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| Google hits a snag in China as world's largest carrier hijacks Android
November 25, 2009 at 6:30 pm
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| Filed under: Google , China Unicom, China Mobile  Google is famous for touting its adherence to open standards and for developing on top of Open Source software platforms such as Linux. Launching Android, Google (GOOG) stated its new operating system would be open sourced -- that is, the software code would be free to download, modify and change. Such a laissez faire approach does make it possible for others to develop versions of Android that are not completely compatible. Thus far, this has not been a problem, with one enormous exception: China Mobile (CHL).
China Mobile, the world's largest mobile phone company with over 300 million subscribers, took Google at its word and decided to adopt the core software of Android for its own OMS operating system. China Mobile is now well on its way to building a code base that is different from the versions of Android being built by Google itself. And more than any other carrier on Earth, China Mobile can cause a code fork problem that could short circuit Android growth in the Middle Kingdom -- by far the largest mobile market on Earth.Continue reading Google hits a snag in China as world's largest carrier hijacks Android Google hits a snag in China as world's largest carrier hijacks Android originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Cash or charge? Salvation Army's iconic red buckets now take plastic
November 25, 2009 at 6:00 pm
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| Filed under: Economy, American Express  You know the drill: you're walking out of the store, shopping bags in tow, when a bell-ringing Salvation Army guy in earmuffs gives you the look. Maybe you feel around in your pockets for a sec, or maybe you just skip right to the dramatic shrug; either way, chances are that you don't drop the proverbial nickel in the drum.
Aside from stinginess, there is a very good reason that many customers hold off on giving money to the Salvation Army: they often don't have any cash on hand. After all, between credit cards, debit cards and gift cards, there is hardly any reason to carry money for shopping, and the added bulk and insecurity of bills and change only increase the difficulty of holiday shopping. Of course, no cash translates into no cash donations, which tends to leave the bell ringers high and dry.
But now, in many parts of the country, there's no excuse if you don't have any dollar bills or coins in your pocket.
Continue reading Cash or charge? Salvation Army's iconic red buckets now take plastic Cash or charge? Salvation Army's iconic red buckets now take plastic originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Is Dollar Tree's stock as cheap as its prices?
November 25, 2009 at 5:00 pm
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| Filed under: Investing, Earnings, Stock Picks  It's no secret that cash-strapped consumers have been flocking to discounters and dollar stores for more than a year. A bit more surprising is that even after a 50% rally off their 52-week low, shares in Dollar Tree Stores (DLTR) still look as cheap as the retailer's wares.
The company posted yet another impressive quarter of profit, sales and operating margin growth Tuesday. Dollar Tree's third-quarter earnings rose 58%, beating Street estimates by an almost embarrassing (for the analysts) 10 cents a share. Sales rose 12%, exceeding expectations by more than $4 million and same-store sales -- a key retailer metric -- grew 6.5%. The company has a nice habit of exceeding analysts' average expectations, by the way, having done so for more than eight consecutive quarters, according to Thomson Reuters.Continue reading Is Dollar Tree's stock as cheap as its prices? Is Dollar Tree's stock as cheap as its prices? originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Senators blast Obama's secret trade talks as Fox head calls for '3 strikes'
November 25, 2009 at 4:40 pm
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| Filed under: Technology, Economy, Media  The CEO of News Corp.'s (NWS) Fox Filmed Entertainment this week called for a U.S. "three strikes" law, similar to one just passed in France that would cut off suspected Internet pirates' Web connections and could land them in jail. Speaking at a press conference in Athens, Fox's Jim Gianopulos called internet piracy the single greatest threat facing Hollywood and said it was internet providers' responsibility to police their users for illicit activity. "If we can do that, it would be a big victory against piracy," Gianopulos said.
The Hollywood executive's comments came as Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sherrod Brown of Ohio wrote to the Obama administration, expressing their concern over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which the world's top nations are negotiating, largely in secret talks.Continue reading Senators blast Obama's secret trade talks as Fox head calls for '3 strikes' Senators blast Obama's secret trade talks as Fox head calls for '3 strikes' originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Coke thinks globally, acts socially and blogs totally with Expedition 206
November 25, 2009 at 3:40 pm
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| Filed under: Company News, Technology, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Coca-Cola Company  There's an old saying: "Fish where the fish are." That's exactly the approach big brands are taking as the era of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube transforms how companies engage with consumers, especially the youth market.
