers excited - every day a few of
the most popular stories will also be
featured on the Yahoo home page. Yahoo
has been experimenting with linking to
third party news directly from their home
page since last year. In one case, the Buzz
team told me, 2 million visitors were sent to
Wired for a linked article in the two hours it
was on the Yahoo home page. 2-3 stories
from Buzz will go on the Yahoo home page
daily.
Buzz has categories including
entertainment, world news, U.S. news,
sports, business, health, and travel. Images
and video are also separate categories.
Of course, many publishers won’t be able
EditGrid Adds Analytics, Mashup Functionality, and More
By Mark Hendrickson (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 7:00:14 AM
Online spreadsheet software provider
EditGrid today is rolling out a set of
enhancements including analytics and
mashup functionality that adds to the image
to handle that kind of traffic flow. But
Yahoo is also prepared for that. Smaller
sites will only be linked on a fraction of the
total home page views - in effect, Yahoo is
turning down the firehose for those that
can’t handle it.
Yahoo isn’t the first large company to try
out the Digg model. In mid 2006 AOL
relaunched the Netscape portal as a Digg-
like site. AOL eventually moved the service
to a different domain name and renamed it
Propeller. The service has about 3.8 million
monthly unique visitors (Comscore),
compared to about 12.5 million for Digg.
CrunchBase InformationYahoo!
BuzzDiggInformation provided by
CrunchBase
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over
the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
retrieval capability we wrote about last
month.
The new analytics (shown to the left) will
let spreadsheet owners track views and
visits over a spreadsheet’s lifetime.
The new mashup functionality will let you
Yahoo Announces Open
Search Platform
By Michael Arrington (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 8:58:41 PM
Yahoo will soon be allowing third parties
to enhance the Yahoo Search experience.
The new platform, codenamed
“SearchMonkey” and officially called Open
Search Platform, will consist of a set of
APIs that allow third parties to modify
search results on Yahoo by adding images,
structured data and additional deep links.
The altered results can contain far more
information than the current link and a bit
of text from the website. For example, Yelp
(a user generated local business review
site), one of the launch partners, will
include a photo, review information and the
address and phone number of the business.
Some modifications will be turned on for
users by default; others will only appear for
users who’ve chosen to add them. Amit
Kumar, the product lead for the Open
Search Platform, says that the desired effect
is similar to Greasemonkey, a Firefox
addon that allows users to see modified
versions of websites (thus the codename
dynamically import graphs from Google
SearchMonkey).
Third parties will have an incentive to get
users to add their Yahoo search
modification, which in turn can drive more
traffic to their sites. One thing third parties
cannot change, though, are the order of
results (see Erick’s post that touches on this
issue here). They can simply change the
way a result linking to one of their pages
appears to the searcher, and add additional
rich media and links to structured data.
When this launches anyone will be able to
create their own modifications and promote
them - users can add as many as they like.
Below is a screenshot of a different search,
for “hillary clinton.” The New York Times
has altered the result to include links to
other election news, debate analysis, and
added data for current delegate count and
total money raised:
CrunchBase InformationYahoo! Open
Search PlatformInformation provided by
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Charts, Yahoo Finance, Reuters, Alexa, and
Compete using simple in-cell functions.
EditGrid is additionally debuting a beta
version of its Excel plugin, which can be
used to import to and export from Excel,
allowing for offline editing.
Finally, EditGrid now offers a set of over
Technology * 9
Estimates Put Internet
Advertising at $21 Billion in
U.S., $45 Billion Globally
By Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 9:47:16 AM
Two reports are out today on the size of the
Internet advertising market. The Interactive
Advertising Bureau has a preliminary
estimate of $21.1 billion for U.S. Internet
ads in 2007, a 25 percent increase over
2006. (For the fourth quarter of 2007, it is
estimating $5.7 billion for the size of the
industry, up from $5.2 billion in the third
quarter).
Meanwhile, the Kelsey Group puts U.S.
Internet advertising at $22.5 billion for
2007 (IDC, as previously reported, is at the
high end with $25.5 billion).
The Kelsey Group also provides a global
estimate of $45 billion for Internet
advertising, which is 7.4 percent of the total
$600 billion global advertising market.
That compares to a 6.1 percent share of
global advertising for online ads in 2006.
And for what it’s worth (not much) it is
forecasting global internet advertising to
reach $147 billion in 2012. These forecasts
are always wrong, but the 2007 numbers
are helpful.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s
time for you to find a new Job2.0
thirty templates with which you can start
building your spreadsheets.CrunchBase
InformationEditGridInformation provided
by CrunchBase
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10 Technology * Social Net *
Photobucket Exec Departs
to Run New Startup,
BillShrink
By Mark Hendrickson (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 11:55:20 PM
Peter Pham, VP of Business Development
over at Photobucket(acquired by FIM last
May) has resigned to start a new company -
BillShrink.
BillShrink, which has been in development
for the past seven months and largely under
the radar, will launch in a couple of weeks
with the aim of helping users save money.
Its strategy lies in suggesting better service
packages for select verticals, starting with
cellular phone plans.
Consumers will answer a set of cell phone
service-related questions and optionally
submit their wireless account username and
password. The service will then extract
your usage habits, assess your answers, and
suggest an optimal set of wireless package
configurations from the wide range of plans
and add-ons that providers offer. This
Orbitz-like result set can be tweaked by
changing your preferences, for example, in
favor of more coverage over lower prices.
Much of BillShrink’s power will come
from its web scraping and normalization
engine that will gather and make sense of
Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions Google Talk Adds a Chatback Widget
Opens Silicon Valley Office By Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch) like Jajah, Jaxtr, Tringme, and
By Michael Arrington (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 10:53:57 AM
Don’t be surprised if you see former
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich
strolling down the streets of Palo Alto. He’s
opened a Silicon Valley office for his
American Solutions organization, which
supports limited government, and we hear
he’s been spending a lot of time in the area.
David Kralik, the organization’s Director of
Internet Strategy, is heading up the new
office.
the deals provided by the various cellular
providers. The company aims to improve
on suggestion services like LowerMyBills
by moving beyond comparison grids and
making clear suggestions that have been
generated by the analysis of many factors.
BillShrink will eventually move into other
verticals, such as credit cards and insurance
plans, with the end goal of becoming a
destination that consumers can trust and
return to frequently for spending advice.
