This, the first of our regional blogs, is authored by the technology and financial journalist Dominic Basulto. Dominic is a New York native, has been a senior editor at Corante since day one and has written for a number of online and offline media companies. Send tips or story ideas to: basulto@gmail.com.
About this weblog
Here we'll report daily on the latest tech and business developments in New York City. Impossible we concede: comprehensive coverage of the city's every story. What we hope you'll find: tips, tidbits and perspectives you won't find elsewhere. As well as unique insights, original interviews and more that should be of interest to New York's vibrant community of technologists and those who track, invest in and report on them.
The New York Times gawks at the impending "duel for the dirt" between Gawker and FishBowlNY, the new media gossip blog launched by Media Bistro's Elizabeth Spiers (the co-founder of the original Gawker site). Given the snarky tone popularized by Miss Spiers and the possibility of bad blood between her and Gawker's Nick Denton, this should be an interesting fight to watch: "The rivalry falls squarely into the grand New York tradition of competing for the juiciest bits of gossip. This being the new millennium, the battle is being raged not in screaming tabloids but in cyberspace."
What's interesting, says the NY Times, is that the rumble in the gossip jungle may pull in a number of other indirect competitors, such as media trade publications, Romenesko, and "anybody who does media reporting." Susan Mernit, for example, thinks that media-centric blogs like Paid Content may be facing a possible competitor.
In one of its 10 predictions for 2005, Greenhouse Associates speculates that public libraries (e.g. New York Public Library) will emerge as content sales channels: "With more people working outside of large companies and with people in those companies generally getting less support from a formal information resource center, public libraries may become a key link between information services and end users. A number of major city libraries and state library consortia have cut deals to allow their patrons free access to premium databases... Importantly, these deals allow library patrons to access the databases from outside the walls of the libraries -- via the internet, with a library card number." (Hat tip: Paid Content)
In a New York Times Book Review essay, Steven Berlin Johnson takes a look at the array of new writing tools available to creative types looking for a little inspiration.
Johnson writes, "2005 may be the year when tools for thought become a reality for people who manipulate words for a living, thanks to the release of nearly a dozen new programs all aiming to do for your personal information what Google has done for the Internet. These programs all work in slightly different ways, but they share two remarkable properties: the ability to interpret the meaning of text documents; and the ability to filter through thousands of documents in the time it takes to have a sip of coffee. Put those two elements together and you have a tool that will have as significant an impact on the way writers work as the original word processors did."
Check out Johnson's blog -- there he has screen shots and more details of the DevonThink program mentioned in the Times article.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia is shutting down nearly all its money-losing online and catalog operations. If you were hoping to buy something online after Valentine's Day, forget about it: "A note on marthastewart.com's shopping home page announced the company's final sale and directed customers to look for Martha Stewart products elsewhere."
It's not all gloom and doom for Martha, though. She'll be getting out of jail soon. Plus, there's been talk that The Donald and Mark Burnett are planning a Martha guest appearance on the final episode of "The Apprentice" this spring -- and even speculation that Martha may get her own spin-off of "The Apprentice." Plus, she did make the cover of New York Magazine this week -- not bad for someone doin' time at Camp Cupcake.
In his "The Numbers Guy" column, Carl Bialik of the Wall Street Journal takes a critical look at a recent study showing that taxi passengers have lost tens of thousands of cellphones, PDAs and laptop computers over the past six months. "Too much precision in a statistic is a good signal to dig deeper into the methodology and the origin," writes Bialik. "In this case, both are dubious." Most damagingly, the survey was funded by Pointsec Mobile Technologies, which claims to protect data on mobile devices in the event they are lost or stolen. In addition, the study relied on extraordinarily small, non-random samples of taxi drivers.
Ouch. Christopher Byron is calling Dow Jones & Co. "Dumb Jones & Co." for its bungled $519 million acquisition of CBS MarketWatch. "Just as Time Warner's ill-fated merger with America Online in January of 2000 marked the boom-ending high-water point of the dot.com era," Byron writes, "So too may Dow Jones's takeover of MarketWatch come in time to be remembered as a similar accomplishment."
