kgu87

iPods and crime in UK

iPods are the cause of increased teenager muggings in UK - read here.

New item in the People list

I added Jazon Zweig's website to my People list today. I am currently reading Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor with Zweig's commentary. It's simply outstanding.

'Mobile Me'

So, it looks like they are going to do it...

"SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. (Nasdaq:AAPL - news) has filed to trademark the phrase "Mobile Me" for use in a wide range of businesses, furthering speculation it could introduce an iPod phone."

Read the full story here.

Irrational Exuberance - England 1720

Is irrational exuberance in the stock market a recent phoenomenon? No - read here.

Apple Denim

"Levi Strauss & Co. will introduce a new iPod-compatible blue jean in the fall of 2006. The new, premium jeans will be called Levi's RedWire DLX Jeans and will feature a pocket with a docking cradle for the music device. The jeans' watch pocket will contain a remote control for the iPod, and the jeans also feature a retractable headphone unit. They will be designed for men and women."

Read the full story here.

Click Fraud

Read about it at Wired.

"Google will end 2005 with $6.1 billion in revenue. About 99 percent of that revenue comes from keyword ads (over 56 percent from AdWords, according to the company's most recent quarterly financial statement, and 43 percent from AdSense), making Google a bigger recipient of ad dollars than any television network or newspaper chain. All of which is to say that little blue text links, a type of advertising that barely existed five years ago, are poised to become the single most important form of marketing in the US - unless click fraud ruins it".

Google Pack - What is the big deal?

What is the big deal about Google pack? Let's take a look:

- Google software included (Earth, Picasa, Screensaver, Desktop, Toolbar): yes, absolutely essential, allows Google to more closely monitor your activity.

- Mozilla with Google Toolbar: Wait! I get 2 toolbars?? Even better. Maybe they should have included Java Runtime with yet another toolbar. After all, Sun includes Google, Google includes Sun - seems fair.

- Norton Antivirus SE (6 month subscription): Free anywhere.

- Ad-Aware Personal

"Ad-Aware Personal provides advanced protection from known data-mining, aggressive advertising, Trojans, dialers, malware, browser hijackers, and tracking components. This software is downloadable free of charge." - from Lavasoft's site.

Does it block AdSense ads? Then this might be of value. On the other hand, maybe this Special Edition does not, made specially for Google.

- Adobe PDF Reader: no comment

So, what is the big deal? NONE. But Microsoft is surely trembling now.

Analyst Opinions

How much value is in the analysts' estimates? Read here. This, coupled with recent Google's price target setting of $600 makes for an interesting read. Here is what Henry Blodget had to say.. Remember him? ;-)

Search Toolbars

If you like having a search toolbar in your browser, Groowe offers a pretty nice one. It combines multiple search engines in the same interface and allows customization. Check it out.

I've been using Google's toolbar for awhile now, but lately, started getting eerie feeling about it. I replaced it with Groowe's and am happy to report that the Internet Explorer is running much faster now.

Put all your APPLs in one basket

I would like to open 2006 with the stock that I like the most for this year. As you can guess from the title of this post, the stock is Apple (AAPL). The primary reason I like this stock is - iPod. Apple somehow managed to turn a relatively trivial device (mp3 player) into a symbol of 2005 and perhaps of years to come.

Here is what Apple's annual reports tells us about iPod sales so far (all numbers are in thousands, except percentages):

                      2005 Change       2004 Change     2003     2002
iPod Net Sales  $4,540,000   248% $1,306,000   279% $345,000 $143,000
iPod Units Sold     22,497   409%      4,416   370%      939      381
Per Unit              $202   -32%       $296   -20%     $367     $375

In addition, the report states that "The U.S. represents the Company’s largest geographic marketplace. Approximately 60% of the Company’s net sales in 2005 came from sales to customers inside the U.S."

I wonder whether this will be the year when the international revenue picks up...