The company will primarily generate
revenue from lead generation, similarly to
Mint.
Schwark Satyavolu and Samir Kothari co-
founded BillShrink, which has taken
funding from Bessemer Venture
P a r t n e r s . C r u n c h B a s e
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ion provided by CrunchBase
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s
time for you to find a new Job2.0
GrandCentral (now part of Google). But
In a blog post Kralik talks about the rise of
the Internet as a force in politics: “We’ve
established an office in Silicon Valley
because we want to be in the middle of
innovation and entrepreneurship and gain
firsthand knowledge of the latest
technological developments that will
continue to change online politics.”
Gingrich talks about the new office in the
video above.
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over
the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Adobe AIR Vs Microsoft
Silverlight: It’s All About
Numbers
By Duncan Riley (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 4:09:49 AM
I attended the official launch party for
Adobe AIR (Pacific Region) today and as
much as the tech is impressive, I walked
away with one strong observation: this is a
user base war.
Adobe’s Pacific technical director Mark
Blair gave the keynote, and I can sumarize
it as such: online apps offline, platform
independent, everywhere. There was a
Q&A after the keynote that added to that,
but the only main new addition I got from
that is that AIR should be coming to Linux
this year.
During Blair’s presentation was a slide on
the companies developing AIR apps. Some
we’ve covered already, like eBay, then
there were other names like the NASDAQ
developing with AIR. Locally the
Commonwealth Bank was developing an
AIR app for Brokers. There was also some
impressive demonstrations post show,
including a TripIt clone that runs on AIR
(post still to come).
There’s no arguing that AIR is highly
capable, but so is Microsoft’s Silverlight.
Adobe and Microsoft have entered a war of
attrition, where like HD DVD vs Blu-ray
Submitted at 2/26/2008 8:41:59 AM
Do you really want random people on the
Web IMing you? Google thinks so.
Yesterday, it added a chatback widget to
Google Talk that lets you put a little badge
on your Website or blog linked to your
Google Talk account. When you are
available, visitors to your site can start an
instant message conversation with you.
This is a similar idea to all the call-me
buttons that have proliferated from startups
one will eventually come out on top.
Having said that both may well happily co-
exist side by side for years to come, but
history shows that eventually the market
will pick a favorite.
Disclosure: Adobe Australia paid for my
trip to the launch
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s
time for you to find a new Job2.0
keeping it to text chat makes more sense.
IMs can be ignored easier than a ringing
VoIP line.
Still, you are really asking to be distracted
if you turn this feature on. Or disappointed.
What if you put the badge on your site and
no one wants to chat?
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s
time for you to find a new Job2.0
Your Click and Print Newspaper
MyPunchbowl Has
Its Own Buzz: News
Feed for Parties
By Mark Hendrickson (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 5:00:15 AM
Yahoo may have beat them to it with the
launch of its Digg clone, but MyPunchbowl
too wants to announce a product called
“Buzz”, this one a Facebook News Feed
clone of sorts for party planning.
MyPunchbowl Buzz will give hosts and
guests alike a way to keep track of what’s
going on with the party scene as organized
through the site. Initially it will consist of
the onsite info stream shown below, but
there are plans to expand its scope to
include RSS, instant messaging, and SMS-
based notifications as well. An API will
eventually be provided for developers to
leverage the Buzz data for whatever
purposes they desire off-site. CrunchBase
InformationMyPunchbowlInformation
provided by CrunchBase
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s
time for you to find a new Job2.0
Yahoo Buzz -
Absolutely No
Threat to Digg
By Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 11:06:43 PM
Yes, yes, I’m taking the easy route by
directly comparing Yahoo Buzz to Digg.
Mark wrote about Buzz earlier today, but I
feel I had to drop in with my two cents,
because, well, I expected more.
YAHOO page 11
Your Click and Print Newspaper
YAHOO
continued from page 10
The similarities between Yahoo Buzz and
Digg are obvious, although Yahoo Buzz
takes some ideas from memetrackers such
as Techmeme. By giving users (those who
have signed in with their Yahoo ID) the
ability to vote for stories, but at the same
time calculating a story’s popularity based
on searches, emails and other factors,
Yahoo is trying to deliver the best of both
worlds.
They got the simplicity of use and the
design right, at least for the casual user.
The site displays recently popular stories in
a neat animation at the top, and the rest of
the site is easy to use and nice enough to
look at. For some reason, some of the
categories are in a drop down menu
(Sci/tech, for example), which is slightly
annoying but nothing that can’t be
forgiven. Content-wise, it’s important to
note that some buzzed stories will appear
on the Yahoo home page, which should put
Digg’s traffic surge and the fabled Digg
effect to shame.
Yahoo’s Quest for Open: Inconceivable
By Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 9:16:55 PM
Yahoo just sent us a set of press materials
talking up the buzzword of the moment -
Openness. In fact, the press materials were
pretty short; they were only around ten
paragraphs or so. They used the word (or a
derivative of the word) ‘open’ in it close to
forty times, though.
The information they sent on our way
essentially covered two topics - the
upcoming release of the new Yahoo! Buzz
(which we snuck some screenshots of
earlier today). The other is a new revision
to Yahoo! Search that uses behavioral
tracking to change the results of your
search screens in much the same way that
Collarity tailors their site searches for better
results.
Don’t get me wrong - both of these new
offerings from Yahoo have the potential to
However, believe it or not, this is
absolutely everything I can tell you about
Yahoo Buzz. That’s it. There’s not
upcoming section, no fancy tools to see
how the stories become popular, no API
(they are planning it, though) for
developers to create third party
applications… In fact, any Pligg site has
way more options and features than Yahoo
Buzz, and even notoriously featureless
Techmeme has several different views (font
size, threads open/closed). One could argue
that Yahoo Buzz aims for absolute
simplicity, but I’m not buying it. Digg’s
interface is even cleaner and even simpler
in some regards, and yet it offers a myriad
of options and features, let alone dozens of
third party applications.
Flashy front page, but there’s nothing
behind the facade.
All in all, I’m afraid that Buzz is just
Yahoo catching up with the times; there’s
little innovation or novelty here. Long time
be very cool. The new Yahoo Buzz looks
like it implements the best of several
worlds as a virtual mash-up of Google
News, Techmeme and Digg. Similarly, if
the new Yahoo search works anything like
the demonstrations of Collarity’s
Behavioral Relevance Engines I’ve seen,
Yahoo could be buying their ticket back
into the search game.