Thanks to a new 5% city tax concession, the NYC film industry could be headed for a mini-boom in 2005, according to Crain's New York. The city tax concession, combined with a state tax credit granted last fall, means that New York is now competitive with places in Europe and Canada -- with the result that new films will be calling New York City home soon. Two major feature films --The Producers and The Departed (a Martin Scorsese movie) -- have already signed on to begin production soon.
The proposed merger between SBC and AT&T could lead to a bout of deal-making involving competitors such as Verizon, says the New York Times: "The reunion of two players in the old Bell system could set off another round of mergers in the rapidly consolidating phone industry." The time to act is now for Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg: "A merger of the two companies would pose a threat to Verizon, the largest local phone company... A merger of AT&T and SBC would create the nation's largest phone company and Verizon would be left hobbled, without a significant position in the business services market."
A Manhattan federal judge dismissed a civil racketeering lawsuit against Internet cigarette dealers, in which the city charged that New York lost millions in tax dollars as the result of online cigarette sales. A clear victory for Internet cigarette sellers and a setback for the city, right? Not so fast. Both sides, in fact, are claiming victory. Since the judge also gave the city 45 days to refile an amended lawsuit to address technical issues in the suit, the city's top lawyers are claiming "complete victory." Actually, after reading mixed analyses of the case in Newsday, CNET News.com and the New York Daily News, only one fact is really clear: it's always the lawyers who win.
Speculation continues to build that the New York Stock Exchange could be preparing for an IPO. According to the New York Post, seat owners at the exchange are pushing CEO John Thain to move more quickly from a not-for-profit status to a for-profit status. At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, though, Thain hedged his bets, only noting that the NYSE "may consider an IPO." Talk about an IPO for the Big Board has been around since at least 1999, when Slate wrote that "investors are salivating for a piece of the New York Stock Exchange."
Amazon.com's A9 subsidiary plans to offer a local search service that can display photos of neighborhood businesses - a total of 20 million building photos in 10 major United States cities (including New York, of course). Before launching the new service, A9 sent out an SUV equipped with a digital video camera to Manhattan, where "a driver spent more than a week cruising down streets, capturing images and cataloging the location of each business using a global positioning system receiver." A9 calls the process "bringing the Yellow Pages to life."
Joyce Wycoff of ThinkSmart is looking for a new phrase to replace the irksome cliche "Think Outside the Box" once and for all... (Hat tip: Fast Company)
There has to be a better phrase, but some of the new suggestions at Survey Monkey are, quite frankly, not that inspiring: "Crack the egg"? "Bounce the coin"? "Spark the gap"?
Ever had the feeling that you could somehow control the New York City subway system better than the MTA, if given half a chance? Well, NXSYS is a subway simulator that "recreates for you the experience of controlling switches, signals, and trains in the New York City Subway system. Rather than conventional menus and toolbars, NXSYS presents to you the exact same user interface as so-called "Entrance-Exit" "pushbutton interlockings" present to New York City subway towerpersons, except that instead of pressing buttons with your finger, you click with the mouse. And instead of commanding real trains full of people, NXSYS simulates them cybernetically..."
It's a cool idea -- but also a bit spooky, if you think about all the shady characters in the world who appear to bear some kind of grudge against New Yorkers (we won't name names, but they know who they are). Hat tip: NewYorkology.
Om Malik on the rumored merger between Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio: "It should not come as a surprise as both companies despite all the buzz (ala TiVo and Treo) are sucking wind, and losing money. Once together, they can stop spending marketing dollars bitch-slapping each other and instead focus on getting more customers away from terrestrial radio networks."
Sirius Satellite Radio's Mel Karmazin is gearing up to "hawk shock jock Howard Stern to advertisers," according to the New York Daily News. Karmazin has a reputation within media circles as a "hard-charging ad salesman," so it's perhaps no surprise that he's thinking hard about ways to increase ad sales at Sirius Satellite Radio. By the time that Howard Stern moves to Sirius in 2006, Karmazin hopes to have established relationships with a number of big-name advertisers, including Heineken, Snapple and Dial-A-Mattress.
The only problem, hints the New York Daily News, is that the move may backfire if it annoys subscribers who view satellite radio as an "ad-free zone." The company may not have any other choice, though -- in the most recently ended quarter, Sirius posted a net loss of $261 million.
