RIM Income Prognosticate Misses Estimates as Prices Dip

September 25, 2009 Leave a Comment

Research In Motion Ltd. promise third-quarter income that drop tangency of analysts’ projections, a formalise the BlackBerry maker may hump to sell many phones at berth prices to contend with Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

Research In Motion fell the most in a year in Nasdaq trading after saying revenue this quarter will be $3.6 billion to $3.85 billion. Analysts on average estimated $3.91 billion.

The company has cut prices of some products as it prepares to release new BlackBerrys later this quarter, co-Chief Executive Officer Jim Balsillie said yesterday on a conference call. RIM is up against rival devices from Apple and Palm Inc., both of which have lowered prices in the past few months, and a raft of planned phones based on Google Inc.’s Android software.

“If you want to go mainstream, you have to be competitive with the market and lower prices,” said Steven Li, an analyst at Raymond James Ltd. in Toronto. He cut his rating on the stock to “market perform” from “outperform”. “It’s clearly the lower average selling price that drove the sales miss.”

RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, fell $14.15, or 17 percent, to $68.91 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market, the biggest drop since Sept. 26, 2008. The shares have gained 70 percent this year.

About 88.4 million shares changed hands today, more than six times the daily average in the past three months.

Simona Jankowski, an analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., lowered her rating on RIM today to “neutral,” saying she doubts the company will maintain its market share in North America. She set a 12-month share price target at $73, down from a six-month target of $96. Four months ago, Goldman Sachs had added RIM to its outperforming stocks list.

Sales Driver

Higher-priced new versions of the BlackBerry Storm and Bold aren’t going to come until later this quarter, which ends Nov. 28, so that won’t help average selling prices much in the period, Li said. Cupertino, California-based Apple cut the price of its older iPhone 3G in half to $99 in July. Sunnyvale, California-based Palm, which released its Pre phone in June, reduced the price $50 this month to $149.99 and said it plans to introduce a cheaper device later this year.

The BlackBerry Curve 8520, among the lower-priced products in RIM’s smart-phone portfolio, is available at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for $48.88 with a two-year service contract with T-Mobile USA Inc.

“Gross sales are really what is going to drive these stocks forward,” said Michael Yoshikami, chief investment strategist at YCMNet Advisors, which manages about $850 million in Walnut Creek, California. “You simply cannot just continue to get efficient, you have to grow your business, and that’s clearly what RIM missed on,” he told Bloomberg Television.

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Judge delays Google books hearing

September 24, 2009 Leave a Comment

A New York judge has put Google’s vision of creating the world’s biggest digital library on hold.

Judge Denny Chin postponed a fairness hearing set for next month that was meant to address a settlement between Google and authors and publishers.

The $125m agreement, worked out last year, has effectively been sent back to the drawing board by the judge.

The class action case would let Google distribute and sell digital versions of out of print, copyrighted books.

Google says it wants to alter the humankinds unregenerated literature endorse to spirit

Google says it wants to "alter the humankind's unregenerated literature endorse to spirit"

It has been criticised because some say it would give Google too much power to set book prices.

Judge Chin’s decision comes after the American Association of Publishers and the Authors Guild asked the court to delay the final fairness hearing on the proposed agreement, which needs court approval to go ahead.

‘Fair concerns’

The move follows objections filed by the Department of Justice last week. It said the deal should not go through in its current form.

In a 32-page filing, the DOJ said the body required to be reworked so that it complied with US copyright and just laws.

It was revealed earlier this week that publishers, authors and Google hump been working to add the concord, which was realised endmost year.

“Low all the circumstances, it makes no import to deal a hearing on the fairness and reasonableness of the rife settlement planning, as it does not appear that the rife body module be the detective one,” Justice Lift wrote.

He noted that objectors to the settlement let “countries, states, non-profit organisations, and spectacular authors and law professors”.

“Understandably, sportsmanlike concerns soul been lifted. It would seem that if a sporting and levelheaded ending can be struck, the semipublic would aid,” said Authority Raise.

‘Status conference’

In 2001, fact authors and the Authors Guild filed a class-action proceeding, as did publishers, alleging that Google had violated copyright laws by scanning books from the libraries of field universities without e’er feat empowerment from the copyright owners of the books.

Google has scanned around ten million books to date

Google has scanned around ten million books to date

Google claimed at the dimension it was sheltered by the “moderate use” law because its playscript search engine showed exclusive con snippets of schoolbook for the books it had scanned without permit.

Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo bang filed objections to the body with the hotel, along with the Country and German governments, privateness advocates and consumer watchdog groups.

“Clearly voices much as ours had an event on Try Mentum,” wrote consumer watchdog exponent Evangelist Simpson in an netmail to BBC News.

“There was no way the proposed body could go send. We believe that the halal determine to cypher umpteen of the housing’s thorniest problems, such as that of orphan books, is in Legislature because it is useful to habitus digital libraries.”

Unparented books – of which there are thought to be phoebe cardinal – are titles where the authors cannot be initiate.

Determine Chin has titled for a “position conference” to be held on 7 Oct – the creative affiliate for the sensing – to shape “how to hap with the container as expeditiously as practicable”.

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PRESS RELEASE: 37SIGNALS VALUATION TOPS $100 BILLION AFTER BOLD VC INVESTMENT

September 24, 2009 Leave a Comment

CHICAGO—September 24, 2009—37signals is now a $100 billion dollar company, according to a group of investors who have agreed to purchase 0.000000001% of the company in exchange for $1.

Founder Jason Fried informed his employees about the new deal at a recent company-wide meeting. The financing round was led by Yardstick Capital and Institutionalized Venture Partners.

In order to increase the value of the company, 37signals has decided to stop generating revenues. “When it comes to valuation, making money is a real obstacle. Our profitability has been a real drag on our valuation,” said Mr. Fried. “Once you have profits, it’s impossible to just make stuff up. That’s why we’re switching to a ‘freeconomics’ model. We’ll give away everything for free and let the market speculate about how much money we could make if we wanted to make money. That way, the sky’s the limit!”

Proof that 37signals is now a $100 billion dollar company.

A $100 billion value for 37signals is “not outlandish,” says Aanandamayee Bhatnagar, a finance professor and valuation guru at Grenada State’s Schnook School of Business. Bhatnagar points to a leaked, confidential corporate strategy plan that projects 37signals will attract twelve billion users by the end of 2013.

How will the company overcome the fact that there are only 6.8 billion people alive today? “Why limit users to people?” said Bhatnagar.

In order to determine the valuation of companies, Bhatnagar typically applies the following formula: [(Twitter followers x Facebook fans) + (# of employees x 1000)] x (RSS subscribers + daily page views) + (monthly burn rate x Google’s stock price)2 and then doubles if it they use Ruby on Rails or if the CEO has run a business into the ground before. Bhatnagar admits the math is mostly a guess but points out that “the press eats it up.”

To help handle the burdens of an increased valuation, 37signals hired former YouTube exec Craig Mirage as Chief Operating Officer earlier this month. Mirage hopes to replicate YouTube’s valuation success at 37signals. “Of course, the investment comes with great expectations. But you should see the spreadsheet models we’re making up. Really breakthrough stuff,” said Mirage.

“37signals will lead the new global movement filled with imaginary assumptions on growth and monetization potential,” he continued. “We’re excited to roll out a list of unconfirmed revenue possibilities that involve crowdsourcing, a robust set of widget creation tools, 3G, augmented reality, social stuff, and an app store. Also, everything we make will include a compass.”

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How to Get Indexed On Google Within 24 Hours

March 1, 2009 Leave a Comment

Some friends often ask me how to Get Indexed On Google Within 24 Hours,I find some ways by my experience, I think the ways can help you make money.

You have just created your new blog, mini-site or other fancy presence on the web. You’ve got your adsense in place, your first few articles written and you are ready to be indexed on Google so you can start building traffic and hopefully make a little money. Well, personally I don’t like to wait that long to start monetizing my website. So I devised a little plan that gets my site indexed within 24 hours, every time, and starts making me money immediately.

Here is my short to do list to make it happen:
For this example let’s say I have registered Seeor.com obviously for the niche of skin care. (Not a site or niche I use – just a random example)

The first thing to do is set up an email box called: contributors @ Seeor.com (or whatever the actual domain is)

The second thing to do is find an affiliate product that has something to do with the niche of my new site. It can be a Clickbank product or an affiliate program of any kind just as long as it is good and relevant to my niche.