Here’s the deal, though: neither product has
much of anything to do with ‘open,’ and I
can’t say I appreciate the framing of it as
such. Open with relation to search
(especially when you’re talking about a
system that does behavioral tracking)
would be ownership, or at least
exportability of my attention data from
fans of Yahoo services (there is such a
thing, right?) will appreciate the fact that
they can sign in with their Yahoo ID, and
some will like the simplicity of the
interface. Other than that, it’s move along,
nothing to see here.
On a general note, it’s really fascinating to
watch all these humongous sites and
companies not being able to replicate or
match the functionality of smaller startups.
Given the resources that a company like
Microsoft, Yahoo or AOL has, one would
say that their Digg clones (Yahoo Buzz,
Propeller) or their Netvibes/Pageflakes
clones (My.Yahoo, My.Netscape) should
blow the competition out of the water, and
yet they disappoint us more often than not.
It seems that Google is the only giant out
there who’s able to get it right; I wonder
how much that fairy tale is going to last.
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which the tracking algorithm derives its
judgments of me.
Similarly, the new Yahoo! Buzz isn’t so
much of an open system as it is at its core, a
memetracker. Memetrackers by their very
nature are sucking in user generated content
and usually bits of mainstream press as
well. That my blog may end up within their
Buzz Index doesn’t make it open - just
accurate. Open is a concept that really
doesn’t much apply to the concept, unless
they want me to be able to export, again,
my profile and attention data to other social
networks or to source XML code.
Here’s a free tip, Yahoo: you’re starting to
do some cool and highly relevant things
again. Don’t muck it up by using all the
wrong lingo and buzzwords in your
salesmanship of your cool and relevant
things.
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Social Net * TV * 11
BricaBox Officially
Launches Ning Competitor
By Kristen Nicole (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 3:32:08 AM
We have Ning and Wordpress, and we even
have Google APIs, and other APIs offered
on an individual scale by various startups
and other social networks. So what if you’d
like to take pieces of all of these offerings of a wiki isn’t one that plays into
and make your own creation? That’s what BricaBox’s goals here, though wikis are
BricaBox is going for. Andy got to take a quite malleable for social and collaborative
look at it a few months back when purposes. So in that regard, BricaBox may
BricaBox launched its private beta at the be the tool of choice for collaboration niche
BlogExpo in New York, and was quite sites. And while there are countless ways in
impressed at the conglomerate approach which you can go about creating a network,
that BricaBox has taken to the DIY niche depending on your ability to customize on
site. Now BricaBox is officially launching the development end, BricaBox’s appeal is
to the public. in its ready-to-wear approach to site
Taking some drag’n'drop cues from Ning creation.
and the growing necessity to aggregate What I do wonder at, however, is
social media content, BricaBox lets you BricaBox’s involvement with open
choose the modules you want in order to platforms on existing social networks. Not
build the type of network you want. With
some customizable templates, you can
choose to make a photo-sharing site, a local
reviews site, a video-sharing site, or a wiki,
just the ability to allow developers to create
compatible applications for a BricaBox
network, but the ability for a developer to
delve into other networks through
to name a few. The primary goal here is to BricaBox. A platform approach for
provide the tools for creating a
BricaBox could benefit the company as
collaboration site that you can share well as its users, and I think this is going to
amongst your friends. be a consideration that becomes somewhat
standard in the coming year.
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In terms of functionality, is this something
a wiki can do? I think the inherent structure
How to draw The Venture Bros.
By Annie Wu (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 3:02:00 AM
Filed under: OpEd, Animation, Adult
SwimThe Venture Bros.storyboard artist
(and all-around awesome cartoonist)
Stephen DeStefano has decided to update
his art blog a little more often and if this is
any sign of things to come, VB fans are in
for a treat. As most of you know, there are
three things that I love in life: drawing, The Continue reading How to draw The
Venture Bros, and fine cheeses. Venture Bros.
DeStefano's latest update covered two of
those categories, so I grabbed a handful of Permalink | Email this | | Comments
aged cheddar cubes and basked in its
greatness.
12 Social Net *
The Daily Poll: What’s
Wrong at Google?
By Adam Ostrow (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 7:10:54 AM
Remember all of those stories about Google
passing symbolic share price milestones
such as $600 and $700? At its peak in
November, Google was trading at
$747.27/share, carrying a market value of
more than $234 billion. How times have
changed. Three months later, Google sits
around $450/share, and has lost nearly
$100 billion in market value. Today, shares
are down another 7%, on word from
comScore that the amount of Google ads
that users are clicking fell 7% from
December to January.
In addition to the decline in paid clicks,
I’ve heard several arguments both on the
financial news networks and on various
blogs as to why Google is tanking. For one,
there’s the idea that as the economy cools,
people are going to be spending less, and
hence, clicking fewer ads. There’s also the
lingering concern that Google has lost
focus, expanding into areas like mobile and
trans-pacific cable (there’s also the
somewhat hypocritical argument that
Google has no real revenue streams other
than paid clicks).
Personally, I’d also argue that the quality of
Share Your Investment Portfolios on
Facebook
By Kristen Nicole (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 9:33:01 PM
Cake Financial has just launched a
Facebook application. You can take your
investment knowledge to your Facebook
friends, share your investment portfolio and
gain from the collective knowledge of all
your b-school college friends. The
important information, like your net worth,
isn’t revealed, so it’s rather understood that
this application works quite similarly to the
Cake Financial stand-alone network.
This move makes Cake Financial one of the
first to take such an expanded approach to
ads has gone down through the years, as
complex search marketing and affiliate
programs buy an increasing amount of
space in search results, hence making it
harder to find the best places to shop. In the
past, I’d often find the ads more valuable
than the search results for certain queries;
this has definitely not been the case in the
last year or two, at least in my experience.
Now it’s your turn to be the analyst.
Today’s poll:
Why is Google's stock tanking?
• Declining Paid Click Business
• The Weakening Economy
• Lack of Focus
• Lack of Revenue Streams
• Declining Quality
• It's Overvalued!