Curbed offers a sneak peek at what the new Apple store in midtown Manhattan may look like, courtesy of Macklowe Properties. Earlier in the week, Apple had announced plans to open a second Manhattan Apple Store in the GM Building on Fifth Avenue (just steps from Central Park), which has set tongues a-wagging about a possible glass pyramid design.
New York State boasts 13 of the 40 Intel Talent Search competition winners, including six rising young stars from Long Island and four from the city. Some of the projects from these kids sound truly mind-boggling, like one high school senior from Long Island who's working on building a quantum computer and one girl from Brooklyn who's using genetic research to find a cure for cancer. While a number of high school principals across the metropolitan area are beaming with well-deserved pride, there may be one school that's not so happy with the results: Stuyvesant High School was shut out of the awards for the first time in 15 years.
Design blogs written by twenty- and thirty-something style mavens are starting to shake up the world of mainstream shelter and design publications, says Lockhart Steele (the new managing editor of Gawker Media) in a New York Times piece. It's a move that only makes sense: "Now that blogs, or Web journals, influence just about everything from politics to technology news, they are starting to transform the once clubby design community." Whether it's for advance word on new design trends, tips on how to find new products, or just chatter about decorators and tastemakers, more people are heading to blogs for the inside scoop.
Thanks to Mayor Bloomberg, Staten Island will soon be home to its own gifted-and-talent magnet school for science & tech, along the lines of Stuyvesant and Bronx Science. Currently, Staten Island is the only borough without a specialized magnet high school that can attract kids from all over the city. (Hat tip: Gothamist)
Wi-Fi hotspots are appearing in a number of towns located along the Hudson River -- but these hotspots are not always where you'd expect them. There's the library parking lot in Plattekill, for example, which has become a go-to spot for vacationers in RVs hoping for a quick Internet fix.
According to the organizer of the Wireless Woodstock project, the free Wi-Fi service "would be ideal for seasonal tourists hoping to pick up their e-mail and access the Web. Like having a cyber-guide at your fingertips... applications such as guided town tours and festival events [could] use wireless signals." In addition, Woodstock plans to roll out a higher-speed, paid service that will appeal to individual businesses in the commercial district. Total cost? A very reasonable $10,000.
Dan Gillmor wonders why more newspapers do not open up their archives to the public: "One of these days, a newspaper currently charging a premium for access to its article archives will do something bold: It will open the archives to the public -- free of charge but with keyword-based advertising at the margins. I predict that the result will pleasantly surprise the bean-counters. There'll be a huge increase in traffic at first, once people realize they can read their local history without paying a fee. Eventually, though not instantly, the revenues will greatly exceed what the paper had been earning under the old system. Meanwhile, the expenses to run it will drop..."
Gillmor compares the San Francisco Chronicle (which does not charge for access to its archives) to the San Jose Mercury News (which does), theorizing that newspapers that open up their archives will become authoritative voices within the community. Gillmor also notes that a recent Harvard conference on journalism and blogging found "a surprising consensus in favor of opening archives."
New York newspaper publishers, take note: Gillmor also publishes a five-step guide for publishers with a pay-per-view archive on how to make the changeover to free archives.
MemeFirst takes a critical view of Henry Blodget's decision to embrace the Chinese economic boom: "Disgraced Merrill tech analyst and reborn Slate hack Henry Blodget has launched a series about the "China gold rush" in which he admits he knows zilch about the place but with a few books and a junket to Beijing, he'll have it all sorted out in a jiffy... Blodget argues that China is the latest fad, on par with tulips, railroads and dot.com companies. Thanks, buddy, I never heard that one before. Reminds me of the story about how John Rockefeller (I think it was he) realized the market was going to crash when he overheard the shoeshine boys trading stock tips. So maybe Blodget has a point, even if he's his own harbinger of doom."
If that doesn't dissuade you from reading Blodget's new series of articles at Slate, check out his first piece on the "China Gold Rush": Go East, Young Man.
AdRants says that the branding campaigns of New Jersey-based Vonage and Massachusetts-based BroadVoice are disturbingly similar: "Maybe it's just us but we wonder if broadband phone company BroadVoice couldn't have made its ad campaign and website just a little bit closer to an exact replica of competitor Vonage's website. From typeface similarity to the use of International flags to the duplication of page layout, there's something strange going on here. Who knows. Maybe the two companies own each other but hat's for the financial media, not us, to worry about. For us, it's just wrong for two different brands to look so similar. It's confusing for the consumer."
