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30 Apr 2011 17:06

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Biz: Warren Buffett: Don’t not raise the debt ceiling, Congress

  • Protip: Trust a guy with a Presidential Medal of Freedom. During Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in Omaha, the investor icon suggested that if Congress failed to raise the federal debt ceiling in the middle of May (as some completely uninformed RedState blogger suggested and Timothy Geithner pleaded against), it would be the “most asinine act” in the chamber’s history. And Congress has done a lot of stupid crap in their day. Perhaps we should listen to this highly-regarded rich guy! (photo by Medill DC‘s Flickr photostream) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Apr 2011 11:11

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Biz: ExxonMobil, Shell making a crapload of money off high oil prices

  • 69% quarterly profit increase for ExxonMobil source
  • » And yet you’re paying $4 a gallon for gas: The world’s most iconic oil company scored $10.65 billion in profits for the quarter, which is at least in part due to the fact that oil is currently over $100 a barrel. While the company had other factors in play, other companies are getting same the oil-price bump: Shell, for example, had a 30 percent leap in profits. Maybe we’re crazy here or something, but … isn’t there a point where you hand these profits down to the consumer? You can afford it.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Apr 2011 10:17

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Biz: Head-to-head: Which service is better, Groupon or LivingSocial

  • I wanted to dig into the whole group buying daily-deal craze and see if it’s as much of a win for merchants as it is for consumers. To test this out, I took one of my outlets and did a Groupon for it, and then did a deal through rival site LivingSocial. Let me tell you right now: It was night and day. Working with one company was a great experience. With the other, it was a mess.
  • Entrepreneur Romil Patel • Introing a piece he wrote comparing the two most-popular deals services from a businessperson’s perspective. To put it simply, one had kinda-rough customer service and deals that confused consumers. The other was a pleasure to work with. Can you figure out which one he liked better? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Apr 2011 09:59

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Biz: Ford scores largest quarterly profit since “Felicity” was popular

  • $2.55
    billion     the amount in profits that Ford made in its most recent quarter — a huge boost thanks to small cars
  • circa
    1998     the last time Ford had a profit this big — back when we were all listening to Third Eye Blind source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Apr 2011 02:01

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Biz: Netflix has more subscribers than Comcast, catching up with HBO

  • 23.6M number of subscribers Netflix has — up by over 3 million subscribers
  • 28.6M number of subscribers HBO has; Netflix passed Showtime’s 20 million
  • 22.8M number of subscribers Comcast has; cable use is declining source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Apr 2011 12:02

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Biz: Gold’s explosion in value, and what that means for the U.S. dollar

Is the rapidly-increasing price of gold due to the U.S. dollar losing its value? Or is it because gold-hawkers bought all that extra advertising on Glenn Beck? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Apr 2011 20:32

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Biz: Colt 45 Blast: Endorsed by Snoop Dogg, not endorsed by Illinois

  • Meet the new Four Loko: Our friends at Pabst may not promote the heck out of PBR, at least obviously, but they are promoting this Colt 45 derivative really heavily, using Snoop Dogg to push Blast onto unsuspecting youths who missed out on Billy Dee WIlliams. The drink, which doesn’t have caffeine, does have 12 percent alcohol concentration — enough for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to compare a single can to a six-pack of beer. It’s not Loko. It’s a Blast. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

21 Apr 2011 16:34

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Biz: Mattel corporation handed legal defeat over Bratz dolls

  • Mattel suffers surprise defeat in court: The toy juggernaut waged a seven-year legal battle with MGA, a much-smaller company. At stake was claim to the Bratz empire, the line of glammed-up dolls that during the middle of the last decade was worth over $1 billion. MGA won today by jury verdict; they found Mattel had misused MGA’s trade secrets (MGA accused Mattel of entering toy fairs with fake credentials). The price for Mattel is $88.4 million, which is a lot to lose over nabbing a concept as elementary and obvious as Bratz. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Apr 2011 14:23

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Biz: Running the NYT paywall has higher cost than you might expect

  • $13 million to run the New York Times paywall in 2011 source
  • » This is a hefty figure. And it’s not the whole enchilada — the Times spent a lot getting it together, on top of the incremental costs involved. But it doesn’t necessarily spell problems for the new system — the Times has netted about 100,000 digital subscribers since instituting the paywall, reportedly enough to break even on the operating costs after the first quarter of 2011. That said, we suspect not many casual observers expected this high a cost would be absorbed simply to keep up the paywall, and having the spoils of your first 100,000 subscribers be a financial wash is something we doubt the Times relishes. But we think people need to give this time.
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Apr 2011 09:40

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Biz, Tech: AT&T proves analysts wrong, does OK post-Verizon iPhone

  • -83k the number of subscribers analysts expected AT&T to lose this quarter, after losing their exclusive iPhone contract
  • +62k the number of subscribers AT&T actually ADDED this quarter, which was totally unexpected; eat your crow, analysts
  • +400k the number of subscribers AT&T added in the previous quarter, which shows how steep the iPhone drop-off still was for AT&T source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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