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com OC Edition
Clinton Follows Rove Playbook
By Denise Williams (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 2:36:00 AM
Filed under: Hillary Clinton, Barack
Obama, Breaking News, Scandal
UPDATED BELOW 1:00 PM
The Drudge Report flash this
morning claims that the Clinton
campaign is sending around an
email with the picture on the left.
This picture, taken in 2006, is of
Barack Obama in Kenya during a
five-country tour of Africa, donning
the garb of a Somali elder while
stopping in his father's native
Kenya.
The Clinton team, obviously taking
advantage of the internet-based
fearmongering about Obama's
paternal ties to Islam, has not denied
putting this out, but as of this
writing has not offered any
comment.
The Obama camp reacted quickly
(via Politico);
(Obama campaign manager David)
Plouffe said in a statement: "On the
very day that Senator Clinton is
giving a speech about restoring
respect for America in the world, her
campaign has engaged in the most
shameful, offensive fear-mongering
we've seen from either party in this
AOL Straw Poll: Feb. 25-March 3
By Kathleen Hayden (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:00:00 AM
election. This is part of a disturbing
pattern that led her county chairs to
resign in Iowa, her campaign
chairman to resign in New
Hampshire, and it's exactly the kind
of divisive politics that turns away
Americans of all parties and
diminishes respect for America in
the world," said Plouffe.
Despite Senator Clinton's warm
words at the end of CNN's
Democratic debate Thursday night,
the rhetoric coming from the
campaign and Clinton herself has
turned decidedly negative since this
past weekend. My colleague David
Knowles covered one of Clinton's
more strident attacks on Obama on
Saturday here.
If proven that this did indeed come
from the HRC camp, this will be one
of the lowest blows laid on Obama
to date outside of the right-wing
blogs and virtual crayon-written
spam emails. Some will see this as a
desperation move by the campaign
to instill fear and loathing before the
crucial upcoming March 4
primaries.
The last time we had some outrage
on wearing native dress was when
Nancy Pelosi wore a head scarf and
black abaya in Syria - while in a
mosque. Where were these flames
fanned? Right-wing blogs and talk
Filed under: Straw PollThis content
requires the most recent version of
the Adobe Flash Player. Get this
version below:<br /><a
24/02/08 - 25/02/08
radio.
And who else has worn a hijab?
How about Condolezza Rice and
Laura Bush? No complaint there.
If fearmongering is all Clinton has
left - if her own message isn't
cutting it - then is this what we want
for the Democratic Party? Will she
scare a few voters away from
Obama with these tactics? Probably,
but at what cost?
Update:
href="http://www.adobe.com/go/get
flash/">Get Flash</a>
Note From AOL: Our weekly Straw
Clinton campaign's Maggie
Williams responds (via CNN's
Political Ticker):
"Enough. If Barack Obama's
campaign wants to suggest that a
photo of him wearing traditional
Somali clothing is divisive, they
should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton
has worn the traditional clothing of
countries she has visited and had
those photos published widely," said
Williams.
"This is nothing more than an
obvious and transparent attempt to
distract from the serious issues
confronting our country today and to
attempt to create the very divisions
they claim to decry. We will not be
distracted."
So let me get this straight. They
send an email meant to be divisive
and then complain that the negative
reaction to the divisiveness is
something they won't be distracted
by.
These people are seriously screwed
up.
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Poll was restarted again on Monday,
Feb. 25 at 12:15PM ET. After
voting, check back again next
Monday for a chance to recast your
LibertyNewsprint.
Buckeye Superdelegate
in Bullseye
By Faye Anderson (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 12:41:00 AM
Filed under: DemocratsWith Barack
Obama closing in on the Democratic
presidential nomination, the heat is
on members of the Congressional
Black Caucus who endorsed Hillary
Clinton. There are increasing calls
for CBC superdelegates to endorse
Obama who is the overwhelming
choice of their constituents.
Like a hanging, an election defeat
concentrates the mind. CBC member
Rep. Albert Wynn lost his primary
election to Donna Edwards, an
Obama supporter. While Georgia
Rep. John Lewis remains silent on
whether he still supports Clinton, he
has drawn a primary challenger for
the first time in nearly 10 years.And
in the Buckeye State, pressure is
mounting on Rep. Stephanie Tubbs
Jones. The Cleveland Plain Dealer
reports that the wave of support for
Obama in Ohio's 11th Congressional
ballot.
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District "has left Tubbs
Jones...swimming against the tide at
home."
Tubbs Jones was swimming
upstream at this weekend's "State of
the Black Union 2008," an annual
conference organized by radio and
TV talk show host Tavis Smiley
who has also come under withering
criticism for his comments about
Obama.
Tubbs Jones lamented the attacks on
black elected officials "who have
paid their dues and served their
time." She noted that "politics is all
about relationships" and CBC
members had "preexisting
relationships" with Clinton. Adding:
"Some of us have to be over here.
Some of us have to be over there so
that we don't get locked out of the
process."
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2 Politics *
Obama Hold Source of McCain's
Money Woes
By Mark Impomeni (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 12:00:00 AM
Filed under: Senate, Barack Obama,
John McCain, 2008 PresidentSen.
John McCain's presidential
campaign finds itself in something
of a catch-22. Last summer, when
the campaign was not going well
and McCain was thought to be
finished as a candidate, he agreed to
accept Federal matching funds. That
was a sign that the Senator could not
raise money and might soon drop
out of the race. But now that his
fortunes have turned, and his
campaign coffers have filled,
McCain wants to forego Federal
funds and the spending limits that go
along with them. But the Federal
Election Commission, and
Democrats, is balking at the
campaign's plans.
FEC Chairman David Mason has
laid out a set of conditions that the
McCain campaign must meet in
order to qualify for a withdrawal
from the Federal financing system.
The trouble for McCain is that the
conditions are impossible to meet
because the FEC itself cannot meet.
The commission is short of
members and cannot achieve a
quorum in order to take action on
any campaign's requests. Four of the
six seats on the commission are the
subjects of holds in the Senate. A
Senator may block action in the
Senate on a bill or a nomination by
placing a hold on it until his
concerns about the action are
addressed. Republicans placed three
of the holds in retaliation for a
Democratic hold on Hans von
Spakovsky over allegations that the
nominee was insensitive to minority
voting rights. The Democratic
Senator who placed the hold that is
now holding up McCain's financing
is none other than McCain's
potential general election opponent,
Sen. Barack Obama.
Obama placed the hold on von
Spakovsky's nomination in October
of last year, when his campaign's
fortunes did not look as good as they
do now, and when he was coming
under criticism about his civil rights
credentials. The hold, placed
together with Sen. Russ Feingold (D
-WI), was explained as a reaction to
certain controversial decisions that
von Spakovsky, a lawyer in the
Justice Department's Voting Rights
section, had made. Von Spakovsky
was seen as a champion of policies,
such as a Georgia voter
identification law and a Texas
redistricting plan, that would
disenfranchise black and Latino
voters respectively. Both the
Georgia law and the Texas
redistricting were eventually upheld
by the Federal courts.
Commission Chairman Mason has
told the McCain campaign that in
order to opt out of Federal
financing, his campaign must
answer questions about a loan the
campaign obtained that is at least
partially backed by his ability to
receive Federal matching funds; and
the campaign must convince four of
the six commission members to
approve the plan. But that last
condition cannot be met thanks in
part to the hold on von Spakovsky,
which has stalled all Senate action
on FEC nominees.
The impact on the McCain
campaign is potentially very serious.
If the hold on von Spakovsky is not
lifted, or if the Senate does not move
to confirm the other nominees,
thereby filling the commission's
open seats, McCain will be limited
to spending about $54 million
during the primary campaign, which
lasts until the Republican
convention in early September. His
campaign is believed to have already
spent about $50 million in the
primary. McCain would essentially
have to go dark, not spending on
advertising, for the next six months
until the general election campaign
starts. That is valuable time that he
could be using to unify the shaky
Republican coalition or begin his
line of attack against his Democratic
opponent. While Republicans would
almost certainly release their holds if
the hold on von Spakovsky is
dropped, it is doubtful that Sen.
Barack Obama, now the likely
Democratic nominee, will release
the hold that would unleash his
opponent's ability to campaign
against him.
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McCain's Chance for Greatness
By Dave (Political Machine)
Submitted at 2/24/2008 1:49:00 PM
Filed under: John McCain, 2008
President
I've been harsh on McCain, and for
good reason. And i'm not going to
stop calling it as I see it, even
though he's the Republican nominee
and I'm supposed to jump in line
like a mind-numbed robot.
But in calling it as I see it, I also
have to lay out the distinct
possibility that John McCain could
be one of the great presidents. Think
Teddy Roosevelt, the other
Roosevelt, LBJ, and Reagan. He
might be that magnitude of great.
But first I ought to define what I
mean by great president. That is
simply a president, who by
legislative ability, force of rhetoric,
and sheer force of will, is able to
change the direction of policy to a
new direction... permanently.
Teddy Roosevelt broke the trusts
and set us on the course to being a
world superpower.
FDR instituted the New Deal, plus a
Hillary's 'Celestial Choirs' Attack on
Obama
By Ada Calhoun (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 3:35:00 AM
Filed under: Democrats, 2008
President
We'd been very protective about
Hillary until lately. The "change you
can Xerox" line at the debate turned
us off, but it was nothing compared
to this video we just found on
PoliticalNanny.com.
Hillary mocks Obama's optimism,
ending with the condescending "You
are not going to wave a magic wand
and have the special interests
disappear."
Your Click and Print Newspaper
whole host of other things.
LBJ instituted the second part of the
New Deal.
Reagan pretty much singlehandedly
stopped the forward movement of
socialism, ended the cold war and
revived conservatism as an effective
political force, and not just a nice
theory.
To do these things, these politicians
had to have rhetoric, a high level of
competence, a belief in their own
rightness, and sheer force of will.
McCain doesn't score high in
rhetoric, but in those other things, he
is way off the charts. Which means
that of the presidential candidates
We've seen since 1984, McCain
probably has best quotient for
greatness we've seen.
Conservative Republicans shouldn't
take too much solace in this, because
one thing we do not know, is to
what ends McCain will push his
presidency. Will he make war on
earmarks? campaign finance?
We like Political Nanny's take:
"Indeed, one can't wave a magic
wand and have all special interests
disappear, but one can speak just
thiiiiiis much too sarcastically and
have one's own campaign
disappear."
What Clinton doesn't seem to
understand is that no one is looking
to Barack Obama to be a miracle
worker. What's so appealing about
his campaign is that it's about
getting everyone in America to step
up and bring about the changes that
need to happen. He's made service a
key part of his platform, and that is
Iranian Mullahs? There is little we
can tell from his political ideology,
because as far as I can tell, he
doesn't have one. At all. And that's
why I regard him as scary, and an
awful candidate for the Republicans.
He matches up poorly against
Obama, and even if he does win,
Republicans cannot be sure what
they are getting. But all they can do
at this point is to cross fingers and
hope for the best.
But it's more than likely that
McCain's cross purposes, temper
and lack of ideology would end up
hamstringing his presidency in a
flurry of fingerpointing and name
calling, as he is likely to end up with
no friends on either end side of the
political divide, and his presidency
ends with what we saw of the
Republican nomination process, an
unclear muddle with no happy
campers anywhere.
Greatness or a muddle. No in
betweens.
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so, so refreshing.
In 2001, we wanted to do
something, anything, for our
country. We would have signed up
to become a spy, to dig through
debris, donate blood - whatever was
needed. But what did our President
ask us to do? He told us to shop.
Something tells us Obama would
have put our patriotism to better use.
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Your Click and Print Newspaper
The New York Times Taking On Water
By Justin Paulette (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 2/24/2008 8:18:00 PM
Filed under: Scandal, Media
Some time ago, I received an e-mail
forward that read something like
this:
George Bush was recently on a boat
with the Pope during a press
conference. As they looked out over
the deck, the Pope's traditionally
white cap was blown off and landed
some distance away on the water.