There's one company moving into the broadband voice market that won't be confused with either Vonage or BroadVoice, though, and that's Google. As the Guardian (and other news sources) have pointed out, "Google is the latest dotcom business looking to increase its revenues by offering broadband internet users the ability to make cheap phone calls over the web."
The Web Services on Wall Street conference will take place on February 1-2 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City. Among the companies or organizations presenting: JP Morgan Chase, IBM, W3C, CSFB, Intel, Oasis and Computer Associates.
Engadget points to a study showing that, worldwide, taxi passengers have lost 200,000 cellphones, 31,000 PDAs and 11,000 laptops in just the past six months. Oh, and 37 milk bottles, a pair of dentures and an artificial limb or two... The good news is that four out of five mobile phones and 19 out of every 20 computers found their way back to their original owners. Cabbies may be rude and may not have the greatest command of the English language, but they're honest -- especially in New York. Just two weeks ago, a Long Island cabbie returned $13,000 that he found in the back seat of his cab.
It's still in the rumor stage, but it looks like Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio are discussing a merger of some kind. Unnamed sources claim that the hiring of former Viacom President Mel Karmazin by Sirius Satellite Radio is additional proof that Sirius is getting, well, serious, about a merger: "Mel is a roll-up guy, a deal guy." The satellite radio industry is currently an FCC-licensed duopoly, so a merger of equals would create a monopoly.
Engadget thinks any merger between Sirius and XM is at least 12 months away: "Doesn’t sound like things are too far along—it could take as long as a year before they put together a deal, and there are plenty of technical, antitrust, and FCC licensing issues that would have to be hammered out first—but given how small the overall market for satellite radio is (especially considering the infrastructure costs), some sort of merger or alliance like this might be inevitable (the big question is whether the Feds would ever allow it)."
It's official: New York City is developing the largest citywide mobile network in the U.S. According to Washington Technology, "New York next month will choose at least one contractor to test technologies as a first step toward building a citywide, mobile wireless communications network. The nine-year project would go far beyond the wireless pilot projects under way in most U.S. cities, creating the largest mobile wireless network at the municipal level in the nation."
It's sure to be controversial, however, with some analysts questioning whether "the Big Apple is doing the right thing by awarding a multiyear deal at a time when the technology is evolving at an extremely rapid pace." The total cost of the project is unknown, with estimates ranging from several hundred million dollars to more than $1 billion. (That figure seems absurdly high, though, considering that Philadelphia unveiled plans for a citywide Wi-Fi network in September at a cost closer to $10 million.)
Manhattan-based video games publisher Take-Two Interactive Software bought all of Sega's sports game development studio, Visual Concepts Entertainment, and its wholly owned Kush Games studio, for $24 million in cash. Take-Two will then turn around and launch a new game label, 2K Games. The story's already been Slashdotted, where readers weigh in on the consolidation of the sports games market. Greg Costikyan, too, has a nice piece on the strangulation of sports games.
Crain's New York reports that IBM will acquire California-based software management firm Corio for $182 million in cash as part of an attempt to expand its market reach to small- and mid-sized firms. InternetNews.com, for its part, views the move as another "on-demand" play for IBM.
Interestingly, the article hints indirectly that the Oracle-PeopleSoft deal may have tipped IBM's hand. IBM spokespersons, though, denied the possibility: "The timing of the acquisition, coming as it did after Oracle succeeded in its hostile takeover of rival enterprise application provider PeopleSoft, was coincidental... The deal was in the works long before Oracle took over PeopleSoft."
ClickZ reports that New York-based Quigo Technologies will launch Private Marketplace, a private-label version of its AdSonar system. The new offering will allow advertisers to buy contextually targeted text ads on individual sites. According to the CEO of Quigo, "Now the publishers get to control pricing, the types of advertising that go on the site, and those that don't."
It's an argument that a number of companies -- including USAToday.com and The Knot -- find compelling. In fact, Wayne Porter suggests that Quigo "seems to be targeting Google's Achilles' Heel - the control and pricing of inventory for larger properties."
