YHOO
Telecom, Meet Web 2.0
Google (GOOG) appears to be buying GrandCentral, a company that merges VoIP and advanced calling features. They provide you with a single phone number and web/mobile interfaces to manage call redirection, voicemail, address books, etc. Think of it as VoIP on steroids and EPO, simultaneously. Click over to their Features page for a better description and familiarize yourself with how outdated a plain landline has become.
Net Neutrality War Heating Up
It’s pretty clear that the AT&T (T ) and Bellsouth (BLS) merger has turned into a proxy war over Net Neutrality, with Yahoo (YHOO) and Google (GOOG) spearheading the effort in a naked attempt to keep their distribution costs near zero. Correspondingly, Washington bloodsuckers lobbyists on both sides are gearing up.
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Akamai Alpha No More
Akamai (AKAM) was an exception in my portfolio. I typically avoid high P/E high market cap companies, but Akamai had a unique and dominant position in the marketplace that I felt people overlooked. But I’ve synthetically hedged out Akamai holdings since September 22.
Yahoo Music To (NOT) Be Shut Down
Based on dialogue I’ve had with multiple Yahoo folks, it looks like their tech support was clueless, and they are trying to figure out why. Based on dialogue I had recently with Yahoo Tech Support, it looks like they are shutting down their subscription music service.
Yahoo vs. Google
There was an interesting column in the New York Times last week. The article outlines the different design approaches taken by Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO). It also provided quantitative values that reinforced a suspicion of mine.
Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 (Beta)
Installed it this weekend. Very nice. You can install it on your own Windows XP machine by downloading here. It can be uninstalled by using the Windows ‘rollback’ function. If you don’t know what that is, then don’t install this Beta!
I have not tried the URGE online music service, I am completely in-hock to Yahoo! and their music service- changing at this point would require that I identify and re-download all of the subscription tracks I currently own. Lucky for me, WMP11 plays all of the downloads from Yahoo.
Yahoo’s software interface is horrible – if the URGE service is as good as the player itself, Real Networks Rhapsody/Yahoo Music/Napster are in for some tough sledding.
I’m not going to make the “Apple iTunes is Dead” statement as the device has legions of committed users (I use the word ‘users’ in the same way a heroin addict would). But this player, combined with the new syncing infrastrucutre built into Vista will certainly stop the bleeding.
The Four Horsemen of Web 2.0
Cisco (CSCO), Oracle (ORCL), Sun (SUNW), and EMC (EMC) were the darlings of the internet boom and were referred to as the ‘Four Horsemen‘. Your broker was overheard in 2000 “Yes, things are in fact a bit irrational but these companies have real products, revenues, and earnings and are investment-grade leaders of the new economy.”
Your broker neglected to mention that the biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were steered by four riders – Conqueror, War, Famine and Death. I’ll leave it to my readers to pair them appropriately.