Once I have found a relevant product I set my affiliate link as the signature for all emails coming from my new domain. The signature says something like: Have you seen the latest breakthrough in “Niche Name Here”?
(Note: I usually cloak the signature link with a simple redirect page)

The third thing to do is a quick search on ebay or google for some info or something about my niche with master resale rights. Most of the time I can find it on ebay for less than a dollar. (Just search your niche along with the word “resale”)

The fourth thing to do is set up the resale product or products with paypal. I set the price at $7 or under. (I like to use ejunkie to host my files for sell but it isn’t absolutely necessary)

The fifth thing to do is set up an auto-responder for the email address that I created in step one. The text reads something like this:
————————————————————————-
“Thank you for your interest in becoming a contributor to Seeor.com (or whatever). We will review your submission and contact you if we feel that a working relationship can be established.
Our current contributors find the resource below very useful. As a potential contributor you may get your copy of this $89 resource for only $7.
Title of Product Goes Here (link to the reseller products I set up through paypal).
We hope to be in touch soon.
- SCB Staff ”
————————————————————————-

The Sixth thing to do is to go to craigslist.org and choose the largest city that will have an interest in your niche. Post an ad under “creative gigs” that looks something like this:
————————————————————————
Title: Can you write articles about skin care?
Seeor.com (<- make sure that is an active link. Very important!) is looking for aspiring writers with an interest in skin care and beauty. Everyone is welcome to apply. Please submit a short sample of your writing on any related subject (200-400 words) to contributors @ Seeor.com
———————————————————————–

Now here’s what happens:
1. That live link on craigslist.org will get you indexed on Google within 24 hours every time.
2. Lot’s of targeted people will click on the link to see what your site is and some always end up clicking on adsense ads.
3. Your auto-responder will fire off immediately to anyone who responds to the ad and offer them the “discounted” info as well as show your affiliate loaded signature. (again to highly targeted people)
4. If anyone actually sends you good content (most will suck) you just scored a great writer for your site. Work out a deal accordingly.

Don’t try to keep bumping the ad to the top. Leave the ad live until it naturally expires. If it made you any money, (always does), then run it again.

You were going to try to get indexed anyhow and this way is is a hell of alot more productive.

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What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

January 26, 2009 Leave a Comment

SEO is an acronym for “search engine optimization” or “search engine optimizer.” Deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO can do to your site. Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, including:

  • Review of your site content or structure
  • Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
  • Content development
  • Management of online business development campaigns
  • Keyword research
  • SEO training
  • Expertise in specific markets and geographies.

Keep in mind that the Google search results page includes organic search results and often paid advertisement (denoted by the heading “Sponsored Links”) as well. Advertising with Google won’t have any effect on your site’s presence in our search results. Google never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results, and it costs nothing to appear in our organic search results. Free resources such as Webmaster Tools, the official Webmaster Central blog, and our discussion forum can provide you with a great deal of information about how to optimize your site for organic search. Many of these free sources, as well as information on paid search, can be found on Google Webmaster Central.

Before beginning your search for an SEO, it’s a great idea to become an educated consumer and get familiar with how search engines work.

If you’re thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you’re considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. However, a good SEO can also help improve an existing site.

Some useful questions to ask an SEO include:

  • Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
  • Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
  • Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?
  • What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
  • What’s your experience in my industry?
  • What’s your experience in my country/city?
  • What’s your experience developing international sites?
  • What are your most important SEO techniques?
  • How long have you been in business?
  • How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways. Practices that violate our guidelines may result in a negative adjustment of your site’s presence in Google, or even the removal of your site from our index. Here are some things to consider:

  • Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:

    “Dear google.com,
    I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”

    Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

  • No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.
  • Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or “throwaway” domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google’s index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it’s best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to “help” you.
  • You should never have to link to an SEO.Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of “free-for-all” links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don’t affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines — at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.
  • What are the most common abuses a website owner is likely to encounter?

    • One common scam is the creation of “shadow” domains that funnel users to a site by using deceptive redirects. These shadow domains often will be owned by the SEO who claims to be working on a client’s behalf. However, if the relationship sours, the SEO may point the domain to a different site, or even to a competitor’s domain. If that happens, the client has paid to develop a competing site owned entirely by the SEO.

    Another illicit practice is to place “doorway” pages loaded with keywords on the client’s site somewhere. The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant for more queries. This is inherently false since individual pages are rarely relevant for a wide range of keywords. More insidious, however, is that these doorway pages often contain hidden links to the SEO’s other clients as well. Such doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the SEO and its other clients, which may include sites with unsavory or illegal content.

  • What are some other things to look out for?
    • owns shadow domains
    • puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
    • offers to sell keywords in the address bar
    • doesn’t distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear on search results pages
    • guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
    • operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
    • gets traffic from “fake” search engines, spyware, or scumware
    • has had domains removed from Google’s index or is not itself listed in Google
    • requests your FTP account information or root access to your server
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