After hinting that it might move its corporate HQ out of New York, it looks like Verizon Communications will be putting down permanent roots in Lower Manhattan. The company had put its midtown office up for sale, so it required a late intervention by Mayor Bloomberg (and, no doubt, a bag of economic goodies) to convince Verizon to stay. In fact, from the New York Times article, it sounds like Mayor Bloomberg sat down mano a mano with Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg and did a bit of arm-twisting. The bottom line: Verizon may move some back-office jobs out of the city, but there will be no net loss of jobs for New York.
The New York Post profiles Trips123.com, a new Web site from the New York State Department of Transportation that analyzes real-time information from 18 different area transit agencies (including the MTA) in order to create a personalized itinerary for each traveler. According to government officials, the site adjusts itineraries based on real-time information, including any emergencies or accidents that could result in service disruptions. Could be useful, if the MTA continues to experience freak accidents and random acts of arson.
Sometimes, the best way to explain a high-level concept is by using a richly detailed, easily understood story. For example, Jason Kottke explains how Craigslist is creating new cottage industries seemingly overnight with a simple story about 'a man with a van':
"I'd never really thought about it before, but in some ways, Craigslist helps lots of people build businesses cheaper and more effectively than more "robust", complex, and expensive enterprise software solutions. Movers are just one example. Craigslist can help you find employees for your business. If you've got a van, you can pick up free furniture and electronics around the city, fix or refurbish, and sell it. You can start a business doing computer troubleshooting, piano lessons, buying and fixing up old motorcycles, or escort and sensual massage services."
Suffolk County legislators will vote today on whether or not individual sex offenders must wear a high-tech GPS device (a bracelet the size of a large watch) that would enable law enforcement officials to "track their every movement." According to the New York Daily News, Suffolk County is at the forefront of using high technology for law enforcement purposes: "If the bill passes, Suffolk would be one of the first in the country where judges have the option to electronically monitor newly convicted Level 2 and 3 offenders - or previous offenders who find themselves in court again." Apparently, too many woodsmen have been moving into the neighborhood -- at last count, there were 832 woodsmen in Suffolk County.
Gothamist explains how the MTA was brought to its knees this weekend by a homeless man in the subway tunnels: "Officials say a homeless man ignited a 'shopping cart full of wood' on the southbound tracks, and not only will A service will totally messed up for a while, it seems that the fire 'destroyed approximately 600 electrical devices used to control signals along the Eighth Avenue line...' This is in addition to all the subway problems this past weekend, partly caused by the blizzard (frozen tracks, malfunctioning switches)."
After all the dire warnings about how terrorists could strike in New York's subways -- all the stories about dirty bombs and poison gas and whatnot, and the bungling MTA allowed a homeless guy onto the tracks with a shopping cart full of wood? That doesn't bode well for homeland security. Or maybe homeland security only refers to the "land" and not to the "underground"? It's even worse since the fire took place at Chambers Street, just blocks from the World Trade Center site. Wouldn't that location be particularly sensitive?
The Park Slope Pavilion, one of Brooklyn's oldest movie theaters, will become the city's first theater with all-digital capability this spring and a "showcase for burgeoning digital technology."
In a New York Times article, Gary Rivlin wonders whether social networking site Friendster will be able to make it after failing to capitalize on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in 2003. At the time, the company was flush with cash, the darling of VC investors and the epicenter of the red-hot social networking world. Now, Friendster is trying to fend off more popular upstarts and has recently experienced a number of high-level executive defections.
Other social networking sites such as Ryze (which once claimed thousands of members in New York City) are no doubt trying to stumble on the magic formula that will keep venture capitalists happy and the 18-to-29 demographic buzzing.
Not only did the New York Post predict the bad news about StemCells, Inc. -- it also listed Manhattan-based Travelzoo as a "cult stock" that investors should avoid. Well, one day later, shares of Travelzoo tanked. Crain's New York reports that shares of Travelzoo fell 22% in early Monday trading after the company announced that regulators were probing insider stock transactions. Travelzoo also reported earnings that missed Wall Street forecasts.
So is this the curse of the New York Post? If Sirius Satellite Radio, Overstock.com or Taser International reports bad news later this week, we'll know. For now, Sirius looks OK -- in fact, it announced on Monday that it would be collaborating with Interscope Geffen A&M Records and its chairman, Jimmy Iovine, to develop new programming.