Case in point: Coca Cola (KO). The beverage giant is taking a deep dive into experimental marketing, in line with one of the key elements outlined in the company's 2020 vision: to develop and deploy the world's most innovative and effective marketing. One key component in the charge is Expedition 206, which is being touted as the largest social media program ever.Continue reading Coke thinks globally, acts socially and blogs totally with Expedition 206 Coke thinks globally, acts socially and blogs totally with Expedition 206 originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Why the Washington Post is smart to keep it local
November 25, 2009 at 2:50 pm
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| Filed under: Company News, Economy, Media  The Washington Post (WPO) has long been one of a handful of what can rightfully claim to be great national newspapers. No longer. As of this week, the Post is adopting a humbler but perhaps savvier goal: to be a great regional newspaper -- albeit one with a national readership.
Years in the making, the shift in strategy is both epitomized and completed by the closure of its last domestic bureaus, in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. On an operational level, it's a relatively small matter, affecting only nine staffers. But as symbolism, it's big. "We are not a national news organization of record serving a general audience," executive editor Marcus Brauchli told Howard Kurtz, the Post's in-house media columnist.Continue reading Why the Washington Post is smart to keep it local Why the Washington Post is smart to keep it local originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Google Commerce: Search giant makes an under-the-radar shopping play
November 25, 2009 at 1:20 pm
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| Filed under: Company News, Google , Microsoft, Amazon.com Inc.  Amidst the noise over the new Droid handset, Google's new free GPS navigation application, and Rupert Murdoch's dance with Microsoft (MSFT) to put News Corp. stories exclusively in the Bing search engine, Google (GOOG) slipped in another new product that could prove to have far more impact on its bottom line. On Nov. 4, the dominant search player unveiled a new search engine product geared to help e-commerce sites provide better intrasite search capabilities to users browsing wares. The move comes at a time when the online shopping world is heating up, with Amazon (AMZN) rapidly expanding it's non-book offerings, and Walmart.com (WMT) slashing prices to show up Jeff Bezos and his Seattle team at Amazon.
Called Google Commerce, it is likely a variant on Google's popular custom search engine product, which allows any site administrator to harness the power of Google to provide comprehensive search capabilities covering only content within their specific site. More broadly, Google Commerce could be part of a budding effort to insert the search giant more squarely into online shopping and grab reams of data to help it sell more ads.Continue reading Google Commerce: Search giant makes an under-the-radar shopping play Google Commerce: Search giant makes an under-the-radar shopping play originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Free vs. fettered news: The battle lines form
November 25, 2009 at 12:35 pm
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| Filed under: Media, Google , Microsoft, Acadia Pharmaceuticals, News Corp.  In Stephen King's novel The Stand, when the apocalypse arrives, the forces of good gather in Boulder while the hosts of evil flock to Las Vegas. In real life, in the midst of apocalyptic times for the media industry, the proponents of paid content are massing under the banners of Rupert Murdoch and Microsoft, (MSFT) while those who think the news ought to be free and ubiquitous can rally behind the BBC and Google (GOOG).
Murdoch, as you may have read here or here or here or here, is talking to Microsoft about a deal under which News Corp. (NWS) would withdraw its news sites' pages from Google's search listing while keeping them available through Bing, Microsoft's search engine, in return for unspecified millions. It's a mark of how fed up the newspaper industry is that other publishers are already making similar noises: Executives from MediaNews Group and A.H. Belo Corp. (AHC) now say they're also considering a Google block as a means of bolstering the pay walls they mean to implement. No word yet on whether Microsoft might dangle some cash to coax them along.Continue reading Free vs. fettered news: The battle lines form Free vs. fettered news: The battle lines form originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| U.S. new home sales climb to highest level in a year, led by the South
November 25, 2009 at 12:00 pm
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| Filed under: Economy, Real Estate  New homes sales surged 6.2% in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 430,000, the U.S. Commerce Department announced Wednesday, as buyers rushed to take advantage of what many believed would be the end of the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers on October 30.