The President said, "No problem,"
and promptly hopped over the rail,
walked across the surface of the
water and retrieved the hat for the
Pontiff. The crowed was amazed.
The next morning, splashed across
the front page of the the New York
Times was the headline: BUSH
CAN'T SWIM.
Today, I received the following:
A biker walking through the zoo
noticed a little girl grabbed by a
ferocious lion, which was
attempting to pull the child through
the bars of his cage in order to make
short work of her. The biker leaped
to her aid, punching the lion in the
nose and rescuing the little girl. A
New York Times reporter on the
scene promised to write up the story
for front page coverage the
following day. So, next morning, the
biker checked to see if he'd make the
Bible Predicts Barack Obama Victory
By Tommy Christopher
(Political Machine)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 12:00:00 AM
Filed under: Democrats, Barack
Obama, 2008 President, HumorI've
noticed a burgeoning trend in our
comments sections toward people
claimimg that Barack Obama is the
Anti-Christ. I'm not sure where
they're getting this from, since,
according to RaptureReady.com, the
Anti-Christ will be a Jew.
Apparently, that's a "Frequently
headlines. It read: BIKER GANG
MEMBER ASSAULTS AFRICAN
IMMIGRANT, STEALS HIS
LUNCH.
John McCain is winning his war
with the Times.
I've long believed Republicans
would generally poll 4% - 8%
higher if the media (FOX news
excepted, of course) were not so
adamantly and sinisterly opposed to
the GOP and conservative policies.
Asked Question."
Still, you can never be too careful.
Allow me to put your fears to rest.
The Bible predicts victory for
Obama, with Hillary rounding out
the ticket. From Lady of
Light:Deborah was respected and
recognized as one who was "raised
up" by God for the purpose of
leading Barak into battle and into
victory over the Sisera. Not only did
God specifically "raise up'" a
woman for this task, but Barak
From Dan Rather's meltdown to the
nefarious timing of story releases,
the network stations consciously and
deliberately attempt to stymie
Republicans and provide cover for
Democrats.
Just before the first Bush
presidential victory, the Times
revealed a DUI arrest which it had
been saving for just that occasion.
Just before Bush's second victory,
the Times splashed a year-old story
about lost munitions across its front
page. Good news for Republicans is
recognized her power, position and
authority to the point where he
would not even go into battle
without her going with him.
"And Barak said unto her, If thou
will go with me, then I will go, but
if thou wilt not go with me then I
will not go." Judges 4"8
Ultimately, Barak was given victory
over the tribe. If he had had a sexist
attitude, he would not have had this
dumped in the Friday edition (which
no one reads), or overshadowed by
non-political stories reserved for just
that purpose. (President Bush took
to carrying a copy of the book
"BIAS," a scathing indictment of the
media's liberalism, whenever he
strolled past the media crews
stationed outside the White House.)
John McCain is going to need to
overcome his media handicap if he
is to defeat his industry-favored
opponent in November. And one
way for McCain to counter this
victory, and God's purposes would
not have been successfully
accomplished.
Politics * Business *
disadvantage is to discredit the
Times' reputation, to make apparent
to the American people the paper's
bias against him. And, the New
York Times couldn't have helped
him more.
Were McCain to come out against
the media without obvious and
egregious cause, he could seem a
whining conspiracy-theorist,
attacking the messenger because he
lacked the power to produce good
news for himself. However, the ever
-over-confident Times began its
attack too soon and too clumsily.
The salvo widely missed its mark
and evoked a series of reprobations
from sources outside the McCain
campaign. Thus, the nominee was
preserved from the mud-slinging
while the message of media-
prejudice has been widely heard.
Conservative outlets will now be
piqued for the next example of bias,
and should be prepared to introduce
this element into the campaign as a
central focus. If the Democratic
candidate can be linked with a
complicit media in an attempt to
deceive and manipulate the
American people, corrupt journalism
could backfire to the disadvantage of
both the media and the Democrats.
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In Judges, Chapter 5, verse 1, it tells
us that Deborah and Barak sang
together after the victory saying,
"Praise ye the Lord for the avenging
of Israel, when the people willingly
offered themselves...
There you have it. Unlike polling
data, there's no margin of error to
worry about here. So don't defy the
will of God this November. Wake
up, America!
3
Analyst initiations:
APEI, AKAM and
MEND
By Eric Buscemi
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:58:00 AM
Filed under: Analyst initiations,
Akamai Technologies
(AKAM)MOST NOTEWORTHY:
American Public Education and
Micrus Endovascular were today's
noteworthy initiations:
• William Blair initiated American
Public Education (NASDAQ: APEI)
with an Outperform rating, as they
believe the company is still in the
early stages of its growth.
• Gabelli believes Micrus
Endovascular (NASDAQ: MEND)
can sustain its rapid growth in the
coming years and does not expect it
to remain independent in the
medium-to-long term. The firm
started shares with a Buy rating.
OTHER INITIATIONS:
• Carrizo Oil & Gas (NASDAQ:
CRZO) was initiated with a Neutral
rating at JP Morgan.
• Goldman initiated Akamai
(NASDAQ: AKAM) with a Neutral
rating.
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Tommy Links
Tommy Christopher Uncut l
TomMySpace l TommYoutube
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4 Politics * Business *
Nader Helps Obama!
By Greg McNeilly (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:40:00 AM
Filed under: 2008 President, Ralph
NaderOK, clearly this post's title
will have some screeching. But hear
me out. Aside from intolerant types
who believe there ought to be fewer
choices on the ballot and not more,
there are plenty of positives to be
had by letting Ralph Nader run for
President.
He'll be a voice for a whole host of
leftists who have been represented
by Barack Obama's voting record,
but who for the duration of this
campaign, will be abandoned.
Nader's presence in the race, while
raising embarrassing issues on
Obama's left-flank, will serve as
liberal ringer, allowing Obama to
continue his moderate presentation.
The wing's of both party's spectrum
are less populated than the hunky
middle.
Unlike McCain's flank, which may
grow restless throughout this long
general election Obama's wingnuts
can chortle, organize and be cared
for by the prodding of Nader.
Remember when Ross Perot ran,
twice?
While some political pooh-bahs
think he siphoned votes from the
GOP (in 1992 and 1996), in reality
he helped add to the ranks of
Republican down-ballot
independents who were concerned
with fiscal irresponsibility and
reckless taxes and wasteful
Analyst downgrades: WM, FRE, FNM, MOT and GM
By Eric Buscemi
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 3:32:00 AM
Filed under: Analyst upgrades and
downgrades, General Motors (GM),
Motorola (MOT), New York
Times'A' (NYT), Federal Natl Mtge
(FNM), Washington Mutual
spending. Voters who have since
abandoned the GOP for its lack of
clarity on these issues.
Competition makes organizations
better, be it your kids soccer team,
General Motors or one of America's
major political parties. The
marketplace of ideas produces a
more vibrant, resilient and dynamic
set of solutions when more voices
join.
But if you're a political elite, trying
to preserve a monopoly, third-party
(WM)MOST NOTEWORTHY:
Mortgage finance companies,
Motorola and General Motors were
today's noteworthy downgrades:
• Goldman downgraded shares of
Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM),
Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) and
Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) to Sell
from Neutral on concerns of
candidates certainly irritate. CNN
reports this exchange between
Obama and Nader:
On Saturday, Obama was asked
about a possible Nader candidacy.
He praised Nader's work for
consumers, but added, "My sense is
that Mr. Nader is somebody who, if
you don't listen and adopt all of his
policies, thinks you're not
substantive. He seems to have a
pretty high opinion of his own
work."
Nader responded in Monday's
interview. "As if Barack Obama
significant credit losses from the
housing market downturn.
• Motorola (NYSE: MOT) was
lowered to Perform from
Outperform at Oppenheimer after
Q1 channel checks indicated a
material shortfall in Q1 handset
demand. They no longer see support
for shares on a sum-of-the-parts
doesn't have a high opinion of his
own work? That's name-calling.
"Address the issues, Barack.
Address why you're not for single-
payer health insurance... Explain
why you don't challenge what you
know as to be tens of billions of
dollars of waste, fraud and abuse in
the military budget.
Explain why you don't really get
concrete about how you would
renegotiate NAFTA and WTO,
which is exporting jobs and
industries to places like the
communist dictatorship in China.
"And above all, explain why you
don't come down hard on the
economic crimes against minorities
in city ghettos - payday loans,
predatory lending, rent to own
rackets, landlord abuses, lead
contamination, asbestos. There's an
unseemly silence by you, Barack, a
community organizer in poor areas
in Chicago many years ago on this
issue."
In the final analysis, after what is
likely to be the largest turnout
election in modern history, Nader
will have very little impact on the
electoral college and Presidential
vote tallies. But his ideas, and those
that support them, are likely to
remain engaged and rally together in
platoons of support for local, state
and congressional candidates
accruing to the benefit of the
Democrat agenda.
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valuation.
• Deutsche Bank downgraded
shares of General Motors (NYSE:
GM) to Hold from Buy as they
believe the cyclical North American
downturn could be deeper and more
protracted than previously expected.
OTHER DOWNGRADES:
Your Click and Print Newspaper
Genentech (DNA)
soars on Avastin breast
cancer approval
By Brent Archer
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 3:59:00 AM
Filed under: Major movement, Good
news, Genentech Inc (DNA),
Options, Technical
AnalysisGenentech Inc. (NYSE:
DNA) shares are trading higher this
morning on news that the Food and
Drug Administration granted
conditional approval for its
oncology drug Avastin for the
treatment of breast cancer Friday
after market close. The drug is
already approved for the treatment
of colorectal and lung cancers. 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 DNA.
After hitting a one-year high of
$86.04 last February, the stock hit a
one-year low of $65.35 in
December. DNA opened this
morning at $78.12. So far today the
stock has hit a low of $77.57 and a
high of $79.40. As of 10:45, DNA is
trading at $78.06, up $6.46 (9.0%).
The chart for DNA looks bullish and
steady, while S&P gives the stock a
neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold
rating.
• Aventine Renwable (NYSE:
AVR) was downgraded to Sell from
Hold at Soleil.
• UBS lowered James River
(NASDAQ: JRCC) and Peabody
Energy (NYSE: BTU) to Neutral
from Buy.
• Deutsche Bank lowered New
For a bullish hedged play on this
stock, I would consider a June bull-
put credit spread below the $65
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 four
months as long as DNA is above
$65 at June expiration. Genentech
would have to fall by more than
16% before we would start to lose
money.
DNA hasn't been below $65 at all in
the past year and has shown support
around $70 recently. This trade
could be risky if there is new bad
news about one of the company's
drugs, but even if that happens, this
position could be protected by the
support the stock might find around
$67, where DNA bottomed this past
winter.
Brent Archer is an options analyst
and writer at Investors Observer. At
publication time, Brent neither owns
nor controls positions in DNA.Read
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York Times (NYSE: NYT) to Sell
from Hold.
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Your Click and Print Newspaper
How Far Can the GOP Push It?
By David Knowles (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 12:42:00 AM
Filed under: Republicans, John
McCain, Featured StoriesFrom
Politico:
The Republican National
Committee has commissioned
polling and focus groups to
determine the boundaries of
attacking a minority or female
candidate, according to people
involved. The secretive effort
underscores the enormous risk
senior GOP operatives see for a
party often criticized for its
insensitivity to minorities in
campaigns dating back to the 1960's.
Yes, the gang that brought you
Willie Horton is back. And if you
think that if Barack Obama wins the
nomination that the GOP won't have
Juniper Networks (JNPR) trade
idea after upgrade
By Brent Archer
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:33:00 AM
Filed under: Major movement,
Analyst upgrades and downgrades,
Options, Technical Analysis,
Juniper Networks (JNPR)Juniper
Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: JNPR)
shares are trading higher today after
RBC Capital Markets upgraded the
stock to Sector Perform from
Outperform as noted by our own
Eric Buscemi. We always think
what kind of trade might make sense
in light of the news. If you think that
the company's stock 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
JNPR.