Just one day before a joint study between the University of California at San Diego and the Salk Institute concluded that the bulk of embryonic stem cells used for U.S. research are contaminated, the New York Post ran an article about Wall Street's "cult" stocks. You know, the kind of companies that "spin tales so wondrous that investors are willing to ignore questionable fundamentals." Among the companies mentioned -- StemCells, Inc.
Not surprisingly, the shares of three leading stem cell-related companies fell sharply in Monday trading: StemCells was down 16%, Aastrom Biosciences was down 20% and Geron lost 6.29% of its value.
The finalists in 30 categories have been announced for the 5th annual Weblog Awards ("Bloggies'). Voting will take place between January 24 and January 31, with the winners being announced sometime in March. Please take time to vote for the following NYC-themed blogs: Gothamist ("Weblog of the year," "Best non-Weblog content"), Gawker ("Weblog of the year"), ManhattanTransfer ("Best kept secret") and OverheardInNew York ("Best community Weblog").
In Can Howard Stern now relax? Declan McCullagh takes a look at the legacy of FCC chairman Michael Powell and speculates about who might be next to take on Howard Stern in the public indecency battles: "The question now, of course, is who the president will nominate to succeed Powell. One obvious choice is [Kevin] Martin, who's eager for the job. But that risks tarnishing Powell's broadband and VoIP legacy by replacing a proponent of the free market with someone with a much weaker appreciation of it. Let's hope that Bush is up to the task. If we're lucky, Powell's successor may even appreciate the First Amendment as well..."
Business 2.0 thinks the double-headed dog advertisements popping up around the city are part of a fake viral marketing campaign: "Big expensive billboards going up with this logo on it and on an expensive Website, which can only mean a company with big money behind it is trying to act like a little one with a hip viral campaign. Yawn. That works so well. Remember Microsoft and its butterflies painted all over NYC sidewalks? Consumers are so dumb, those marketing guys must think." Who knows? Could be the re-launch of MTV2.
The high-stakes "bidding frenzy" for CBS MarketWatch eventually won by Dow Jones is just another sign that Internet news sites are making a comeback, says the New York Times. Thought to be "dot-gone relics of 1999," these news sites are now valuable properties for Internet media companies looking to offload advertising inventory: "Publishers are being forced to confront a potential advertising inventory crunch. There is no physical limitation to the number of Web pages, of course, but advertisers want to be placed on the most popular pages and those which cater to their most profitable audiences. And those kind of pages are in shorter supply."
Recent deals involving Internet news providers include Dow Jones/CBS MarketWatch ($519 million), Washington Post/Slate ($20 million) and Viacom/SportsLine.com ($46 million). More deals could be on the way, with rumors already circulating that TheStreet.com and The Motley Fool are being shopped by investment bankers. Paid Content, of course, has been monitoring the Dow Jones/MarketWatch deal since the beginning.
That's the question posed by The Scientist, which looks at whether New York, New Jersey or Connecticut can become stem-cell research hubs and, in so doing, divert some of the attention and resources away from California.
On January 16, New York Senate Democratic leader David Paterson proposed a $1 billion state-funded stem cell research initiative and the creation of a New York stem cell institute -- two big steps that could transform New York into a stem cell leader. If the proposal is approved by the senate, assembly, and Governor George Pataki, New Yorkers will vote on it in an upcoming election. So why is New York lagging behind other states? "The state has a strong lobby that somewhat "unfairly" labels stem cell research as an abortion issue, possibly scaring legislators... New York is known to have one of the most "dysfunctional" state governments, which may have slowed legislators' steps in this direction..."
In November, The Scientist took a comprehensive look at whether NYC will be able to build a life sciences empire. There's a treasure trove of information here, including articles about Big Pharma, venture capital and biotech R&D as well as a number of sponsor profiles. Required reading for anyone trying to catch up with the stem-cell research debate.
IBM's pending $1.25 billion sale of its PC division to China's Lenovo Group has hit a few snags, according to the New York Post: "Members of the Committee on Foreign Investments in the U.S., including the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security, worry that Chinese operatives might use an IBM facility in North Carolina to engage in industrial espionage using stolen technologies for military purposes." If the Committee on Foreign Investments does not approve the deal (and it has been notoriously difficult about approving China-related deals), IBM would need to participate in a formal investigation by government authorities and then receive the approval of President Bush.