However, Congress has since extended the first-time home buyer credit through April 30, 2010.
Continue reading U.S. new home sales climb to highest level in a year, led by the South U.S. new home sales climb to highest level in a year, led by the South originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Can Washington break the deflationary spiral?
November 25, 2009 at 11:40 am
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| Filed under: Columns, Economy  A lot of economists and commentators are having trouble figuring out what to call our current economic situation. Should it be the Great Recession, the Financial Crisis, the Greatest Depression? I don't really think we'll know what to call it until we get some historical distance from it. And we won't get much historical distance until we figure out why it's continuing and then do something positive to get out of it.
I recently conducted a webinar, "The Economic Outlook for the U.S. and Key Industries." My basic conclusion was that when you have an economy which depends so heavily on consumers for growth -- personal consumption expenditures accounted for 67% of the GDP growth in the third quarter -- and millions of those consumers are unemployed, this creates a deflationary spiral that is hard to escape. Without income from jobs or easy credit for debt-fueled spending, it's hard to see how consumers can drive a recovery. Continue reading Can Washington break the deflationary spiral? Can Washington break the deflationary spiral? originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| House of cards: Home prices may be headed back down
November 25, 2009 at 11:00 am
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| Filed under: Economy, Wells Fargo & Co., Real Estate  Everyone heaved a sigh of relief as the latest S&P/Case Shiller U.S. National Home Price survey showed a price increase for the fifth straight month. Home prices may finally have hit bottom, but Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy is not so sure. In his weekly Housing Market Monitor, he says he thinks the boost may only be temporary, driven by the first-time homebuyers tax credit.
"Sales are clearly headed sharply lower in the months ahead," Baker warns in his Wednesday report. "The extension and expansion of the first-time buyers credit will have a positive impact, but it will not be sufficient to prevent a downturn." John Silvia, chief economist of Wells Fargo (WFC) agrees. He told the The New York Times that he forecasts a new decline in prices of as much as 10%.Continue reading House of cards: Home prices may be headed back down House of cards: Home prices may be headed back down originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| More good news in employment: Initial jobless claims plunge to 466,000
November 25, 2009 at 10:20 am
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| Filed under: Economy  Initial jobless claims plummeted 35,000 to 466,000 for the week ending Nov. 21, and continuing claims continued to decline as well, falling 190,000 to 5.42 million, the U.S. Labor Department announced Wednesday. This marks the lowest initial jobless claims total in more than a year.
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had expected initial jobless claims to fall to 495,000. Meanwhile, the four-week moving average for initial jobless claims also dropped, falling 16,500 to 496,500. A year ago, initial jobless claims totaled 520,000 and continuing claims totaled 4.02 million.Continue reading More good news in employment: Initial jobless claims plunge to 466,000 More good news in employment: Initial jobless claims plunge to 466,000 originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Stocks in the news: AIG, Deere & Co., Tiffany, J. Crew, Microsoft
November 25, 2009 at 9:00 am
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| Filed under: Company News, Investing, Microsoft, Boeing, American International Group, INC., Starbucks, Tiffany & Co., Toyota, J. Crew, Novartis American International Group Inc. (AIG) has been authorized by its board to pay CEO Robert Benmosche's $7 million in compensation, after it laid to rest concerns that he might quit his post. This breaks down to an annual salary of $3 million in cash and $4 million in fully-vested AIG stock, which he can't sell for five years. With a performance bonus, the value of his pay package could reach $10.5 million.
Deere & Co. (DE) reported a quarterly net loss of $222.8 million, or 53 cents a share, on Wednesday on weak equipment sales, which fell 28% to $5.33 billion, and a series of one-time charges. Excluding charges, Deere would have earned 23 cents per share. The company also gave a fiscal 2010 outlook below analyst projections. Shares fell 1.3% in pre-market trading.Continue reading Stocks in the news: AIG, Deere & Co., Tiffany, J. Crew, Microsoft Stocks in the news: AIG, Deere & Co., Tiffany, J. Crew, Microsoft originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Peacock gives thanks to a turkey: Parade is one saving grace for NBC
November 25, 2009 at 6:00 am
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| Filed under: General Electric (GE), CBS Corp 'B' (CBS), Company News, Media, Macy's  What's hokey, full of hot air and increasingly looking like a Thanksgiving miracle for NBC? The network's 61-year old tradition of broadcasting the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The three-hour broadcast remains as popular with viewers as it was in 1991 -- a feat that's remarkably rare among television networks and almost unheard of for NBC these days.