After hitting a one-year low of
$17.21 in March, the stock hit a one-
the guts to play a few race cards, I
have a name for you to remember:
Harold Ford.
Sexist attacks, too, are a certainty
should Hillary prevail. How many
times do you think we'll be
reminded of the campaign trail
tears?
The problem for the Republican
Party is that they seem more and
more like a country club for white
men only. They're Augusta on
steroids, and they're getting nervous
about all those Tiger Woods and
Annika Sorenstam fans.
As an increasing number of
Americans are calling themselves
Independents, traditional party
affiliation is on the wane. But it is
falling faster for Republicans. A
Rasmussen survey in May of 2007
found that 36.3% of Americans
year high of $37.95 in October.
JNPR opened this morning at
$26.91. So far today the stock has
hit a low of $26.54 and a high of
$27.36. As of 11:20, JNPR is
trading at $27.16, up 97 cents
(3.7%). The chart for JNPR looks
bearish but improving slightly,
while S&P gives the stock a neutral
3 STARS (out of 5) hold rating.
For a bullish hedged play on this
stock, I would consider an April bull
-put credit spread below the $22.50
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
identified themselves as Democrats,
while just 30.3% said they were
Republicans, a new low.
Add to this equation the fact that
the GOP is fielding a candidate who,
if he won, would be the oldest first-
nice returns. For this particular trade
will make an 8.7% return in just two
months as long as JNPR is above
$22.50 at April expiration. Juniper
would have to fall by more than
17% before we would start to lose
money.
JNPR hasn't been below $22.50
since last May and has shown
support around $25 recently. This
trade could be risky if JNPR
continues its recent downward slide,
but even if that happens, this
position could be protected by the
support the stock has found just
below $25 over the past month.
Brent Archer is an options analyst
and writer at Investors Observer. At
publication time, Brent neither owns
nor controls positions in
JNPR.Permalink | Email this |
Comments
term president to be inaugurated in
U.S. history. That candidate is also a
man who was against the Martin
Luther King Jr. holiday before he
was for it.
Still, the debate rages in GOP
Google's Brin speaks out about a
combined Micro-Hoo
By Brian White
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:45:00 AM
Filed under: Competitive strategy,
Google (GOOG), Microsoft
(MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO)We know
that Google Inc. (NASDAQ:
GOOG) exec David Drummond has
said that he's not fond of the
proposed acquisition of Yahoo! Inc.
(NASDAQ: YHOO) by software
giant Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:
MSFT). Drummond indicated that
he believes Microsoft could
influence the internet too much like
it has done in the PC market. What
about other Google execs -- what do
they think?
Google co-founder Sergey Brin took
a potshot last week (although
indirectly) by saying "The Internet
has evolved from open standards,
Politics * Business * 5
circles. Just how sensitive to race
and gender issues is too sensitive?
Republican strategist Tony Fabrizio
has been mulling it over:
"If we approach this campaign from
the standpoint that we need to take
political sensitivity training because
one candidate is a woman or one
candidate is black, I think we are
approaching it from the wrong
standpoint because that already
eBay sellers
handcuffs us."
He's right. If they haven't figured
extend strike
out how to treat minorities and
women by now, a quick class
probably isn't going to do the trick.
to March 3
By Michael Fowlkes
Better get back to the country club, (BloggingStocks)
it's almost tee time, after all.
Submitted at 2/25/2008 3:46:00 AM
Permalink | Email this | Linking Filed under: Products and services,
Blogs | Comments
EBAY page 6
This really is not a new argument,
but it's typical of Google, which
tends to believe in openness for all
Internet users instead of locked-
down and proprietary solutions
controlled by select companies.
Although Microsoft has lost court
battles claiming it used illegal,
monopolistic tactics to build its
company in many ways, nothing of
the sort has tarnished Google's doors
having a diversity of companies. yet. It simply built the best solution
And when you start to have possible, and what do you know --
companies that control the operating customers flocked to it. It'll be that
system, control the browsers, they position that Google takes as it
really tie up the top Web sites, and continues planting the seeds of
can be used to manipulate stuff in doubt and discontent as the Micro-
various ways. I think that's Hoo situation continues to
unnerving." There you have it, evolve.Read | Permalink | Email this
Microsoft. You may soon be | Comments
unnerving the world's largest search
company.
6 Business * Tech Gadgets *
EBAY
continued from page 5
Consumer experience, Competitive
strategy, eBay (EBAY), Marketing
and advertisingLast week I wrote a
couple pieces on the current seller
strike over at e-commerce giant
eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY). The
strike was supposed to last until
today, but now it has been extended
another week. Initial data is showing
that the current eBay strike has
lowered the items listed for sale on
the site by an impressive 13%, so
you can be sure that eBay is paying
attention.
As most of you are already aware,
the current strike is the result of
frustrations by eBay users over a
couple new changes that the site has
introduced. While the site lowered
its initial listing fees for items, it
raised its completion fees. This has
been seen by power sellers as a
direct attack on the more successful
eBay sellers. In addition, eBay has
decided to keep sellers from leaving
negative feedback on buyers, a
Battling for Britney's bucks
By Peter Cohan
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 5:11:00 AM
Filed under: PepsiCo (PEP),
Marketing and advertising, Toyota
Motor Corp. (TM), McDonald's
(MCD)
The New York Times reports that
despite a fortune ranging from $50
million to $125 million, the battle
for mentally unstable Britney
Spears's money is raging. She's a
shrewd business person --
generating cash from royalties,
concerts, clothing, perfume,
corporate promotions and real estate.
But she's also spending a lot of that
money. She takes in $720,000 a
month but mainly from royalties, but
earns "only" $13,000 a month from
move that has infuriated sellers who
claim that feedback is their best
defense in avoiding dead-beat
bidders. The final straw came in the
decision to hold certain PayPal
payments for up to 21 days.
The strike, which started last week,
has had a couple of impacts on the e
-commerce world. One result that I
examined last week, was the
increase in traffic and users to some
smaller e-commerce sites that
historically have had a hard time
breaking into some of eBay coveted
traffic. Now we are starting to see
just how hard the strike has been
hitting eBay itself. According to
reports, the site has seen a 13% drop
in its auction listings.
Continue reading eBay sellers
extend strike to March 3Permalink |
Email this | Comments
investments. Her spending includes
$102,000 a month for entertainment,
gifts and vacation and $16,000 for
clothes. Yet court documents reveal
that members of Britney's household
have been paying for her medicine,
Bank of America (BAC) Will Congress get to the
pushed down by finance bottom of the executive
woes pay problem?
By Brent Archer
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 5:22:00 AM
Filed under: Analyst reports, Bad
news, Industry, Bank of America
(BAC), Goldman Sachs Group (GS),
Options, Technical AnalysisBank of
America Corporation (NYSE: BAC)
stock is falling with other banks this
morning after an analyst at
Oppenheimer cut earnings estimates
for many major banks, predicting
bank losses will be the highest in the
past 20 years or more due to greater
individual defaults on mortgages
and other loans. The analyst cut
BAC's first-quarter EPS estimate to
$0.92 per share from $1.01 per
share, and cut BAC's fiscal-2008
estimate to $3.65 per share from
$4.10 per share. Also contributing to
the finance woes is Goldman Sach
(NYSE: GS)'s news it expects
further writedowns. If you think this
food, and other day-to-day needs.
While Britney makes some money
from her albums -- she received a $4
million advance on her latest
Blackout -- the real money is in
concerts and the clothing and other
items sold there. Her five major
tours have sold some $140 million
in tickets but her take -- after
deducting costs for arena rentals,
equipment, crew and all those
backup dancers -- is much smaller.
The real money is made from the
sale of T-shirts, key chains, dolls
and other Britney-branded goods.
Continue reading Battling for
Britney's bucksRead | Permalink |
Email this | Comments
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 BAC.
After hitting a one-year high of
$53.15 last February, the stock hit a
one-year low of $33.12 in January.
BAC opened this morning at $42.27.
So far today, the stock has hit a low
of $41.77 and a high of $42.50. As
of 10:55, BAC is trading at $42.46,
down 14 cents (-0.3%). The chart
for BAC looks bullish but
deteriorating, while S&P gives the
stock a positive 4 STARS (out of 5)
buy rating.
Continue reading Bank of America
(BAC) pushed down by finance
woesPermalink | Email this |
Comments
Option update: Network Appliance
(NTAP) call volume & volatility up
By Paul Foster
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:22:00 AM
Filed under: Options
Network Appliance (NASDAQ:
NTAP), a provider of unified
storage solutions, is recently up 84
cents to $22.94.
NTAP company sponsored analyst
meeting is scheduled for March 13.
Your Click and Print Newspaper
By Zac Bissonnette
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:12:00 AM
Filed under: Management, Insiders,
Citigroup Inc. (C), Merrill Lynch
(MER), Countrywide Financial
(CFC)As Jonathan Berr wrote on
Friday, Former Merrill Lynch & Co.
(NYSE: MER) Chief Executive Stan
O'Neal, former Citigroup Inc.
(NYSE: C) CEO Chuck Prince and
former Countrywide Financial Corp.
(NYSE: CFC) Angelo Moziilo will
make their much-delayed
appearance before Congress this size in the same industry are
earning. Here's the beauty of that: by
week.
that standard none of these guys is
The topic of conversation will be overpaid because all of them are
overpaid! Isn't that beautiful?
their outrageous pay packages --
especially 8- and 9-figure severance
packages -- and how they can justify If that sounds circular it is, but that's
how executive pay has spiraled out
packages that seems so blatantly
excessive. of control. Hopefully, Congress will
keep the focus on the raping of
Here's the problem: executive shareholders, and not make this into
compensation consultants generally a sound-byte spectacle full of rah-
present compensation committees
with the pay packages that
executives at companies of similar
rah populist rabble-rousing.Read |
Permalink | Email this | Comments
NTAP call option volume of 45,161
contracts compares to put volume of
16,854 contracts. NTAP March
option implied volatility of 51 is
above its 26-week average of 44 Nokia's nanotech
according to Track Data, suggesting
larger price movement. Morph goes on
Option Update is provided by Stock
Specialist Paul Foster of
display, signals
melting devices in our
theflyonthewall.comPermalink |
Email this | Comments
future
By Joshua Topolsky
(Engadget)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 1:58:00 AM
NOKIA'S page 7
Your Click and Print Newspaper
NOKIA'S
continued from page 6
Filed under: Cellphones
Why is Nokia always trying to outdo
everyone with its fancy-schmancy
concepts and designs? Why can't
they just get in line and keep it
simple? We may never know the
answer to those questions, but what
we do know is that the company is
presenting a new concept device
called the Morph that would be right
at home... in the year 3000. The unit
is included in the MoMA's "Design
and the Elastic Mind" exhibition
catalog, and boasts the ability to
stretch and flex to almost any shape
a user could think of. The
nanotechnology-based device would
deliver transparent electronics, self-
cleaning surfaces, and the
malleability to transform into any
number of configurations. Of
course, the actual technology
LinkedIn Goes
Mobile—Finally
By Erick Schonfeld
(TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/24/2008 8:58:33 PM
Six months after Facebook came out
with a version of its social network
for the iPhone, LinkedIn is finally
coming around to releasing a mobile
version of its own.
It is live now. Just go to
http://m.linkedin.com/ on any
mobile browser. Of course, if you
have an iPhone, you will see a
version optimized just for that
device.
This isn’t exactly what we had in
mind when we noted there is still an
opportunity to create a kick-ass
mobile social network.
But the basic functionality is all
there. You can look up people’’s
profiles, invite people into your
network, and see updates from your
contacts. More fully-featured,
downloadable mobile apps geared to
required to put this together is years
or even decades away, though Nokia
expects to see some of these
innovations making their way into
high-end products within seven
years. See the device doing its thing
in some photos after the break.