As seen on Engadget: New York-based Wicked Wireless plans to offer "moantones" from adult entertainment star Jenna Jameson to Latin American mobile phone users. What's interesting is that Wicked views the new product offering as just another "consumer-centric brand," similar to its Warner Music Store and its Scooby Doo Mobile Club.
According to Crain's New York, Chicago-based Archipelago, which owns electronic stock market ArcaEx, is interested in acquiring Instinet's electronic communication network (but not its institutional brokerage business) at a price between $2 billion and $3 billion. On news of the rumor, shares of Instinet surged by nearly 10%. This past summer, Instinet, which is 62%-owned by Reuters Group Plc, attracted "a slew of suitors," including the New York Stock Exchange.
Over at Get Real, Stowe Boyd of Corante has assembled an all-star cast to talk about Collision and Convergence in Real-Time Collaboration. Among the panelists joining this month's "Get Real Show" is IBM's David Marshak, the company's Product Manager for Real Time and Team Collaboration.
Just scroll down the blog entry to "David Marshak's Remarks" and press play on the AudioBlog.com logo. There, you'll find a brief audio clip in which David takes a high-level look at real-time collaboration over the past 20 years and presents his thoughts on the convergence of real-time and contextual collaboration. "Presence changes everything," he says. "The Internet without presence is like having voice mail without having the telephone system."
The blizzard of '05 is introducing us to a brand new weather lexicon. One of the local TV stations has been using the word bombogenisis, a real meteorological term to describe a "big, rapidly developing storm heading our way." That's a mouthful, though, so now us common folk will just refer to it as the bomb.
Howard Stern reacted with glee yesterday to the news that Michael Powell planned to resign as FCC chairman: "Howard Stern did everything but sing 'Ding, dong, the witch is dead' when he learned during his wakeup show yesterday that FCC Chairman Michael Powell is history." Stern had this to say about Powell's legacy at the FCC: "Appointment from his father [Colin Powell], a billion dollars squandered of taxpayer money, ruining the First Amendment [and] putting radio stations in the hands of the few so that you've got five formats now..." We'll assume for now that Michael Powell has little or no chance of ever landing a gig at Stern's future employer, Sirius Satellite Radio.
First Cablevision decided to sell off its Voom satellite TV service. Now, the company is indicating that it would consider a sale of its "crown jewel" -- its cable systems that serve over 3 million metro area households. The most likely buyer would be Time Warner Cable, which could offer as much as $12 billion, say analysts, in order to create a cable near-monopoly in New York. Next up: the company's cable TV networks (American Movie Classics, the Independent Film Channel and WE: Women's Entertainment). We speculate that Cablevision might then change its name to Sportsvision, since it would be left with only a handful of high-profile assets: Madison Square Garden, the Knicks, the Rangers and Radio City Music Hall.
Just a reminder: Vloggercon 2005 will be hosted by the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU (721 Broadway) on Saturday, January 22. A live Webcast will be available, starting at 9 AM. Conference sessions include "Masses' Media," "Content is King," and "Network of the Future."
Fresh from Reuters: FCC Chairman Michael Powell plans to resign today after four years as the chief regulator of the media and telecom industries. His reign has been controversial at times, but there have been a number of highlights: "Among bright spots, he shepherded through a plan to eliminate interference with public safety wireless communications, advanced the transition to higher-quality digital television and promoted high-speed Internet service." In many minds, though, he will always be known as the regulator who attempted to crack down on indecent behavior and conversation in TV and radio. This should keep talking head commentators busy over the weekend, as they rush to assess the potential impact on the New York media industry.
In today's Wall Street Journal, Jessica Mintz takes a look at a possible code of ethics for bloggers. With bloggers "finally moving from the alleys and side streets of the Internet into the mainstream," she writes, there is a real need to ask, "What are the rules of the road?" That's exactly what's happening this weekend at a Harvard University conference, where a small group of journalists, bloggers and media thinkers are gathering to "hash out some of these issues, and kick around the idea of a blogging code of ethics." FYI -- NYU's Jay Rosen will kick off the Harvard conference with a talk on blogging and journalism. Keep an eye, too, on Jeff Jarvis for round-the-clock commentary on the blogging medium and the latest scoop on blogging ethics.