• Irrational Investor Fear
View Results
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its investment and financial networking
services, following along the same path as
most other collaborative networks out
there. With the benefit of having the
wisdom of the crowds, Cake Financial is
aiming to be present wherever its users are,
in a rather integrated manner. It’s
somewhat similar (albeit in reverse order)
to what LendinClub has done, in its
enabling of users to look to their trusted
network of friends and acquaintances for
financial purposes. While LendingClub
doesn’t deal in the sharing of personal
portfolios, it’s easy to see the parallels.
Cake Financial is shifting its networking
tools from that of anonymity within the
Fundability: Make (Seed)
Money Fast!
By Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 10:26:10 PM
I’ve had funding for projects before.
Sometimes it has been a blessing.
Sometimes it has been a downright curse.
The lingering curse of having once been
funded is being constantly approached by
friends and acquaintances to find funding
for their projects. Now I have a pat answer
for them that doesn’t require me to tell
them outright how hard it will be to find
funding for a paintball booth for a
Halloween haunted house (just one random
example from memory).
The answer is Fundability. I’m not
absolutely 100% on it’s effectiveness yet,
as it’s been a largely under the radar
company, or at least largely under my
radars. What they claim to do, however, is
genius. Dubbing themselves a “web based
deal flow marketplace for entrepreneurs
and investors,” their goal is to match
projects with investors via various social
networking functionality and algorithmic
matching.
If you’re an investor, you can set the
system up to send you pre-screened deals
sent to you by creating your ‘Investor
SweetSpot,’ or join a virtual investment
larger confines of its stand-alone network
to the existing social graph you already
have on Facebook. Is that more beneficial
than seeing the shared knowledge from
those that have proven themselves on Cake
Financial? That really depends on who your
friends are. Surely the combined
information of such data will be more
helpful than harmful. Hopefully the
newsfeed alerts for updates made to your
Cake Financial account won’t get too
annoying for your friends!
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group, which allows you to distribute to
groups of investors deals you find.
For investors, they can have pre-screened
deals sent automatically to them by creating
an “Investor SweetSpot.” They can also
join or start a Virtual Investment Group and
syndicate deals with other groups or angels.
All this isn’t free, however. Fundability
gets theirs by charging the entrepreneurs
who want the money a $49.99 a month fee
to find themselves a funder. If the system
does what it and their case studies claim,
though, that $49.99 a month could be
money very well spent.
Alarm:Clock says they’ve just raised $3M
from Velocity Ventures in January, though
no word on whether that money was raised
using their own system (my money says
no).
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Zynga Launches Game
Center API to Help Spread
Your Facebook Apps
By Adam Ostrow (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 6:06:23 AM
Zynga, the developer of games for social
networks, has launched Game Center, an
API for getting your games exposure
through Facebook. The API allows you to
integrate what Zynga calls “the SocialBar”
into your applications, which is essentially
ZYNGA page 13
Your Click and Print Newspaper
Break.com Gets NBA
Content Too.
Everybody’s Doin’ It.
By Kristen Nicole (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 3:29:21 AM
Football is over, and basketball is in full
swing. We’ve seen NBA content added to
Joost a few weeks back, and ESPN is
making some headway with its free, online
initiatives. The latest to bring NBA content
online is Break.com. Beginning today,
Break.com will provide NBA video
highlights for the remainder of the season.
Videos from the 2008 All Star Game are
also being featured on the site. Break.com
has made a name for itself as a network
with grand appeal to the college-age male
sector, so layering in NBA video highlights
is right up this video-sharing network’s
alley. The highlights get their own channel,
which can be accessed here. The new
channel also presents new advertising
opportunities for brands that may or may
not already have a presence on Break.com.
With the distribution options for spreading
NBA content and other content across the
web, it’s clear that a number of video
aggregation networks can provide just
about all the content you’d ever want to
see. When it comes to highlights, one of the
most important things that an aggregation
video network can do to differentiate itself
is by providing added value any way it can.
Break.com has recently signed with
Verizon to provide mobile video content,
while Gotuit offers some personalized
search and organization tools for users to
have some interactivity with their videos.
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Your Click and Print Newspaper
Podcast: Another Conversation
with VideoEgg’s Troy Young
By Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 11:56:51 PM
Last time VideoEgg CMO Troy Young was
on Mashable Conversations, he was
announcing the partnership of VideoEgg
with a literal slew of multimedia websites,
including MetaCafe, Imeem and Buzznet.
This time around, the announcement was
no less momentous, as it is a giant leap
forward in pioneering the concept of
monetizing engagement based video and
interactive ad units. I have to say, even
before this conversation and demo with
Troy, I was starting to drink the Kool-Aid
on engagement based pricing for
advertising (something Microsoft has done
recently, as well). It’s a boon for advertisers
who want a savvy looking ad.
It’s still too early to tell how this will affect
the market as a whole, and exactly what
types of sites this will best be placed on.
We discussed our predictions on this
episode, though, and it will be interesting to
come back in a few months and see how
accurate we were.
The embed is available below, or you can
download the MP3 file directly here.
Talking "Dirt" with Courteney Cox -
VIDEO
By Jonathan Toomey (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 2:02:00 AM
Filed under: OpEd, Video, Interviews,
Celebrities, Early Looks, Dirt
With the season two premiere of FX's Dirt
just around the corner (this coming Sunday,
March 2nd, at 10:00PM), you may have
noticed that the ad campaign is in full
effect. The image to the right has been
adorning everything from billboards in
Times Square to magazine pages.
For those that weren't familiar with season
one, you might have thought that this was
an entirely new show altogether. If you
recall the ad campaign for season one, at
first glance the show looked much more
darker, and it was. The ads depicted
Get the Mashable Conversations podcast
here.
Add directly to iTunes here (or give us a
rating).
Add directly to your Zune here.
You can check out VideoEgg’s AdFrames
here.
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Courtney Cox (as ruthless tabloid editor
Lucy Spiller) pale faced, in a blood red
dress, overlooking Hollywood -- the
breeding ground for her next headline. Not
ZYNGA
continued from page 12
a way for developers that partner with
Zynga to cross-promote their games. For
example, you may see games that your
friends are playing, or new games that have
been recently added to Zynga’s network.
The company is announcing 14 different
partner games launching on the API today,
including Oregon Trail, Tycoon, and
Fantasy Football.
The API for Facebook games isn’t to be
confused with the company’s platform,
which launched just two weeks ago.
Zynga’s platform is designed for getting
your games on multiple social networking
the case this season as you can see by the
much more jovial, comic book feel of the
new ads. As much as I loved the first
season, it was nothing that I expected it to
be. Trust me when I say that season two
very quickly makes up for that deception.