Update: Tipster Pdexter pointed us
to a video of the Morph in "action" -
- check it out after the break.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this
in]
Continue reading Nokia's nanotech
Morph goes on display, signals
melting devices in our future
Read | Permalink | Email this |
Comments
specific phones may be coming in
the future.
Even limited mobile browser
accessibility should help LinkedIn
keep its members happy. The
regular Website has been on a tear
lately, nearly tripling in unique
visitors over the past year in the
U.S., to 3.6 million in January 2008,
according to comScore.
No signs of social networking
fatigue there.
C r u n c h B a s e
InformationLinkedInInformation
provided by CrunchBase
C r u n c h N e t w o r k :
CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for
you to find a new Job2.0
Apple Tuesday: super special
MacBook Pro, iPhone
SDK... or nothing at all?
By Joshua Topolsky
(Engadget)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 3:01:00 AM
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
As you may or may not know,
Apple has made some sort of
announcement -- however minor --
every Tuesday since the beginning
of 2008. The internet is currently
stacked floor-to-ceiling with guesses
of what this last Tuesday in
February will bring. Many are
speculating that it's going to be the
often-discussed, never-seen
MacBook Pro update, while others
are certain that this will be the day
old Jobsy unveils iPhone's
supposedly-delayed SDK to the
world. Still there are those who
believe this Tuesday will see the
launch of the Apple Robot Army,
while many think that we're going to
finally get a look at that iShrink
shrink ray that's been long-rumored.
Of course, it's possible this will be a
heaping dose of iNothing. We want
to know: what do the talented,
handsome, and infinitely-wise
readers of Engadget think we'll see
tomorrow?
Read - More New Apple Products...
This Tuesday?
Read - Tuesday's Coming
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Tech Gadgets * Technology * 7
New MacBook Pro part
numbers leaked?
By Joshua Topolsky all) to believe that they may be those
(Engadget)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:33:00 AM
new laptops everyone's been talking
about. Of course, we haven't seen
these inventory management
Filed under: Laptops systems with our own, bloodshot,
sleep-deprived eyes, so don't be too
If you've been replying to our earlier
post on Apple rumors by repeatedly
typing "MacBook Pro update"
disappointed when it turns out this
was just a really, really specific
typo.
across the screen, you'll be happy to
hear this latest news. AppleInsider Update: Apparently AI had an actual
claims they have confirmed three typo in their part numbers (which
new Apple part numbers which are we reprinted) -- they've been fixed.
showing up in both the Best Buy
and Apple inventory databases. The [Thanks, Mark]
numbers, MB402LL/A,
MB403LL/A, and MB404LL/A, Read | Permalink | Email this |
have appeared on these systems with Comments
the prices of $1,999, $2,499, and
$2,799 in tow -- leading some (read,
8 Tech Gadgets *
Intel's 6-core Xeon and
Nehalem CPU info leaked
By Joshua Topolsky
(Engadget)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:02:00 AM
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Intel's had its new processor plans
slipped out to the public thanks to
Sun, according to DailyTech.
Details on the 6-core (!) Xeon
Dunnington, as well as the kinda-
sorta hush-hush Nehalem were
apparently leaked out onto Sun's
public web server over the weekend,
including plans for the new Xeons to
overtake the company's Tigerton
CPU line. The Dunnington
processors will have a 16MB L3
Sony's new DSC-W300 brings 13.6 megapixels to point-and-shoots
By Paul Miller (Engadget)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 12:58:00 AM
Filed under: Digital Cameras
cache shared by all six cores, and
will be pin-compatible with the
Tigertons, thus making integration
with your Clarksboro chipset
slightly less painful... by being
possible. The Nehalem also got the
spy treatment, with news that it will
not only replace the Penryn line in
Q4 '08, but will also be the first time
in 18 years that Intel includes on-die
memory controllers. If this sort of
thing is important to you (and we
think it may be) hit the read link and
get all the juicy details.
Read | Permalink | Email this |
Comments
Tired of taking candid shots with
your point-and-shoot that can barely
stretch over the state of Nevada?
Sony's got those megapixels in
spades with its new DSC-W300, the
CFast CompactFlash cards
now said to be coming in "18
to 24 months"
By Donald Melanson
(Engadget)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 3:40:00 AM
Filed under: Digital Cameras,
StorageWe've already heard a little
bit about about the new and
improved CFast CompactFlash card
standard developed by the
CompactFlash Association, but it
looks like things are now starting to
firm up, including word as to when
the cards might actually be
available. As CNET's Underexposed
blog reports, a Lexar rep says he
"predicts" that the cards should start
showing up in "18 to 24 months,"
new top-end shooter in its W lineup.
In addition to the 13.6 megapixel
sensor, the camera sports a 2.7-inch
LCD, 3x optical zoom, optical
image stabilization and up to ISO
and that companies will "want to
start working on prototype samples
as soon as the specification is
finalized." The big advantage to the
cards, as we've mentioned, is their
use of an SATA interface, which not
only boosts the transfer rate to a
speedy 375MB/sec but, of course,
also makes them incompatible with
current CompactFlash-based
cameras. And you thought that 55-in
-1 memory card reader was future
proof.
Read | Permalink | Email this |
Comments
6400 shots in "extra high sensitivity"
Your Click and Print Newspaper
Lippert intros CoreExpress-
Menlow module for handheld
devices
By Donald Melanson
(Engadget)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:55:00 AM
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets,
HandheldsWe've already seen plenty
of prototypes of Menlow-based
handhelds (or MIDs), but it looks
like Germany's Lippert Embedded
Computers is among the first to put
together a finalized version of the
core component of said devices,
with it now showing off its
CoreExpress-Menlow module.
Aimed at everything from
automotive to medical to point-of-
service devices (in addition to more
mode. The camera also brings along
Sony's Smile Shutter tech, and other
fancy processor capabilities,
including a limited burst mode. The
DSC-W300 will be available in May
consumer-minded handhelds), this
board measures just 2.6 x 2.3-inches
and packs the expected Silverthorne
processor, along with some soldered
on RAM, built-in WiFi and GPS,
and support for a number of
different storage options, among
other shrunk-down features. No
word on pricing or availability just
yet, however, although Lippert will
apparently have more to say about
that at the Embedded World 2008
trade show later this week.
Read | Permalink | Email this |
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for about $350.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Your Click and Print Newspaper
Panasonic upgrades its 103-inch
plasma: sorry, early adopters
By Paul Miller (Engadget)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 3:20:00 AM
Filed under: Displays, HDTV,
Home Entertainment
Well, don't you feel silly. After
springing for that 103-incher last
year, Panasonic has made a mockery
of your spendy home theater with a
150-inch display at CES, and now
an upgraded version of the original
103-inch behemoth. The new TH-
103PF10UK upgrades the video
processing, anti-reflective coating,
Blog Recommendation Startup Outbrain Raises $5 Million
By Erick Schonfeld
(TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 9:16:55 AM
Funding Monday continues.
NY/Israeli startup Outbrain is
announcing a $5 million series A
financing, led by Gemini Israeli
Funds and Lightspeed Venture
Partners. GlenRock Israel also put
money into the round. The company
was founded by Yaron Galai, a co-
founder of Quigo (recently sold to
AOL for $340 million), and Ori
"wireless presentation capabilities,"
media card reader and adds dual
HDMI, but the actual display seems
to be the same as last time around.
There's also a 100,000 hour
warranty included, which is only
fitting since we're guessing this new
103-inch won't be selling for much
less than $70 grand.
[Via Crave]
Read | Permalink | Email this |
Comments
Lahav, previously a technologist at
Shopping.com. It raised a $1 million
seed round last year from
Lightspeed’s and Gemini’s joint
Internet lab in Israel, LGiLab, which
is managed by TechCrunch France
editor Ouriel Ohayon.
Outbrain is creating a ratings and
recommendation platform for blogs
and news feeds. So far it has
developed a rating widget that can
be placed at the end of every blog
post or news feed item so that
readers can rate each one. Outbrain
Sony intros the Cyber-Shot DSC
-H50 "super zoom" camera
By Joshua Topolsky
(Engadget)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 12:59:00 AM
Filed under: Digital Cameras
Sony is no stranger to digital
cameras, as the company has
professed in its press release
detailing the Cyber-Shot DSC-H50,
a new 9.1-megapixel shooter that
should have camera fans perking up
their ears. The new model -- a
successor to the DSC-H9 "super
zoom" camera -- sports a Carl Zeiss
wants to use these widgets to create
a cross-blog/news recommendation
system using collaborative filtering
techniques similar to what you find
on Amazon.com for products.
“Readers like you also liked:” X.
Nobody has to register. Outbrain
makes its inferences anonymously
based on cookies. Explains Galai:
With every rating that’s cast to our
system, we constantly tweak the
‘closeness’ of each reader to all
other readers who ever rated
anything. We then give your like-
15x optical zoom lens, a 3-inch
tilting LCD display, ISO to 3200,
and a long-distance flash (capable of
lighting subjects from 55 feet away).
The DSC-H50 also has an
"advanced sports" shooting mode
which allows it to utilize ultra-high
shutter speeds (like 1/4000 of a
second). The camera is expected to
go on sale in May, and will only
slightly break the bank at $400.
Read | Permalink | Email this |
Comments
minded readers a higher weight
when making recommendations for
you. So the more items you rate (and
rate honestly), the better your
personalized recommendations
should get.
This is in contrast to the folks that
do ‘related articles’ functionality
which is based purely on the content
Tech Gadgets * Technology *
Oakley's Split Thumps:
Jamiroquai style
By Joshua Topolsky
(Engadget)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 2:29:00 AM
Filed under: Portable Audio,
Wearables
Oakley's Split Thump MP3 player
sunglasses' fashion offenses are too
numerous to mention, and we're not
sure this is helping matters.
According to the folks over at Tech
Digest, the wrap-around music
players will be getting a very special
500-piece, 1GB Jamiroquai edition,
of the post. Those by definition are
one-size-fits-all recommendations
which we do not believe are very
effective. So while others try to
target recommendations that are
relevant to the content, we are trying
to target recommendations that are
relevant to the readers.
Outbrain’s widget can be installed
on most blogging and RSS
platforms, including Blogger.com,
TypePad, WordPress.org, Drupal,
FeedFlare, and MoveableType.
Bloggers can grab it here. It
9
replete with purple and white
camouflage design and two new
remixes from the disco-aping
singer's 1993 album Emergency on
Planet Earth. Grab your glasses, get
out your floppy hat, slip on some
Mickey Mouse gloves, and crack
open a bottle of Vicks VapoRub --
it's time to party like you don't know
any better.
Read | Permalink | Email this |
Comments
competes with other rating and
recommendation widgets out there,
including JS-Kit’s rating widget and
Criteo’s Autoroll widget that creates
reader-centric blogrolls.
C r u n c h B a s e
InformationOutbrainCriteoJS
KitInformation provided by
CrunchBase
C r u n c h N e t w o r k :
CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for
you to find a new Job2.0
10 Technology *
Pingg—Invitations Done Right
By Erick Schonfeld
(TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 7:59:10 AM
Whenever a niche gets really
crowded with startups, you know
that something is broken. Online
invitations, which has been
dominated by Evite for the past
decade, is one of those areas where
there is literally a dozen services
trying to make it
better—MyPunchBowl, Amiando,
Invitastic, MadeIt, Socializr, iPartee,
Renkoo, ImThere, Skobee, Zvents,
Zoji, Windows Live Events. Now
add Pingg. The site launched
publicly last week. A little late to the
party perhaps. But it starts from a
very basic premise that most other
online invitation sites surprisingly
have ignored. Says co-founder and
CEO Lorien Gabel: “We have taken
the approach that the invite matters.”
When you get an invite from Pingg,
you don’t have to click through to a
Website blaring with advertisements
just to find the address for a dinner.
All the information is right there
where it should be, in your email.