More details of a new nine-month, $1.75 million cybersecurity project for New York State... According to the latest press release, IceWEB and PlanGraphics will "coordinate the design and development of an Internet-based system to allow state officials to search for, locate and visualize information about critical assets and infrastructure for the New York State Cyber Security Project."
Manhattan Pharmaceuticals received U.S. FDA approval to start a Phase 1 trial for its weight-loss product candidate, oleoyl estrone. The company will now be able to move forward with human clinical testing of the drug. On news of the approval, shares of the company rocketed upward by 61%. According to company executives, the first clinical testing of the obesity drug will start taking place somewhere in Switzerland within the next three months.
That was quick. Just days after a high-profile board meeting resulted in a decision to sell off the struggling Voom satellite TV unit, Cablevision announced plans to sell certain Voom assets to EchoStar for $200 million in cash. Under the terms of the agreement, EchoStar will receive Cablevision's Rainbow satellite as well as licensed frequencies, while Cablevision will keep some satellite service elements, including programming and equipment. Charles and Thomas Dolan, the two family members who lost the battle to retain Voom within Cablevision, called the board vote "startling" -- they said it "reflects today's post-Enron regulatory climate, which places great emphasis on the potential legal liability of directors who sit on the boards of corporations involved with new enterprises."
AOL, a unit of Time Warner, announced a new Internet search engine (AOL Search) as "part of an effort to gain a larger share of the online advertising market." The move, of course, will pit AOL squarely against formidable competitors such as Google and Yahoo. In AOL puts a stake in the ground, John Battelle explores the implications of AOL tossing its hat into the Internet search ring, explaining how terms like "media model of search" and "programmed search" apply to AOL and Time Warner.
The results of the Manhattan Project are in: Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion stopped 32 random New Yorkers near Grand Central Station on Wednesday morning and asked them three simple questions about blogs. Of the 32 New Yorkers polled, 18 had actually heard of blogs and six of these (19% of the total) actually read blogs (mostly A-list blogs like Drudge and AndrewSullivan).
18 of 32 ain't bad -- but it ain't so hot either, considering that blogs have been all over the news for the past 12 months and that well-heeled New Yorkers queuing up for bagels at Grand Central during peak rush hour must represent a favorable demographic of some kind. I can see now why it must be so frustrating for corporate marketing types to devote millions of dollars to creating a multi-media branding campaign and then find out that most consumers have never heard of the product - or worse, confuse it with a competitor's product.
Glenn Reynolds (aka "Instapundit") makes it clear that Wi-Fi and EVDO should be able to co-exist. That may not happen, though, if Verizon continues to push EVDO as a faster, better alternative to Wi-Fi. Instapundit winds up the article with an appeal for a multi-layered approach to wireless broadband Internet: "It seems likely that services like EVDO and Wi-Fi will coexist comfortably for quite a while, because they're fundamentally different products. That's fine with me, since I'm all for diversity, technological and otherwise. I hope that the Verizon folks will realize that, rather than getting carried away with efforts to "bury" Wi-Fi under EVDO. With multiple approaches, everybody wins."
To get up to speed on the EVDO/Wi-Fi debate, check out Glenn Fleishman's Wi-Fi Networking News entry from January 13 as well as this piece from MSNBC's Gary Krakow, in which he test drives EVDO in New York City.
Looks like the ImClone insider trading saga is winding to a close: "Sam Waksal, ImClone's former CEO, and his father Jack agreed to pay more than $5 million to settle an insider-trading scandal that eventually also landed Martha Stewart in jail." The deal with the SEC means that both Waksals will not be facing any more ImClone stock sale charges. But that doesn't get them off the hook entirely -- Sam Waksal is still serving an 87-month sentence and Martha Stewart won't be out until March. On a related note, the New York Times points out that Martha has been getting a lot wealthier since she went to prison in October.
In the NYU campus newspaper, Jonathan Cipriani warns that New York City is no place to launch an innovative new start-up: "Lots of NYU students would probably like to stay in New York to pursue their careers after graduation - and in the case of budding entrepreneurs on campus, even start up their own businesses here. Unfortunately, a newly released report shows that New York state's economic policies aren't exactly going to make it easy for them. In fact, the business climate in New York can be downright hostile."