I've now had the chance to screen the first
two episodes and even got the opportunity
to sit in on a conference call with Cox last
week. Read on for my thoughts on season
two, some quotes from the mouth of the
woman who plays Lucy Spiller, and a
sneak peek of the premiere episode. Be
warned though -- this does contain spoilers.
Continue reading Talking "Dirt" with
Courteney Cox - VIDEO
Permalink | Email this | | Comments
Social Net * TV * 13
sites, including Bebo, Friendster, and
Meebo.
Mark recently did a podcast with Zynga
founder and CEO Mark Pincus, embedded
below. For developers interested in
building apps for Zynga’s Facebook
network, details and documentation are
available here.
Zynga has raised $10 million in funding,
lead by Union Square Ventures.
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HBO launches YouTube channel
By Allison Waldman (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 3:43:00 AM
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other
Comedy Shows, Sports, Cable/Satellite,
Entourage, Web, The WireIn recent weeks,
TV Squad has reported that HBO has made
episodes of their new drama series In
Treatment available for free viewing
online. Now, HBO has taken another step
in expanding its brand and making some of Extras, Stand Up Comedy, Def Comedy
their top shows available on the web. The Jam, and Real Time With Bill Maher. On
cable channel has just inked a deal with the dramatic front, there's The Wire. In
YouTube to create an HBO channel online. addition, you can watch episodes of the
The HBO/YouTube site is up and running -
- you can click over there today and start
catching up on HBO series.
award-winning magazine show Real
Sports, as well as the Latino documentary
series Habla y Habla.
The initial line up is impressive, starting
with the Gabriel Byrne drama In Treatment.
Continue reading HBO launches YouTube
channel
You can also catch up with Entourage
episodes, which are always fun. There are Permalink | Email this | | Comments
more laughs with Flight of the Conchords,
14 TV *
Quiz: How well do you know
American Idol families?
By Jason Hughes (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 5:01:00 AM
Filed under: American Idol, Alumni, News
and GossipWhen I find good ones, I like to
take those really obscure pop culture
quizzes to see if I truly have as much
useless pop culture trivia in my head as I
think I do. So when AOL's latest American
Idol quiz came out asking how much we
knew about the families of former Idol
contestants, I was so there. It's only ten
questions long but man do they dig into the
obscure on some of them.
As TV Squad's resident Idol guy, at least
for this year, I felt like my pride was on the
line. How much do I really know about
Shyamali Malakar, she of the hotness to the
right there? And when it was over I'm not
sure if I'm proud or horribly disturbed to
report that I got 9 out of 10 right. Sure I'm
upset that I missed one, but I'm a little more
upset that I got nine right. I think there may
be something wrong with me. I mean, how
much do I know about stuff that matters.
Who's running for President again and how
The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Demon Hand -
VIDEO
By Brad Trechak (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 3:21:00 PM
Filed under: OpEd, Video, Episode
Reviews, The Sarah Connor
Chronicles(S01E07) When I was in college,
I took a science fiction class. In it, we
discussed the themes of the first two
Terminator movies, such as the religious
themes (note the initials of John Connor
and the other religious figure with the same
initials) and the sources of violence (In the
first movie it came in the form of machines.
The second backpedaled and blamed
minorities for violence).
often does that happen (I'm kidding, I do
know those things)? Find out if there's
something wrong (or right) with you and
post your results in the comments section.
Permalink | Email this | | Comments
I mention this because given the overt
religious theme of tonight's episode, I
wonder if Josh Friedman was in the same
Starz first series will be Crash
By Allison Waldman (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 2:38:00 AM
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, The
Shield, Cable/Satellite, Pickups and
Renewals, LifeStarz, the cable network, is
getting into original production and their
first project will be based on the 2005 Best
Picture Oscar-winning film Crash. Glen
Mazzara, whose credits include Life, The
Shield, Stand-Off and Nash Bridges, has
been named executive
producer/showrunner for the drama series.
Lionsgate TV will co-produce with Starz,
and they've greenlighted 13 episodes.
The controversial film, which dealt with the
intersecting lives of a myriad of people
living in Los Angeles in just 48 hours,
centers on the character of Detective
Graham Waters. Waters, a police detective,
is struggling with his career, his drug addict
mother and a criminal brother. The role was
played by Don Cheadle (Picket Fences),
who was also one of the film's producers.
class. This episode went all "New
Testament" on us.
Summer Glau looked mighty fine dressed
as a cop like that. Some might not find it
sexy, but I couldn't help but be reminded of
when female strippers dress as cops. They
look a lot like that. At first, I mean. When
the clothes are still on. But I digress...
Continue reading The Sarah Connor
Chronicles: The Demon Hand - VIDEO
Permalink | Email this | | Comments
Your Click and Print Newspaper
He is expected to reprise the part in the
Starz production and may even direct a few
episodes. In addition, director/co-
writer/producer Paul Haggis and others
from the film are also on board for Starz.
Continue reading Starz first series will be
Crash
Permalink | Email this | | Comments
Talk Talk: Eric Bana, Saffron
Burrows, Lupe Fiasco
By Bob Sassone (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 9:02:00 AM
Filed under: Late Night, TV Royalty,
Programming, Celebrities, Talk Show
Here's who's on the late night shows
tonight.
• Charlie Rose: updates on Pakistan and
France
• The Daily Show: Lee Siegel (repeat)
• The Colbert Report: Leonard Nimoy and
John Feinstein (repeat)
• The Late Show with David Letterman:
Will Ferrell and Michael McDonald
• Jay Leno: Eric Bana, Catherine O'Hara, Ferguson: Jennifer Beals, Carrie Anne
and Tift Merritt Inaba, and Little Big Town
• Jimmy Kimmel Live: Anne Heche and • Last Call with Carson Daly: Melora
The Helio Sequence Hardin and Lupe Fiasco
• Tavis Smiley: Dee Dee Myers and
Saffron Burrows
• Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Will
Arnett, Flavor Flav, and Super Furry Permalink | Email this | | Comments
Animals
• The Late, Late Show with Craig
Your Click and Print Newspaper TV * Movies 15

New TV on DVD releases this week
By Bob Sassone (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 10:03:00 AM
Filed under: TV on DVD
Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores
tomorrow.