Pingg’s invites are drop-dead
gorgeous. A lot of care and attention
has been put into the design of each
one (you can choose from about 45
themes like dinner party, baby,
wedding, food, travel, and eco-
friendly). The invite, image, and
event details all come through in
your email. And you can RSVP
from the email as well.
Bloglines Suffers Major Outage
By Duncan Riley
(TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/24/2008 11:20:49 PM
RSS reader Bloglines has suffered a
major outage over the weekend with
the service simply ceasing to update
any blogs from just before midnight
PST February 24.
Threads on the Bloglines forum
Of course, each invite is linked to a
dedicated Website, where more
photos, maps, videos, gift registries,
and payment options exist (if guests
want to pitch in to fund an event, for
instance). The e-mails and Website
are free. But you can also send out
printed invites as postcards for $1.50
each (including postage) or send the
invites as text messages to guests’
mobile phones ($1.50 for 20
messages). Gabel explains why he
thinks Pingg is different in this blog
post.
In addition to making money from
printed invitations and sending SMS
messages, Pingg has various other
affiliate deals in place. If you don’t
like any of the images Pingg
provides for its invites, you can
purchase one directly on Pingg
through micro-stock photography
site Fotolia (or upload your own
image for free). The gift registry,
which is currently linked to
Amazon, offers other affiliate-fee
opportunities. A ticketing feature
will soon be launched, as will
premium subscriptions for
professional and power users. But
advertising will never be part of the
equation. “That detracts from the
suggest that the issue is widespread
and to date no statement has been
issued by Bloglines or IAC/ Ask
staff in relation to the issue. A test at
11pm PST shows the most recent
stories indexed by Bloglines are
over 15 hours old.
Bloglines users are not happy with
the outage, with some already
signing up for other services, and
event,” says Gabel. Nobody wants
to see a Weight Watcher’s ad next to
a dinner invitation.
The site has some other nice
touches, including guest-list
management and event-reporting
tools. Event hosts can set up
automatic reminder messages and
thank-you notes when they are
creating their invites. And the RSVP
options include the ability to limit an
event’s capacity, or to allow invitees
to bring guests or transfer their
invites to others.
Pingg is based in New York City
(the CEO and VP of marketing share
an office with Clickable.
First30Days, and independent film
company PalmStar Entertainment).
Its development and design team is
in Toronto. The co-founders,
brothers Gabel and CTO Matt
Harrop, are Canadian. They founded
the company in January, 2007 and
self-funded it with $500,000. Then
they raised an $800,000 angel round
in March, 2007 led by the early-
stage Actarus Funds, the investment
vehicle of Stephan Paternot, co-
founder of TheGlobe.com. (Paternot
now runs PalmStar). At least that 1.0
money is now being put to good use.
C r u n c h B a s e
InformationPinggEviteamiandoMyP
unchbowlRenkooFotoliaInformation
provided by CrunchBase
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over the sexiest new gadgets and
hardware.
other comments including such as
“Remember when they at least
showed the plumber?”
One commenter claims that
Bloglines may be about to be shut
down:
Fox Said To Be Exploring
Termination Of Google
Advertising Deal
By Michael Arrington
(TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 12:34:08 AM
Even while parent company News
Corp. continues to try to disrupt the
Microsoft/Yahoo merger, Fox
Interactive Media (FIM) is rumored
to be in negotiations with Microsoft
take Google’s place as the MySpace
advertising partner.
The Google-FIM deal, first
announced in August 2006,
obligated Google to make
guaranteed minimum revenue share
payments to FIM of at least $900
million based on Fox achieving
certain traffic and other
commitments. But the original deal
was negotiated in extreme haste, say
people with knowledge of the deal.
In February 2007 the parties were
rumored to be working on the final
agreement, months after ads were
already being served by Google.
In Google’s haste to keep the deal
from Microsoft they may have paid
more than they can stomach.
According to our source, Sergey
Brin’s thinly veiled buyer’s remorse
verbalized during Google’s most
recent earnings call on January 31
angered News Corp./FIM execs:
We don’t talk about individual
partners’ performance or anything
like that. Now I do want to highlight
though, we have had a challenge in
A buddy who works at ask.com
(owners of Bloglines) says that they
are discontinuing the service
because it makes no money and
there will be an announcement
tomorrow.
A shutdown is more than unlikely.
But users deserve some attention
during an outage of this
s i z e . C r u n c h B a s e
Your Click and Print Newspaper
Q4 with social networking inventory
as a whole and some of the
monetization work we were doing
there didn’t pan out as well as we
had hoped. But we are continuing
the efforts and we are still optimistic
about future quarters.
…we have a huge amount of social
networking inventory, including the
MySpace relationship, including of
course Orkut, our own network,
which is very, very successful and
probably like 20 others, or
something like that. I don’t know
the exact number. But we have an
incredible amount of this inventory
and in fact, it varies quite a bit in
how it all monetizes, based on a
number of factors, some of which
we understand, some of which we
don’t.
…I don’t think we have the killer
best way to advertise and monetize
the social networks yet. We’re
running lots of experiments. We had
InformationBloglinesGoogle
ReaderInformation provided by
CrunchBase
C r u n c h N e t w o r k :
MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and
Applications, Delivered Daily.
some significant improvements but
as I said, some of the things we were
working on in Q4 didn’t really pan
out and there were some
disappointments there. I hope to be
able to report more progress in the
future but it’s a big opportunity
because it’s so much inventory.
The vast majority of social network
traffic that Google serves ads into is
controlled by MySpace - this was a
direct complaint about that deal.
Shortly thereafter, our source says,
FIM started discussions with
Microsoft about taking over the
advertising inventory. Microsoft
announced a guaranteed payments
deal with Facebook just two weeks
after the initial FIM/Google deal.
I’m sure they’d be very happy to get
their hands on MySpace traffic, too.
And if anyone has more money to
burn than Google, it’s Microsoft.
What we don’t know is what kind of
termination clauses are included in
the existing agreement. But Google
seems to be saying publicly that they
wish they had never entered the
deal. Perhaps now, with Microsoft
waiting on the sidelines waiting to
play sugar daddy, MySpace will
suddenly be sexy again.
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over the sexiest new gadgets and
hardware.
Your Click and Print Newspaper
Glam Raises $85 million In Equity
+ Debt Financing Round
By Michael Arrington
(TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/24/2008 9:50:16 PM
Brisbane, California based Glam
Mediareported an $85 million round
of financing, their fourth, today. We
first reported that Glam was looking
to raise as much as $200 million in
August 2007. More rumors popped
up in November 2007.
The round was $65 million in cash
and $20 million in debt, on top of
almost $30 million they raised in
three prior rounds. Investors
included Hubert Burda Media, GLG
Partners, Duff Ackerman &
Goodrich, Hercules Technology
Growth Capital, Accel, Draper
Fisher Jurvetson and Information
Capital. The valuation, as expected,
was in the half billion dollar range.
The company, according to their
original offering document, which is
ShifD Launches in Beta. Move Notes, Places,
and Links From the Web to Your Phone.
By Erick Schonfeld
(TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/24/2008 8:58:12 PM
Today, in conjunction with the 1.0
release of Adobe AIR, the digital
labs of the New York Times Co. is
releasing an application in public
beta called ShifD. An early version
of the app won a Yahoo Hack Day
last June. It is designed to let users
easily shift notes, links, and
addresses between their computers
and their mobile phones.
Instead of e-mailing yourself notes
to remind yourself to do something
or links to stories you want to read,
you put them into ShifD and create a
feed that is automatically available
on your mobile phone. You can use
embedded below, is not yet
profitable. They lost around $3.7
million on $21 million in revenue in
2007. 2008 projected revenues are
$150 million and $40 million in
profit.
Glam operates a number of small
sites geared towards women.
Glam.com is the main anchor with
the largest reach among these
properties, but other owned sites
appear to be pure SEO plays like
free-beauty-tips.com and celebrity-
hairstyles.org. They also sell
advertisements for other sites, which
make up the vast bulk of its page
a standalone Adobe Air app on your
desktop or a regular Web browser.
On your mobile phone, ShifD
supports most mobile Web
browsers, and is also offering
customized versions for the iPhone
and the Blackberry. You can enter
notes back into your SHifD account
from you mobile phone by texting to
“SHIFD”.
It seems like a lot of extra effort just
to sync a limited number of things
between your computer and your
phone. There are more
comprehensive syncing options out
there, and it is not too hard to access
a regular bookmarking service, such
as del.icio.us, from your mobile
phone (see mobilicio.us). As for
addresses, Google Maps and Yahoo
views. We have criticized them in
the past for claiming to be the
largest womens site on the Internet,
and the fastest growing site in the
U.S., based on traffic coming from
sites they sell ads for.
As an ad network Glam may find its
margins squeezed as competition
increases. Still, they control a lot of
page views. Comscore reports that
worldwide uniques across all sites
that Glam sells advertising for had
nearly 47 million unique visitors and
1.1 billion page views. That’s 4x the
unique visitors and 11x the page
views from a year ago.
Glam Media Teaser August
2007CrunchBase InformationGlam
MediaInformation provided by
CrunchBase
C r u n c h N e t w o r k :
MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and
Applications, Delivered Daily.
Maps, both have mobile options as
well. So there is nothing new that
ShifD allows you to do. But it does
tie those three use case (notes, links,
Radar Networks
Raises $13 Million B
Round; Velocity’s
Ross Levinshon Joins
Board
By Erick Schonfeld
(TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/24/2008 9:00:13 PM
Semantic Web startup Radar
Networks raised $13 million in a B
round, led by Velocity Interactive
Group. Velocity’s Ross Levinsohn
will join the board. Other investors
include Draper Fisher Jurvetson and
Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital. The
company previously raised $5
million from Vulcan, Leapfrog
Ventures, Ron Conway, and Peter
Rip.
Radar Networks is the company
behind Twine, a site in private beta
that helps you organize the Web and
your personal information by
automatically tagging and cataloging
RADAR page 12
and places) together in an elegant
way. It makes a lot more sense for
people with less capable phones.
Otherwise, I’d argue that e-mailing
yourself such reminders and links to
your Blackberry or iPhone—or
tapping into the mobile versions of
existing services you already
use—is probably more efficient.
Those of you who decide to try it
out, tell us what you think in
comments.
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool
over the sexiest new gadgets and
hardware.
Technology * 11
Tiny Pictures Gets A Big Wad
of Cash—$7 Million Series B
By Erick Schonfeld
(TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:00:59 AM
Mobile startup Tiny Pictures secured
a $7.2 million series B financing
from Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Mohr
Davidow Ventures, which led the A
round, also participated. Previously,
the company raised a total of $4
million, including seed investments
from Reid Hoffman and Joi Ito.
Tiny Pictures operates the mobile
photo-sharing service Radar, which
lets members comment on each
others camera-phone snapshots.
Radar serves up 15 million mobile joined the company’s advisory
board. CrunchBase InformationTiny
photos a month worldwide. Last
November, the company introduced PicturesRadarInformation provided
by CrunchBase
advertising in the form of public
photo streams that movie studios Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool
over the sexiest new gadgets and
and other companies try to get
people to pay attention to. Blacked hardware.
Eyed Peas singer will.i.am recently
Digg Competitor Mixx Takes
$2 Million Series A1
By Duncan Riley
(TechCrunch)
Submitted at 2/24/2008 9:30:14 PM
Social voting outfit Mixx has taken
$2 million Series A1 in a round led
by existing investor InterSouth
Partners. entrenched loyalties to existing
Mixx offers a category based social players.
voting service that competes with Mixx added the LA Times to its
sites such as Digg, Reddit and investor group in December. Total
Propeller. McLean, Virginia based funding to date is $3.5 million.
Mixx was launched in September (via VentureBeat)CrunchBase
2007 with talent including former InformationMixxDiggRedditInform
executives from Yahoo!, AOL, USA ation provided by CrunchBase
TODAY and The Associated Press. Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool
The company has regularlylaunched over the sexiest new gadgets and
new features in an attempt to stand hardware.
out in a market place with strongly
12 Social Net *
RADAR
continued from page 11
everything you save to it. (For more,
see our write-up).CrunchBase
I n f o r m a t i o n R a d a r
NetworksTwineVelocity Interactive
GroupRoss LevinsohnInformation
provided by CrunchBase
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool
over the sexiest new gadgets and
hardware.
