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11 Apr 2009 10:58

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Biz, Tech: Post-Lauren, Microsoft’s latest attack on Apple? The “Apple tax.”

  • Macs are pretty cool, Jack thinks, but at a $3,367 premium over five years? Now, that’s not cool!
  • Roger Kay • Author of “What Price Cool?,” a white paper sponsored by Microsoft that takes to task Apple’s reputation as a maker of “cool” computers. MS seems to have a pretty good anti-Apple campaign going right now, considering the fact that we’re secretly in love with Lauren, even if just to convert her into a Mac user. Love ’em and leave ’em, that’s our style. • source

10 Apr 2009 20:47

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Biz, Politics, Tech: Huffington: Consumer habits have changed, AP.

  • Consumer habits have changed dramatically. People have gotten used to getting the news they want, when they want it, how they want it, and where they want it. And this change is here to stay.
  • Arianna Huffington • Talking about newspapers, the media and her role in the whole mess with The Huffington Post. She was on Charlie Rose this week debating the topic with Tom Curley of the Associated Press and said some really insightful things. Huffington knows what she’s talking about. • source

10 Apr 2009 20:36

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Biz: Hoo-ray! Stocks are sustaining their upward momentum!

09 Apr 2009 21:17

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Biz, U.S.: The economy appears to be slowly emerging from its cocoon

  • Wells Fargo forecasted surprisingly good profits. source
  • Unemployment benefit filings are down for once. source
  • Retailers are predicting pretty solid April sales. source
  • The Dow reacted to this news by rallying +250. source

09 Apr 2009 10:23

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Biz, U.S.: New jobless claims, after much struggle, sagged last week

  • 654,000 new claims (that’s down) source

08 Apr 2009 23:58

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Biz, Tech: Looking for an alternative to wire services? Check out Smartnews

Our friends in N.C. are trying to turn wire services on their head. We wish them luck. source

08 Apr 2009 23:52

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Biz, Politics: We’re using this site to protest the Associated Press tomorrow

  • We’re only using AP content tomorrow. Consider it civil disobedience. The Associated Press has made a lot of questionable decisions lately, what with that whole going against bloggers and Google News thing. But the latest takes the cake – they went after a radio station and AP affiliate for embedding a YouTube video on their site. (WTF?) AP put up the embed code on YouTube for people to link. So, as a protest, tomorrow, we’ll only post news from AP sites. We want them to get hits from us because they’re great. We hope the AP understands. source
 

08 Apr 2009 10:28

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Biz, Tech: Google CEO Eric Schmidt thinks newspapers need more innovation

  • Schmidt spoke at the the Newspaper Assn. of America conference yesterday, where he told his audience, “You can architect a structure where innovation is welcome, and where it’s taken advantage of.” (In other words, don’t lay people off!) source
  • Schmidt also told the audience that the AP’s crazy plan to piss off their customers wasn’t going to work. Information doesn’t flow that way, so putting it back into the bottle isn’t going to work. He suggests embracing the aggregation instead. source

07 Apr 2009 08:21

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Biz, Tech: As if the Segway didn’t make people look stupid enough …

… GM and Segway have managed to create a two-person vehicle (the P.U.M.A. mobility pod) that looks even dumber! source

07 Apr 2009 01:29

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Biz, Politics: Dear Associated Press: You’re not the only game in town

  • The dispute The Associated Press, one of the most-quoted and most-highly-regarded wire services, wants to battle Web sites who use their content – even under commentary and fair use standards – head-on. “We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under some very misguided, unfounded legal theories,” said AP chair Dean Singleton, who we cited directly from an insightful AP article on the topic. source
  • The dispute The Associated Press, one of the most-quoted and most-highly-regarded wire services, wants to battle Web sites who use their content – even under commentary and fair use standards – head-on. “We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under some very misguided, unfounded legal theories,” said AP chair Dean Singleton, who we cited directly from an insightful AP article on the topic.
  • Our suggestion The wire service currently is still debating how to do this, but here’s how we think they should handle it. They should set up a satellite, AP-1, put it into orbit, implant mind chips into their audience and whenever someone even thinks about reading a newspaper article anywhere besides a newspaper, they’ll get a small, corrective electric shock. Sound idiotic, malformed and unrealistic? That’s because it is, just like this stupid idea. source
  • The dispute The Associated Press, one of the most-quoted and most-highly-regarded wire services, wants to battle Web sites who use their content – even under commentary and fair use standards – head-on. “We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under some very misguided, unfounded legal theories,” said AP chair Dean Singleton, who we cited directly from an insightful AP article on the topic.
  • Our suggestion The wire service currently is still debating how to do this, but here’s how we think they should handle it. They should set up a satellite, AP-1, put it into orbit, implant mind chips into their audience and whenever someone even thinks about reading a newspaper article anywhere besides a newspaper, they’ll get a small, corrective electric shock. Sound idiotic, malformed and unrealistic? That’s because it is, just like this stupid idea.
  • We’ll just use Reuters If this crazy idea that a bunch of out-of-touch newspaper publishers conjured up gains legs, it’s OK. There are lots of other places to gather content. And to blame this on blogs and Google News, this is beyond unwise; you could speed up the very road to irrelevancy that you’re trying to prevent with a move like this. Only people who don’t understand the Internet would suggest this idea. Good job screwing it up, old guys. source