• Are You Afraid of the Dark? - Season 5
• B.L. Stryker - Season 1
• Comanche Moon - Complete Mini-Series
• Dark Shadows - The Beginning: Vol. 3
• Extras - Extra Special Series Finale
• Family Affair - Season 5
• The Fugitive - Season 1, Vol. 2
• Ghost Hunters - Season 3, Part 2
• Highlander: The Source (movie)
• Hotel Babylon - Season 1
• The Invisible Man - The Complete
Collection
• The Jackie Gleason Show - The
Honeymooners: Collection 2 (color)
• The Justice League - The New Frontier
and New Frontier Special Editions
• Newhart - Season 1
• Punky Brewster - Season 4
• The Red Green Show - 1999: Collector's
Edition
• The Smurfs - Season 1, Vol. 1
• State of Play - Complete Mini-Series
Permalink | Email this | | Comments
Oscars a flop in Nielsens and that's
not all
By Allison Waldman (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 12:42:00 PM
Filed under: Daytime, Celebrities, Ratings,
Awards, EmmysOscar turned 80 last night.
For eight decades, Hollywood has been
handing out gold statuettes for the best in
motion picture arts and sciences. Sadly, last
night's show will not have to worry about
winning an Emmy. Not only was the show
pedestrian, long and uninspired, it was also
a bomb in the Nielsen overnight ratings. In
fact, it was historically disappointing:
averaging just 32 million viewers to fortune for the network broadcasting it.
become the least watched Oscar telecast ABC made an average of $1.8 million for
ever! EVER, people! each 30-second spot.
Continue reading Oscars a flop in Nielsens
Of course, if you're worried that with and that's not all
ratings so bad, some day the Academy
Awards won't be broadcast -- don't. The Permalink | Email this | | Comments
Oscars, like the Super Bowl, make a

Big Brother 9: Live feeds report - Feb.
25
By Jackie Schnoop (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 12:18:00 PM
Filed under: OpEd, Big Brother (US)By
gosh, another day has gone by in the Big
Brother 9 house. Now, you can believe it
was a day of niceties, butterflies wafting in
a gentle breeze, houseguests treating each
other with kindness and respect. You can
believe the hamsters gathered together to
play a fast-moving exciting game of
charades, then practiced their culinary skills
in an effort to make the best dinner ever.
You can believe that if you want.
But that's a far cry from what's actually
been happening in the house as seen by the
24/7 live feed cameras. For show spoilers,
read on past the jump!
Continue reading Big Brother 9: Live feeds
report - Feb. 25
Permalink | Email this | | Comments
Now Elizabeth Banks is F**king Seth
Rogen!
By Jessica Barnes (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 2:02:00 AM
Filed under: Fandom, Movie Marketing,
Trailers and ClipsI guess hearing musical
numbers about different celebrities f**king
each other is going to be all the rage for the
next little while. On the heels of the highly
successful Sarah Silverman/Matt Damon
gag, and the only slightly less funny
revenge song courtesy of Silverman's
boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel and Ben Affleck,
comes a contribution from Seth Rogen and
Elizabeth Banks from the set of Zack and
Miri make a Porno (courtesy of Quick Stop
Entertainment)
It's pretty much the same jokes as the other
two videos but with one notable difference;
this time there is not a 'bleep' to be heard.
Honestly, maybe that's what's missing;
sometimes a well-placed bleep can almost
be funnier than the naughty word itself.
But, this is marketing for a Kevin Smith
movie after all, so get ready for some truly
crude lyrics; funny, but kind of gross. As
for the cameos? Don't go looking for any A
-listers in this video, but Jason Mewes,
Traci Lords and Craig Robinson all make a
brief appearance (but I guess they kind of
had too since they are in the movie after
all).
Smith and company are still shooting the
romantic comedy about two childhood
friends who get into the porn business.
Rehearsal finished back in January and now
Smith has begun shooting on location in
*Chicago. Zack and Miri make a Porno is
scheduled for release later this year. As for
this 'I'm F**cking ____", craze, I can only
image who might come up with one next?
Hilary Clinton is f**king Obama? Not to
mention, it is getting just a little less funny
each time -- where is the next 'D**k in a
Box' when you really need it?
*Correction: Smith is shooting in
PittsburghRead | Permalink | Email this |
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16 Movies Your Click and Print Newspaper

New DVD Picks of the Week: '30 Days of Fan Rant: 'The Banquet'
Night' & 'Beowulf' Gets Degraded With a
By Monika Bartyzel (Cinematical) this is certainly the biggest release to hit
Submitted at 2/26/2008 3:02:00 AM

Filed under: Animation, Horror, New

"Legendary" New Title
Releases, DVD Reviews, New on DVD,
Home Entertainment30 Days of Night
In Barrow, Alaska, winter brings 30 days of
darkness along with the biting cold. (And I
thought dark-by-5 pm sucked.) No sun, just
bitterly cold blackness. Unsurprisingly, this
attracts some particularly nasty,
bloodthirsty vamps -- ones that aren't sexy
and selective like Anne Rice's fanged ones.
They decide to take advantage of their 24-
hour, 30-day free-for-all and start killing
off the town's residents who didn't head
south. You've got Josh Hartnett and
Melissa George as human vamp fighters ill-
equipped for the challenge, the Renfield-
like Stranger (Ben Foster), and a troupe of
baddies led by the wonderful Danny
Huston's Marlow. Both Erik and Ryan dug
the film, saying things like: "Visually...the
film looked absolutely incredible" and
"there's still a solid, well-constructed
vampire movie to enjoy here, and I did
enjoy it."
After all of the funky mid-production
goodies that came from the set, it's not
surprising that there's a bunch of features
on this release. You've got a commentary
with Hartnett, George, and producer Rob
Tapert, a bunch of featurettes about
adapting the graphic novel, building the
sound stage, camera techniques, gorey
stuff, stunts, vampire design, night shoots,
and casting. There's also Episode 1 of
Blood +, and for the Blu-Ray editions,
there's even a film/novel comparison
gallery.