JamBase Reaches 1 Million Live Music Listings after 10 Years
By Kristen Nicole (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 3:53:07 AM
Founded ten years ago, JamBase
began as an online resource for live
music events, and today the site is
announcing the milestone of
reaching 1 million live music show
listings to its database. If you go to
the JamBase site you’ll see a mix of
user-generated content with
information on various artists in the
music industry. Articles on these
NewsGator Signs 20 New Clients
Including Reuters and WashPost
By Kristen Nicole (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 6:04:48 AM
NewsGator recently released its
services for the world to use for free,
and perhaps that helped nudge some
of NewsGator’s new clients into
signing on to its widget and mobile
services. A handful (20, to be exact)
of major new clients, in fact, and
three announcements to boot. The
Washington Post along with
Newsweek (which previously used
blogroll via MuseStorm), Reuters
and Cox Newspapers have signed on
to use NewsGator for the use of
NewsGator’s feed delivery services,
specifically for widgets and mobile
distribution. The hope, of course, is
to get news content in front of more
eyeballs.
The benefit of using NewsGator for
such distribution is its metrics
capabilities and branding, through
FeedDemon. Each widget is viral in
multiple ways, granting viewers to
share content via email as well as
grabbing the widget, and the widgets
are interactive in that they support
ratings and commenting. Cox
specifically is looking to get some
monetary rewards through utilizing
NewsGator’s services, but I’m sure
artists include user-driven
discussion forums and comments as
well. This is all for the purpose of
helping you search and discover
music that’s interesting to you, as
well as events that are coming to
your home town.
In its ten years of existence,
JamBase has grown to include a
social network and a
recommendation tool, with a long
term goal of providing near real-
time information about live music
that’s a happy byproduct for all of
NewsGator’s new clients.
In taking some of the community
interaction away from the
newspapers’ main websites and
distributing it across the web, it
looks like these printed media
companies are hoping to find
additional ways in which they can
engage audiences, while spreading
content, ads, and opportunities for
streams of revenue all in one little
widget.
With the demographics these
newspaper companies are dealing
with, I’m wondering at the possible
impact these widgets will have in
the end, but I’m also wondering at
the effect of such direct distribution
options to the end users (readers) for
other distributive services like
Mochila, which rely on web
publishers to be the bridge between
such premium content and the end
users.
One thing Mochila has that isn’t
quite as prominent through the
newspapers’ utilization of
performances. There are a series of
action items you can take as a visitor
or a registered member, from
purchasing tickets to building up
your own event calendar based on
shows you’d like to see. Similar to
Going.com, you can also see other
members that are going to a
particular event as well.
Last year looked to be a pretty good
year for JamBase, with a reported
500,000 users, 40,000 artists, 50
NewsGator’s widgets is the
aggregation of multiple sources of
content (though this could be done
at NewsGator for individual users).
It appears that a key strategy is the
streaming of content through as
many channels across the web as
possible is an important
consideration for traditional media
companies, especially as ad revenue
is increasingly important for online
venues.
And while Cox Newspapers is quite
clear about its hope for NewsGator
widgets to bring in additional ad
revenue for the company, The
Washington Post and Newsweek
have teamed up with Microsoft to
present the Candidate Tracker. This
is a free (Microsoft-sponsored) app
for Microsoft Windows Mobile
Phones, that will give you real-time
coverage of the presidential
candidates and elections, with
content coming from The
Washington Post and Newsweek,
along with their other media
properties. Probably the best thing
about the Candidate Tracker is that
the entire article will show through
this mobile widget, so there’s no
need to click through to the source.
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genres, and 50,000 venues
worldwide. JamBase is reporting an
89% increase in show listings from
2006 to 2007, so it appears that the
growing outlets online for sharing
music information, and the layering
in of various community, iTunes-
integrated and action-based features
Your Click and Print Newspaper
FreshBooks Adds Expense
Tracking to Become More
Competitive
By Kristen Nicole (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 3:52:48 AM
Invoice and time-tracking service
FreshBooks has just added a major
new feature onto its service, called
Expense Tracking. This new feature
will become central to the overall
FreshBooks service as it’s core to
the financial and organizational
tools that FreshBooks would like to
focus and build on in its offerings to
its users.
Expense Tracking works just as you
would expect to. It’s a service that
lets you track sales and costs for
viewing your cash flow. This at-a-
glance option for keeping abreast of
your cash flow is something that can
come in handy for business and
personal use. Perhaps it’s this
personal use case scenario that
FreshBooks is looking to compete
with, for the purpose of broadening
its user base even further?
Other sites out there like Geezeo and
Mint have brought in some nicely
automated, and very integrated tools
made available to users has paid off,
most significantly in the past two
years.
Just like others in the space,
including BandTracker, JamBase is
heavily reliant on its users, so a
couple of things I was surprised to
be unable to readily find on the site
were shareable widgets and the
promotion of mobile access to the
JamBase site. Both of these aspects
of JamBase are functions you’ll find
rather central to other services’
for keeping track of personal
finances and staying on budget.
FreshBooks’ new Expense Tracking
could be used for tracking personal
finances as well. Expense Tracking
will be available as one of the core
functionalities of FreshBooks at no
extra charge, and also looks like it
will be fairly integrated with
Freshbooks’ other features, like
invoicing.
As an invoicing and time-tracking
service, it only makes sense for
FreshBooks to continue to expand
its offerings, especially in more
automated ways. It’s increasingly
important as others, like Shoeboxed
and Iterasi, enter the space for
automated processes in dealing with
personal and business-related
financing tools.
ShareThis
ability to leverage user bases for
virality and even membership, so I
imagine a concerted focus on getting
these features into the hands of its
users could only help JamBase’s
current growth as a resource for
music fans.
ShareThis
Your Click and Print Newspaper
Microsoft to Track FT’s $3,300 Per Year
Engagement in Online Social Network Fails
Advertising At Firefox
By Adam Ostrow (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 7:20:37 AM
Microsoft has announced
“Engagement Mapping,” a new way
to track online advertising that takes
into account all user actions before
they eventually make an online
purchase. Essentially, this means a
lot more data than is currently
available in most online ad
platforms – including Google
AdWords – where the reporting
primarily consists of which ad was
clicked and what percentage of those
clicks lead to a sale.
According to Brian McAndrews,
Microsoft’s Senior VP of
Advertising & Publisher Solutions,
the new measurement service,
“conveys how each ad exposure —
whether display, rich media or
search, seen multiple times on
multiple sites and across many
channels — influenced an eventual
purchase.”
Simplifying it further, this means
that if a user sees an ad for Expedia
as a banner, a text ad, and a video
over the course of several weeks and
then purchases a plane ticket,
Expedia will know (provided they
Shopping.com Executive Josh Silverman Moves to
Skype as New CEO
By Kristen Nicole (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 8:54:17 AM
eBay may be reeling from its seller’s
strike, but Skype is doing the
executive office shuffle. Last
October, Skype co-founder Niklas
Zennstrom resigned from his
position as CEO, leaving Michael
van Swaaij to take his place as
interim CEO.
At the time, eBay and Skype were
are using Microsoft of course).
Thus, while you may not know
exactly what made a user choose
Expedia over Travelocity, you can
see patterns in terms of which ads
eventually lead to purchases.
With banner ads recently receiving
criticism for poor performance in
terms of the quality of click-thrus,
an engagement metric can help the
ad networks make the argument that
display ads are at least getting a
strong branding message across.
VideoEgg made a similar
announcement last week,
introducing a pay-for-engagement
model to video advertising.
Engagement Mapping is set to be
tested by a number of Microsoft’s
major advertisers including Citi
Cards, Monster Worldwide, and
Sprint, starting March 1st. Microsoft
is providing more details on the
platform at the Interactive
Advertising Bureau’s Annual
Meeting in Phoenix today.
ShareThis
caught up in a flurry of speculation
and disappointment concerning the
high price eBay paid for the Skype
acquisition, and still dealing with a
series of Skype outages.
Zennstrom’s departure only made
matters worse, especially given the
timing, which seemed rather
premature as Skype had yet to be
integrated into eBay’s online
properties.
Now that we’ve all shifted focus to
By Stan Schroeder
(Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:20:12 AM
If you think LinkedIn is for kids and
Facebook is for grandkids, perhaps
you should consider Financial
Times’ new social network, aimed at
top level execs who can afford 1700
pounds (3,340 dollars) per year,
because that’s how much (at the
very least) membership costs.
The details about the network itself
are sparse; it’s being described as a
forum with a ‘user-friendly, simple,
efficient and secure system’ for
online networking. I’m guessing that
the high price point will mostly
relate to the exclusivity of the club
and much less to the actual technical
and other accomplishments offered
within the network (see bottom of
this article for proof). However, it’s
partially redeemed with the fact that
membership in the forum includes
free attendance to one of Financial
Times‘ Global Conferences and
Events, as well as a 20% discount on
the eBay strike and the company’s
ongoing efforts to win back the
affection of its buyers and sellers,
you may not care that Skype has
found a new CEO for the VoIP
other events in the series, as well as
12-month subscription to the
newspaper itself. Not bad, but 3,3k
bucks? Ouch.
This particular forum is aimed at
professionals in the digital, new
media, mobile and telecoms sectors,
but Financial Times plans to launch
several more exclusive forums later
this year, aimed at execs who deal
with luxury goods and property.
The actual site, located at
www.ftexecutiveforums.com, is
completely garbled in Firefox. Thus,
it’s obvious that $3,300 can’t even
buy you basic browser
compatibility. I’ll stick with
LinkedIn, thank you.
Don’t Firefox me, bro!
ShareThis
service, but it’s worth noting
anyway. Josh Silverman, the current
CEO of eBay-owned Shopping.com,
is making an internal switch to the
Skype office as its new CEO,
starting March 24, 2008. Michael
van Swaaij will remain involved
with Skype, though his position has
not been disclosed.
ShareThis
Massive Online Ad
Network Funding: $80M+
for Adconion and Glam
By Adam Ostrow (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 6:39:52 AM
Adconion Media Group has received
a massive $80 million in Series C
funding for its online advertising
network. The funding round was led
by Index Ventures with participation
from Wellington Partners. The
company is touting the news as
“largest purely VC raise in history.”
Adconion is based in London and is
most prominent internationally.
According to stats the company
publishes on its homepage, they
serve approximately 290 million ad
impressions per day, only about 50
million of which are in the US.
Separately, Glam Media, the woman
-focused media company and ad
network announced that it has raised
a total of $84.6 million ($64.6
million Series D, $20 million debt
financing). The funding was lead by
Virgin America Ticket Raffle -
Two Winners Announced
By Adam Hirsch (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 6:00:07 AM
The Virgin America Ticket Raffle
contest is officially over. Thank you
to everyone who entered. There
were a total of 88 “countable”
comments and thanks to my trusty
random integer generator, we have
the winners of the two roundtrip
flights (* see previous post for
contest rules and details): Tom
Kephart’s win a ticket in the random
Social Net * 13
media company Hubert Burda
Media, with participation from GLG
Partners, DAG, Accel Partners,
Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Walden
Ventures, and Information Capital.
Last year, we saw just about every
major ad network get snapped up by
the major Internet companies;
DoubleClick to Google, aQuantive
to Microsoft, RightMedia to Yahoo,
and several others in the multi-
hundred millions of dollars. It’s
clear that VCs are confident the
trend will continue, and as such, are
investing heavily in the next
generation of ad networks.
ShareThis
comment selection, while Amanda
Barret wins one by way of Tom
leaving “#17,” which referenced
Amanda’s number on our MashMeet
NYC REMIX attendee list.