To put that into perspective, NBC currently draws a 4.9 household rating, less than half of the 12.3 rating it enjoyed during the 1991-92 season (before networks started losing viewers in droves to cable and the Internet), according to Nielsen Media Research. NBC now only attracts 5.6 million viewers to its nightly prime-time shows. Yet somehow, the Thanksgiving Day broadcast has managed to hold steady at roughly 20 million viewers annually since 1991, according to Nielsen. Even more intriguing, the rival Thanksgiving broadcast on CBS has shed viewers during the period, falling to about 7 million viewers from 10 million in 1991, Nielsen says.Continue reading Peacock gives thanks to a turkey: Parade is one saving grace for NBC Peacock gives thanks to a turkey: Parade is one saving grace for NBC originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Master investor sells shares in Google and Apple
November 25, 2009 at 5:00 am
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| Filed under: Technology, Google , Microsoft, Apple  One of the top growth investment managers in the country told Reuters in an exclusive interview that he is selling shares in U.S. companies that are considered growth stocks, particularly Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL). Jerry Jordan of The Jordan Opportunity Fund is investing in China now because "the growth is much faster, it's much more of a green field opportunity."
It would be hard to get most growth investors to take Jordan's side. Google is still considered the fastest growing large Internet firm in the world, and Apple the world's most successful creator of consumer electronics. There is, however, some logic in Jordan's view, particularly on Apple. Continue reading Master investor sells shares in Google and Apple Master investor sells shares in Google and Apple originally appeared on DailyFinance on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments | | |  |
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For the luxury retailers lucky enough to make it through the steep recession, business is looking good again. And investors should consider taking a look at their stocks ahead of what might turn out to be an unexpectedly strong holiday season for high-priced goods.
Stocks climbed Wednesday following a drop in weekly unemployment claims to the lowest level of the year and a rise in new home sales. The market's gain was modest on light trading volume ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Sesame Street has solved a lingering public relations problem involving claims by some conservatives that the program was trying to secretly indoctrinate preschoolers with a liberal worldview. The Sesame Workshop's response? It has introduced a new 
You can be very careful when shopping but you will still be at risk. Each time you hand your credit card to someone or transmit your credit card number over the Internet, you're putting yourself at risk. 
It is worth remembering that there was a time not too long ago when most large newspapers and news services got their stories about the federal government directly from their own Washington, D.C., bureaus. Some had bureaus in New York, London and elsewhere. But the era of the foreign correspondent began to end years ago. The era of the national corespondent is ending now.
Lou Dobbs is mad as hell, and he's not going to take it anymore. And now that he's left his bully pulpit at CNN, he's hoping the masses will join him with their pitchforks and torches.
Spending on private label store gift cards is projected to fall by 7% this year, as consumers tighten budgets in reaction to a weakened economy. Gift givers are also getting nervous about what retailers will have on the shelves after the holidays, as stores move to reduce inventory. General purpose prepaid debit cards are rapidly gaining favor as an alternative.
The U.S. economy hit a setback on the manufacturing front as orders for durable goods unexpectedly declined 0.6% in October, with orders dipping in almost every category, the Commerce Department 
The New York Times has come up with a novel theory: People who are traveling this holiday will stay away longer to get lower airfares. Someone who leaves a week before Thanksgiving and comes back a week after will not have to pay the premium for an airline ticket to travel on the busiest days of the year.
U.S. stocks are poised for a higher open Wednesday morning as investors' optimism about the economy was fueled by the Federal Reserve minutes released late Wednesday. The Fed revised its growth projections for 2010 higher. A barrage of economic releases is due out today, ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday Thursday, when markets will be closed. Markets will reopen Friday for a short day. Trading could be choppy today as a result.
Shares in Asia recouped some of yesterday's losses as benchmark indexes rose. In China the Shanghai Composite Index climbed 2.1% to end the day at 3,290, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.8% to 22,612. In Japan the Nikkei Index closed at 9,442 -- up 0.4%.
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