Check Out Ryan Stewart's Review | Buy
the DVD
Beowulf
While I wasn't the biggest fan of this one (I
missed seeing the subtle facial expressions
of the excellent actors involved, and
preferred the earlier Beowulf & Grendel),
shelves this year. Along with Neil Gaiman,
Robert Zemeckis went back to performance
-capture technology to bring the Old
English epic to the screen. Ray Winstone
roars as the powerful Beowulf, Crispin
Glover screeches as the desperate Grendel,
and Angelina Jolie seduces as Grendel's
mother -- otherwise known as Jolie nude,
with a tail. And we can't forget the
Hopkins, Wright Penn, Malkovich, and
Lohman. There are some pretty stunning
visuals, and with this cast, you can't go
completely wrong.
As for the DVD, you can pick up the
director's cut, which offers a solid array of
goodies besides Zemeckis' cut. There's bits
on some of the actors and their performance
-captured performances, designing the
monster, the poem (and how Zemeckis
actually hates it -- go figure), and deleted
scenes with different stages of completion.
Check Out Scott's Take & James' Take |
Buy the DVD
Other New DVD Releases (February 26)
The Darjeeling Limited (Check out my
DVD review.)
The Last Emperor -- Criterion Collection
And, well, Peter Martin covers the rest of
the bigger releases with his Indies on
DVD.Permalink | Email this | Comments
By Peter Martin (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 1:02:00 AM
Filed under: Action, Drama, Foreign
Language, Independent, New on DVD, The
Weinstein Co., Home Entertainment,
Cinematical IndieUnder it's original
English-language title, The Banquet, Feng
Xiaogang's loose, Chinese-language
adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet played
various film festivals (Venice, Toronto,
AFI Fest, Palm Springs, Portland, Seattle,
New York Asian) and garnered a fair
amount of praise. Featuring many stately
speeches, beautiful costumes, and stars Ziyi
Zhang and Daniel Wu, The Banquet struck
me as too inert for its own good, but I
respected what the filmmakers
accomplished. imagination, as though every Asian movie
set in the past needs to be prefixed with
The Banquet is a classy and distinguished "Legend." Dragon Dynasty's parent, The
moniker, somewhat anonymous, but Weinstein Co., has done this for years, in
reflective of the affairs of state depicted fact, starting off by changing Drunken
therein. The film's home video rights were Master II (starring Jackie Chan) to The
finally sold to DVD distributor Dragon Legend of Drunken Master, and then
Dynasty. In their infinite wisdom, they retitling Fong Sai Yuk and Fong Sai Yuk 2
decided to rename it as -- drum roll, please (both starring Jet Li) to the more English-
-- The Legend of the Black Scorpion. In the friendly The Legend and The Legend 2,
words of more than one message board and changing Swordsman II (also with Jet
commenter across the globe: "What the Li) to The Legend of the Swordsman.
f***?" Continue reading Fan Rant: 'The Banquet'
Gets Degraded With a "Legendary" New
This title is just as anonymous as the TitlePermalink | Email this | Comments
original but bespeaks a poverty of

Olivia Wilde Leads Sodom in 'The Year One'

By Monika Bartyzel (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 5:02:00 AM
Filed under: Comedy, Fandom,
DIY/FilmmakingIn January, Olivia Wilde
joined Harold Ramis' new comedy, The
Year One. Her oh-so-lucky role -- Princess
Inanna, Jack Black's love interest. Now,
there's a number of geek dudes I could get
into, but the goofy Black is not one of them
(unless we're talking the really old-school
days when he was on All-American Girl).
Nevertheless, he'll get to sauce it up with
her in the film, let her live up to her name,
and it could be very, very risque,
considering what she told MTV.
It appears that Inanna isn't just some
random princess, but the princess of
Sodom. Oh yes -- that whole Sodom and
Gomorrah thing, and the root of that lovely
word -- sodomy. Wilde says: "Michael
Cera and Jack Black go on this journey,
and they are searching for the meaning of
life...they meet all these characters you'll
recognize from the bible. It's all these
brilliant references to historical things..."
Just how much they reference S&G -- the
towns infamous for being destroyed by God
for their rampant lasciviousness -- she
doesn't say. However, she does say:
"There'll be a hint towards [the lead
characters falling for me], then Jack Black
and I come together. It's really funny what
we do, and what happens next."
Just how far they will push it, and how over
-the-top it becomes, remains to be seen. It's
currently filming in Shreveport, Lousiana,
and we should find out next year when the
comedy hits theaters. In the meantime, hop
through the jump and watch The Professor
Brothers video about Sodom and Gomorrah
to whet your appetite for sexy destruction.
Continue reading Olivia Wilde Leads
Sodom in 'The Year One'Read | Permalink |
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Your Click and Print Newspaper
Dimension Snags Rights to Jason Statham Signs for
Joe Hill's 'Locke & Key' 'Transporter 3'
By Elisabeth Rappe (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 5:32:00 AM
Filed under: Deals, Mystery & Suspense,
F a n d o m , N e w s s t a n d ,
Comic/Superhero/GeekIf he keeps writing
and selling this fast, Joe Hill's IMDB page
will rival his father's in a few short years.
Joe Hill is, of course, the son of famous
horror author Stephen King, but he has
managed to succeed entirely on his own
merits. His graphic novel (first in a series),
Locke & Key, has already been optioned by
Dimension Films and it was only just
published this month by IDW. Dimension
chief Bob Weinstein is excited to develop
the series into a franchise: "I love what Joe
wrote. There are fun elements that horror
fans love, and it feels like a franchise where
you can feel satisfied with each film, but
there is a door left open for the next one."
His first novel, Heart-Shaped Box, was
LOHAN
continued from page 17
(assuming she doesn't hit 18 and go
absolutely nutty on us). How do you fans of
HSM feel about a Lohan sibling joining the
party? Does it pump you up for the new
film, or leave a sour taste in your mouth?
Christian Bale Saves Mankind On May 22nd, 2009 in 'Terminator
Salvation'
By Elisabeth Rappe (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 2:32:00 AM
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers,
Warner Brothers, Distribution,
Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and
SequelsI just can't decide.
On one hand, it seems to make perfect
sense that Christian Bale is playing John
Connor. Who else can save mankind? He's
Batman, for crying out loud.
And yet ... it is the fourth Terminator
optioned by Warner Bros before it was
even published. Locke & Key centers
around Keyhouse, an eerie New England
mansion full of doors that transform all
who walk through them. The mansion's
caretakers are a trio of children, who
discover that the doors can alter their
appearance and gender, take them to
different locations, and even gift them with
magical powers. If that sounds too happy
and Narniaish, rest assured, a violent and
dangerous creature is lurking behind one of
the doors -- and it's probably not Aslan.