Congratulations to the both of you,
and once again thank you to
everyone who commented. There
are two more Virgin America
Roundtrip tickets that will be raffled
live at MashMeet DC REMIX on
March 5th (tickets are now on sale).
ShareThis
14 Social Net * TV *
Students: Code Open Source for
Google this Summer
By Adam Ostrow (Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 8:34:19 AM
Google has announced the launch of
its “Summer of Code” program, the
third year of the company’s
initiative to fund student’s open
source projects. Google pays
students a stipend for their work,
and connects them with top open
source organizations including Dojo
and Ubuntu.
To apply, you need to submit a
project proposal to Google, ideally
Gmail Chat Adds Invisible Mode
By Stan Schroeder
(Mashable!)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 5:37:29 AM
Gmail Chat has had a tiny upgrade
over the weekend: you can now set
your status to invisible, which is
useful when that dude you used to
work with keeps on sending you
photos of his new car.
One would expect the same option
to appear in Google Talk, but
unfortunately it doesn’t, because
Some big actor-to-character age differences on TV
By Keith McDuffee (TV
Squad)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 5:03:00 AM
Filed under: Other Drama Shows,
Other Comedy Shows, Celebrities,
Retro Squad, TV Squad ListsHow
good are you at spotting someone's
true age? There's been a few times
I've caught myself wondering how
old that actor really is on TV, when
they're playing someone my age and
relating to one of the 130+ open
source projects participating in the
program. Student applications are
being accepted March 24-31, while
the actual program runs from May
26 through August 18.
More details are available on the
Google Summer of Code site.
ShareThis
GTalk doesn’t support it yet. Add to
that the fact that this feature works
only in the latest version of Gmail,
and the stage for mass confusion is
set.
ShareThis
look ten years older. Do I really look
that good? Then again, I've seen the
opposite and thought, "damn, I am
an old decrepit fart." In any case, I'll
pull up IMDb and usually find
myself in shock of how young/old
the actor on-screen really is.
The whole actor-to-character age
ratio thing got me curious, so I did a
little research (with the help of some
of the TV Squad team) and made a
Giveaway Monday:
Highlander: The Source
By Keith McDuffee (TV
Squad)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 1:01:00 AM
Filed under: TV on DVD, Contests
and GiveawaysThis time we've got
five copies of Highlander: The
Source on DVD for five lucky,
random commenters. Two of those
winners will also receive a "mini-
sword" (I'm told fans of the series
will know what the swords are, and
that they are a big collector's item
and are similar to this). The DVD is
available in stores on February 26.
To enter, simply leave a comment
below before 5:00PM Eastern,
Friday, February 29, simply telling
us why you'd like to own the DVD.
As always, we'll randomly choose
seven winners amongst the eligible
entries. Some other details:
• To enter, leave a confirmed
comment below stating why you'd
like to own Highlander: The Source
on DVD.
• The comment must be left before
February 29, 2008 at 5:00PM
Eastern Time.
• You may enter only once.
• Five winners will be selected in a
random drawing.
list of some of the more extreme and
well-known (or, maybe to some, not
• Five winners will receive a copy
of Highlander: The Source on DVD
(valued at $26.99). Two of those
winners will also receive a "mini-
sword" based on the series (valued
at about $20).
Click here for complete Official
Rules.
Permalink | Email this | | Comments
-so-well-known) examples. By the
way, we didn't include actors who
played flashback scenes of their
characters for short periods of time,
as there are more of those than we
have room for.
%Gallery-16852%
Continue reading Some big actor-to-
character age differences on TV
Permalink | Email this | | Comments
Your Click and Print Newspaper
Big Brother 9: Live feeds
report - Feb. 24
By Jackie Schnoop (TV
Squad)
Submitted at 2/24/2008 3:00:00 PM
Filed under: OpEd, Big Brother
(US)Even though some big fancy
party is going on in Hollywood
tonight, life goes on in the Big
Brother 9 house. There might be no
red carpet with stunning gowns
worn by starlets, but there are
bikinis! Still intent on playing the
sex card, today was the Bikini Day
for the women.
Nah, I don't consider that a spoiler There are new images added to the
because anyone watching the show gallery below, no real spoilers. For
this past Thursday knew that one show spoilers, read on past the
day the women would all have to jump.
wear them. My personal question is
what day will all the men have to %Gallery-16734%
wear Speedos? Continue reading Big Brother 9:
Live feeds report - Feb. 24
Well, now that I think about it...I'm
not sure I want to see Adam or Ryan Permalink | Email this | | Comments
in a Speedo.
Big Brother 9: Nominations #2
By Kristin Sample (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 12:31:00 AM
Filed under: OpEd, Big Brother
(US), Episode Reviews(S09E06)
"Cups are a very essential part of
life, ya know. We use 'em for
drinkin' and what not." --Matt on
Big Brother taking away all the
drinking cups in the house after last
week's HOH competition
Do you see how much vital
information you can learn from
CBS's Big Brother 9? Did you know
about the power of the drinking cup
before this? I didn't. The cup and his
brethren, the glass, have taken on a of last night's Big Brother 9 is after
the jump.
whole new meaning for me. Matt,
you have officially rocked my
world. Matt also told us to never %Gallery-16795%
trust anyone with pink hair. Wonder Continue reading Big Brother 9:
who he's referring to? Nominations #2
More of Matt's nuggets and a recap Permalink | Email this | | Comments
Your Click and Print Newspaper
The Wire: Clarifications
By Jonathan Toomey (TV
Squad)
Submitted at 2/24/2008 2:03:00 PM
Filed under: OpEd, The Wire,
Episode Reviews
(S05E08) "A lie ain't a side of a
story. It's just a lie." - Terry Hanning
Rest in peace Omar Little. Wow.
Honestly, that's all I really want to
talk about. So let's get everything
else out of the way first. I'll come
back to Omar. Where to start then?
How about my weekly rant on Scott
Templeton? When I first saw that
quote at the head of the episode, I
In Treatment: Week Four
By Paul Goebel (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 1:24:00 AM
Filed under: Other Drama Shows,
Episode Reviews
(S01E16-20) "Fuck all of you and
the fish you swam in on." - Sophie
Laura
So it seems pretty obvious that Paul
is jealous. What's worse is that
Laura is so painfully aware of Paul's
jealousy. The power has so clearly
shifted in their relationship that it
seems to be verging on malpractice.
You gotta love how Paul can be so
detached when Laura is in tears
begging him to have sex with her
but when she is describing her
was wondering who the hell Terry
Hanning was. I figured he must hold
some weight if his quote was the
one selected to grace the episode
though. Then we saw him. The
military vet that Scott "interviewed"
under the bridge the day he went
slumming with the homeless. I've
been waiting all season for a
moment like this.
%Gallery-13453%
Continue reading The Wire:
Clarifications
Read | Permalink | Email this | |
Comments
sexual encounter with another man,
the scowl on his face is severe
enough to cut glass. He clearly
needs a vacation.
Continue reading In Treatment:
Week Four
Permalink | Email this | | Comments
Breaking Bad: Gray Matter
By Jason Hughes (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 2:41:00 AM
Filed under: Episode Reviews,
Breaking Bad
(S01E05) This episode served as a
bridge in our larger story to the next
chapter of both Jesse and Walt's
lives. In the previous installment,
Walt withdrew from the sordid
world of drug trafficking and
focused on his family, revealing his
cancer and looking at the varying
Some X-Files movie sequel hints - VIDEO
By Isabelle Carreau (TV
Squad)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 2:23:00 AM
Filed under: Other Sci-
Fi/Supernatural Shows, TV on the
Bigscreen, VideoCan you hear the
eerie music becoming louder and
louder? That's the sound of the X-
Files movie being one step closer to
being released on the big screens
Stump the King - Seinfeld
By Paul Goebel (TV Squad)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 12:00:00 AM
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows,
Ask TV Squad
Just last night, a fan named Kevin
options available to him.
Meanwhile, his erstwhile partner
Jesse had a bad drug reaction and
sought refuge in the home of his
parents, which didn't turn out as well
as he had hoped. Here they both
continued their efforts to move on
with their lives, to varying degrees
of failure.
Continue reading Breaking Bad:
Gray Matter
Permalink | Email this | | Comments
this summer (more than likely on
July 25)! Being an X-Files and a
spoilers fan, I jumped up and down
sent me this query...
"What actor/actress has received the
most money for a sitcom
syndication deal?"
Well, the short answer is Jerry
Seinfeld. The long answer has all
TV * 15
More Lipstick for NBC
By Isabelle Carreau (TV based on the book of the same name
Squad) written by SatC author Candace
Bushnell, is winning its timeslot
Submitted at 2/25/2008 1:40:00 AM
among women of the 18-49 and 18-
Filed under: Pickups and Renewals, 34 categories.
Lipstick Jungle
NBC's Sex and the City-like %Gallery-15649%
fashionable show Lipstick Jungle
received an order of six extra Continue reading More Lipstick for
episodes. This means that the series NBC
will get a first season of 13 episodes.
TV Guide reveals that the series,
Permalink | Email this | | Comments
a few times while humming the
show's theme this morning when I
stumbled on a SCI FI Wire article
that offered just what I was looking
for: spoilers about the upcoming X-
Files movie!
Continue reading Some X-Files
movie sequel hints - VIDEO
Permalink | Email this | | Comments
Continue reading Stump the King -
Seinfeld
Permalink | Email this | | Comments
the details.
16 Movies Your Click and Print Newspaper

Damon and Greengrass to Return Live Blogging the Oscars -- The

for 'Bourne 4'
By Jessica Barnes
(Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 2:32:00 AM
Filed under: Action, Thrillers,
Casting, Deals, Universal, Remakes
and SequelsFrankly I'm amazed that
the announcement for a fourth
Bourne movie wouldn't get a little
more fanfare than buried half way
down an article. In a press release in
Variety, Universal announced that
Matt Damon and director Paul
Greengrass will be returning for a
new installment of the Bourne
franchise. Originally, when the two
were peppered with questions about
a fourth film, they had the stock
answer that Damon would only
reprise his role if Greengrass
returned to direct, and Greengrass
would only return to direct if Damon
was willing to star. Confused? Don't
be, it was basically the PR
equivalent of keeping the idea of a
film on the back-burner without
promising anything too specific.
Universal released the info in a
release about their upcoming slate of
films, and according to them both
Damon and Greengrass are
definitely returning to work together
on the spy franchise. There are two
books left in the Bourne series, so at
least there would be some source
material to start with. The two are
currently working on the Iraq drama,
The Green Zone, and Damon has
already signed to star in The
Informant for Steven Soderberg and
is also in talks to star in The Human
Factor for Clint Eastwood.
Greengrass is also going to be busy
with his upcoming Vietnam drama,
They Marched into Sunlight. So it
could be as late as 2010, before the
two can even get started on making
another Bourne flick, let alone get
one into the theaters. However, with
Bourne Ultimatum taking home
three Oscars last night (three!), I
imagine the fourth flick might be
made a priority. For Universal's
sake, I hope this one is a done deal. I
can't help but think how
embarrassing it must have been for
MGM's Harry Sloan when his studio
got a little overzealous about a
certain spy franchise.
[via Empire]
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Final Stretch
By Kim Voynar (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/24/2008 2:47:00 PM
Filed under: Awards, Oscar Watch
Click here for the 2008 Academy
Award Winners, updated in real
time, and highlighted in bold.
Cinematical's Erik Davis, Scott
Weinberg and Kim Voynar are live
blogging the Oscars! Kim's up next
with the conclusion of the 2008
Academy Awards ...
That's a wrap, folks. Thanks for
spending Oscar night with us!
11:45PM Thank God, it's almost
done. Denzel Washington, looking
smoking hot, is presenting. And the
big winner is ... no surprise! No
Country for Old Men is sweeping it
up tonight. Good for them.
WINNER BEST PICTURE: No
Country for Old Men
11:40PM Coming up, Best Director.