I haven't read this yet (IDW barely sends
enough copies of Angel: Season Six to my
local comic shop; they probably didn't even
send this), but it sounds intriguingly creepy.
But here's a rare chance to preview a
developing project for free -- IDW has a
few pages up for you to browse.Permalink |
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Gallery: Ali Lohan
Permalink | Email this | Comments
movie. Directed by McG, who's saving
grace seems to be that he's not Brett Ratner.
While it fits with Bale, Ruler of Fanboys, it
doesn't fit with Bale, Ruler of Critics. Bale
doesn't really do sequels, let alone
fourquels, especially of a character he
didn't originate.
It is either going to be brilliant fun, or
something that leaves us wondering what
kind of dirt McG blackmailed him with.
Either way, we'll find out on May 22nd,
2009. Warner Bros has announced it as the
release date for Terminator Salvation: The
By Jessica Barnes (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 3:32:00 AM
Filed under: Action, Casting, Deals,
Remakes and Sequels
Well, for those of you out there who are
fans of Jason Statham's Transporter
franchise, I've got some good news for you:
Varietyreports that Statham has signed to
star in a third installment! He will reprise
his role as the butt-whooping mercenary
driver/delivery man Frank. The film will be
produced by EuropaCorp, who were behind
the first two flicks. However, there have
been some personnel changes for the film;
the previous director for the last two films,
Louis Leterrier, has been replaced by
Hitman's 2nd Unit director, Olivier
Megaton -- which might not exactly be a
step up if you consider the reviews for that
particular cinematic gem. Joining Statham
in the cast is Prison Break's Robert
Knepper, who judging by some of his
creepy performances will probably star as
the bad guy in this scenario.
The first two films in the franchise were
written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark
Kamen, but the two have not been
confirmed to pen the new script. Just like
for the first two films, Besson will not be
pulling any directing duties, but will be
involved as a 'hands-on' producer. There is
Future Begins. Fans of the franchise have
been waiting forever to see Connor fight
the war against the machines, and now they
no word yet on the story, but I'm sure that
Besson is keeping in mind that the
franchise has a running box-office total of
$130 million, so it shouldn't take long to
put one together. Transporter 3 will shoot
for 16 weeks on location in Russia and
France starting sometime in March or
April. There is no release date so far, but
let's be honest, we aren't dealing with
Citizen Kane here so it shouldn't take long
before Transporter 3 hits theaters.
Question: Do we really need a third one?
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
can start crossing off the days on the
calender.
Continue reading Christian Bale Saves
Mankind On May 22nd, 2009 in
'Terminator Salvation'Permalink | Email
this | Comments
Movies 17
Lohan to Star
in 'High School
Musical 3?!'
By Erik Davis (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 4:02:00 AM
Filed under: Music & Musicals, Casting,
RumorMonger, Fandom, Family Films
Um, no, not thatLohan. As if Disney would
ever take a chance on a gal fresh out of
rehab. BUT, they might take a chance on
Lohan's little sister, Ali. Oh yes, E! reports
that Ali Lohan (Lindsay's 14-year-old
sister) is auditioning for a part in High
School Musical 3. Word has it she might
take on the role of a spoiled little princess;
E! says to "think of her as a Sharpay
(Ashley Tisdale) in training." For this third
installment in the ultra-popular Disney
franchise, Troy (Zac Efron) and Gabriella
(Vanessa Hudgens) will reunite as high
school seniors preparing for college. If you
thought there was plenty of singing and
dancing before, wait till you get these kids
as seniors -- the possibilities are endless!
Thankfully, Ali Lohan is no stranger to
singing. Back in 2006, she released her
debut album full of Christmas tunes, Lohan
Holiday. I tell ya, after hearing about this
girl's older sister for the past several
months, I'm about ready to take a Lohan
holiday too. A part in High School Musical
3 would almost guarantee the minor Lohan
a future career in front of the camera
LOHAN page 17
18 Movies
A Bright Young Thing,
Emperor Ming, and Rorschach
Head to 'Shutter Island'
By Monika Bartyzel (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 4:32:00 AM
Filed under: Drama, CastingOne day after
the latest Martin Scorsese/Leonardo
DiCaprio film, Shutter Island, got sold to
some European territories, they've added
even more irresistible cast members.
There's already Leo, Patricia Clarkson,
Michelle Williams, Mark Ruffalo, and Ben
Kingsley. Now The Hollywood Reporter
has posted that Max von Sydow, Emily
Mortimer, and Jackie Earle Haley have
signed on for roles.
Based on Dennis Lehane's novel, the film is
a period piece about two U.S. Marshals
(DiCaprio and Ruffalo) in 1954 who
investigate the disappearance of a
murderess from a hospital for the
criminally insane on Shutter Island in
Massachusetts. "Chaos ensues for the two
as they encounter a web of deceit, a
hurricane, and a deadly inmate riot that
leaves them trapped on the island." Von
Sydow will play a hospital physician, and it
looks like Clarkson is not the one who will
get to play Rachel Solando -- it will be
Mortimer. As for Haley, it looks like he'll
be making the most out of his post-
Watchmen uber-tough physique (the man is
an absolute powerhouse these days) -- he'll
be playing an inmate. Production will begin
March 6.Read | Permalink | Email this |
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Your Click and Print Newspaper
Shia LaBeouf Has a Bad Feeling
About This: New Indiana Jones
Poster
By Elisabeth Rappe (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/26/2008 1:32:00 AM
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy,
Paramount, Comic/Superhero/Geek,
Remakes and Sequels, Images
Courtesy of Paul and the Unofficial
Movieblog, we have the latest Indiana
Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
poster. It was photographed out in the
movie wilds, so that's why it's not as crystal
clear as you may wish, but it should fulfill
your Shia LeBeouf wishes.
a whip AND a gun."
He looks less than thrilled, doesn't he? I
wasn't sure what he was holding at first, but
I think it's Cate Blanchett's rapier. Rapiers, I just can't get excited for this movie. I keep
expecting to wake up and find out it is all a
of course, being standard weaponry in the
Soviet Union of the 1950's. Maybe that's bad dream or elaborate fan prank.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
why he looks a bit sad. "I thought I was
going to get a gun. Why can't I have a gun?
Even a whip is cooler than a gun. Dad's got