I'm still betting on the Coens to take
this one. Scott calls it for Paul
Thomas Anderson, but at least he's
not threatening to kick any cats if
PTA doesn't win. Scott ate BBQ
with PTA once. I'm jealous. Don't
you just love Martin Scorsese's
voice? And ... the Coens win it! I bet
No Country takes Best Picture too.
WINNER BEST DIRECTOR:
Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, No
Country for Old Men
11:32PM Time for Best Actor.
Helen Mirren even makes presenting
an Oscar look good. I'm still betting
Daniel Day-Lewis, so is Weinberg.
And we're ... so right. Daniel Day-
Lewis. And he so deserves it. ...
WINNER BEST ACTOR: Daniel
day-Lewis, There Will be Blood
11:27PM So, the Coens win
screenplay for No Country, Cody for
Juno. Who's gonna take Best
Picture? My money is still on No
Country for that one, but we'll see if
there's an upset.
Gallery: On the Red Carpet at the
Academy Awards
Continue reading Live Blogging the
Oscars -- The Final
StretchPermalink | Email this |
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DISCUSS: Oscar Results! What Do You Think? Could Smallville's Lex

By Kim Voynar (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/24/2008 4:01:00 PM
overall.

What do you think about this year's

Depp and George Clooney both
looked hot, and so did Denzel
Washington. And Glen Hansard ...
Luthor Be the New
Filed under: Awards, Oscar Watch

Well, the Oscars are a wrap. You

can see all the winners right over
here.
Cinematical staff did pretty well
with our predictions, and so did our
readers. You guys picked the
winners for Best Picture, Best
Director, Best Supporting Actor,
Best Actor, Best Original
Screenplay, and Best Adapated
Screenplay -- the same categories
we got right. We missed Best Doc
and both actress categories. Not bad
Oscars? Did you think Jon Stewart
did a good job with the hosting?
Aside from the part where he kind
of disappeared for the last hour, but
I guess they usually do that towards
the end when everyone wants to
wrap it up already and get to the
parties. What were the big surprises
of the night? Any huge
disappointments? (Go ahead, anti
Diablo Cody contingent. You can
say it.)
Oh, and who looked awesome, and
who didn't? I thought Marion
Cotillard, Helen Mirren, Jennifer
Garner and Anne Hathaway had the
best looks of the night among the
ladies. On the guy's side, Johnny
yeah, he was adorable too. I'm just
saying.
Time for your thoughts on
Hollywood's big night -- discuss
away!
Gallery: On the Red Carpet at the
Academy AwardsPermalink | Email
this | Comments
Freddy Krueger?
By Monika Bartyzel
(Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:40:00 AM
Filed under: Comedy, Horror,
Casting, RumorMonger, Remakes
and SequelsWhen an established
character or film is finding new life
in a remake, I find it very, very rare
that I'm ever agreeable, let alone
impressed, with who the casting
honchos come up with. The last time
I oohed, it was over Christian Bale
in Batman Begins -- because my
friend and I had spent one long car
ride casting every superhero with counterpart, and Bale was our Dark
their perfect actor/actress
COULD page 17
Your Click and Print Newspaper
Indie Weekend Box Monday Morning Poll:
Office: Oscar Winner 'The Oscar's Biggest Upset?
Counterfeiters' is No. 1
By Peter Martin (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 1:02:00 AM
Filed under: Comedy, Drama,
Foreign Language, IFC, Sony
Classics, Warner Brothers, Box
Office, Focus Features, Fox
Searchlight, Miramax, Cinematical
Indie, Paramount VantageAnalyzing
the weekend box office returns,
Leonard Klady of Movie City News
saw "no great Oscar box office
surge," though No Country for Old
Men enjoyed an upward swing;
based on his estimates, Best Foreign
-Language Film Oscar winner The
Counterfeiters(Sony Pictures
Classics) topped the indie charts.
Hailing from Austria, The
Counterfeiters tells "one of the most
interesting stories to come out of
World War II," wrote Christopher
Campbell, though he felt it was "not
quite a great film." The
Counterfeiters averaged $12,330 per
-screen at the seven locations where
it played.
French master Jacques Rivette's
latest, The Duchess of Langeais(IFC
Films) struck Ryan Stewart as
Oscars in Rewind: Falling Slowly Provides Best
Oscar Moment
By Erik Davis (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 5:05:00 AM
Filed under: Awards, Oscar Watch,
Trailers and Clips
A lot of people will be talking about
Marion Cotillard today, whose teary
-eyed acceptance speech was just
beyond cute. But I feel the night's
greatest moment came in two parts -
similar to La Vie en Rose "in that it
works just well enough to support a
dynamic performance but contains
too many structural oddities, fights
too many directorial idiosyncracies
and stifles its own momentum too
much to succeed on the whole."
Rivette's fans came out at both
theaters where it opened, averaging
$11,250 per screen, according to
Box Office Mojo.
Continue reading Indie Weekend
Box Office: Oscar Winner 'The
Counterfeiters' is No. 1Permalink |
Email this | Comments
- first when Glen Hansard and
Marketa Irglova performed Falling
Slowly (from the movie Once) on
stage, and then when both accepted
the Oscar for best song. In a very
cool moment, Irglova was cut off at
the mic before she could thank
anyone, and so after the commercial
break Jon Stewart brought her back
on stage to finish what she was
about to say.
Talk about two kids who deserved a
By Erik Davis (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 3:02:00 AM
Filed under: Awards, Fandom,
Oscar Watch, Monday Morning Poll
I have such a huge Oscars hangover
this morning. Did anyone theme it
for the night? I cooked some mean-
ass burgers in honor of Juno, then
attempted to make a few milkshakes
(in honor of There Will be Blood)
before realizing I had no ice cream.
Anyone get nutty and make
Ratatouille? Anyway, when it comes
to the day after the Oscars, talk
usually surrounds the big surprises.
What were the shockers? Personally,
I totally thought Transformers
would walk away with at least one
Oscar for special effects or sound,
and Marion Cotillard winning best
actress came somewhat as a
surprise. I mean, a French actress
winning best actress for a foreign
language film that practically NO
ONE saw?
And Tilda Swinton? Really? Do
cracked-out single mothers not mean
anything to the Academy voters?
Amy Ryan definitely should've won
in that category. Other surprises --
who the hell let Gary Busey onto the
red carpet? Did you see him lick
Jennifer Garner's neck? Poor girl.
break. This song, from a film that
was made for roughly $100,000,
beat out Disney and their -- what? --
13 Enchanted nominations. Was it
me, or did each of those Enchanted
songs sound exactly the same? This
time, however, the Oscar went to the
little guy (and girl). You could
totally tell that there was a ton of
love behind that song -- and even
though it was obvious Hansard and
Irglova were nervous at the
Unfortunately, her husband was
f**king Jimmy Kimmel at the time
and couldn't be there to rescue her.
But anyway, last night's biggest
upset? In your opinion, who was it?
(And is it okay to say that my new
crush is Marion Cotillard. Holy crap
did she look fantastic!)
View PollPermalink | Email this |
Comments
beginning, they finished it off in
spectacular fashion. Above, check
out their performance at the Oscars,
then head after the jump to see both
acceptance speeches.
Continue reading Oscars in Rewind:
Falling Slowly Provides Best Oscar
MomentPermalink | Email this |
Comments
VIDEO: Jimmy Kimmel
is F**king Ben Affleck!
By Erik Davis (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 2:02:00 AM
Filed under: Fandom, Home
Entertainment, Trailers and Clips
I crashed pretty much right after the
Oscars last night, but I convinced
my wife to leave the TV on in bed in
order to watch a little of whatever
Jimmy Kimmel was going to do for
his post-Oscars show. And, to my
delight, he chose the time to seek his
revenge on girlfriend Sarah
Silverman and her "I'm f**king Matt
Damon" music video. Oh yes,
Kimmel took his video -- "I'm
f**king Ben Affleck" -- to the next
level. Not only did it open with a
Brad Pitt cameo, but by the time it
was over, a group of people were
COULD
continued from page 16
Knight pick. But this time, I didn't
come up with the replacement, and
while it's just a very vague rumor, I
wouldn't mind it being fact.
A Cinema Blend source says that
Michael Rosenbaum has been
lunching with Michael Bay. The
assumption: this could mean that
he's talking with the director about
the upcoming Nightmare on Elm
Streetremake. It's a huge guess, but
it's one I'd be quite happy with. Oh
yeah, and Rosenbaum is the baldie
Lex Luthor in Smallville.
While I don't watch the show, I can
completely see the actor take over
Movies 17
singing in a "We are the World"
format; folks like Don Cheadle,
Huey Lewis, Robin Williams, Joan
Jett, McLovin', Lance Bass ... and
Harrison Ford. Yes! Harrison
friggin' Ford driving a car with a
bumper stick that read, "Honk if
you're f**king Ben Affleck." I don't
know how in the world they
convinced Mr. Serious to appear in
this thing, but nevertheless the entire
thing was a riot.
Check out the video above. And in
case you missed the
Silverman/Damon video that started
this whole thing, you can view it
after the jump. Enjoy.
Continue reading VIDEO: Jimmy
Kimmel is F**king Ben
Affleck!Permalink | Email this |
Comments
Robert Englund's shoes -- and this is
coming from someone who adores
the series -- ever since I found my
kid self at a Just the Ten of Us
taping with a whole slew of
Nightmare cast members. I loved the
humor mashed in with creepiness
and some absolutely ridiculous
deaths -- like Brooke Theiss' demise
by bug.
I think Rosenbaum could make it
work, but what do you think?Read |
Permalink | Email this | Comments
18 Movies Your Click and Print Newspaper

Discuss: Why was Brad

Renfro Excluded from the
In Memorium at the Oscars?
By Kim Voynar (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 3:32:00 AM

Filed under: Awards, Celebrities and

Controversy, Obits, Oscar
WatchLast night, as per every year
at the Oscars, they take a brief break
from all the self-congratulatory back
-patting to acknowledge the deaths
in the movie industry over the
preceding year. As several of our
readers (and Scott Weinberg, who
was going ballastic on IM about it)
noted, Brad Renfro, who died of a
drug overdose on January 15 of this
year, was mysteriously excluded.
The troubled actor, best known for 2008. Heath Ledger, who died a
his work in The Client, Apt Pupil, week after Renfro, was included in
and Bully, had been known to have
a drug problem for years, and had a
drunk driving and heroin-possession
the montage. No word from the
Academy that I've seen yet on why EXCLUSIVE: Images from
Renfro wasn't included -- an honest
arrest in May 2006, but was
supposedly "working hard on his
oversight? A deliberate sweeping-
under-the-red-carpet because heroin
Martin Scorsese's 'Shine a
sobriety" at the time of his death.

The In Memorium was supposed to

be for everyone who died between
February 1, 2007 and January 31,
was involved? What do you think
about Renfro being shut out of
Oscar's "In Memorium"?Permalink |
Email this | Comments
Light'
By Erik Davis (Cinematical)
Submitted at 2/25/2008 4:02:00 AM
Filed under: Documentary, Music &
Musicals, Fandom, Movie
Marketing, Images
Cinematical has just received these
exclusive photos from Martin
Scorsese's upcoming Rolling Stones
documentary, Shine a Light. The
film, which premiered at this year's
Berlin Film Festival to rave reviews
and is due out in theaters on April 4,
provides extensive coverage of the
band's two-night engagement at
New York's historic Beacon
Theater. Additionally, the doc also
features historical footage,
interviews and behind-the-scenes
footage from decades past. Shine a
Light marks Scorsese's third musical
-themed documentary, after he
previously covered the Band and
Bob Dylan in The Last Waltz and
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan,
respectively. Next up, apparently
Marty will be filming a
documentary on the life and times of
Bob Marley.
A Rolling Stones show directed by
Martin Scorsese? I'm there. You?
Check out the gallery below for
more images from the film. Shine a
Light hits theaters on April 4.
Gallery: Martin Scorsese's Shine a
LightPermalink | Email this |
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