http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2011/04/29/99designs-raises-35-million-crowdsourced-graphic-design
The 26 staff crowdsource graphic design website, 99designs, has raised $35 million in it’s first round of funding. This has been backed by angel investors who also back eBay, Survey Monkey, Flickr and Squarespace.

http://www.getelastic.com/shopping-cart-urgency/
Ways to improve and reduce the abandonment rate on ecommerce websites during the checkout phase. A good post by Get Elastic to show what tricks certain websites have used to improve conversions

http://www.adnews.com.au/news/groupon-gobbles-first-australian-rival
Groupon buys it’s first Australian rival – crowdmass. The Melbourne based company was attractive to Groupon simply because of their talent. Looks like Groupon wants to start with the small players first to tackle the bigger later. The crowdmass website now links to stardeals.com.au

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20058652-48.html
Rolls Royce released an App on the iPhone and iPad to customize various features of their flagship model – the Phantom. It’s colour palate allows you to select from 44,000 colours, however it says that you can take a picture of any surface and make you own unique colour. The point of this? I’m not sure.

The share market is down, Google’s stock aren’t performing like they once did, and the same goes for many other tech companies.

But one in particular seems to be doing alright – Netflix (NFLX).

Since Dec 08, most stock indices have fallen 20% (look at S&P and NASDAQ in above graph). However, if you look at performance of Netflix’s stock price, it stays straight on top – in fact, it grew 50%.

How did they do it? Is it just the best time for their sales to grown? 

Let’s first talk about who and what Netflix does. Back in 1998, founder and CEO, Reed Hasting had an overdue “Apollo 13″ cassette (yes, I said cassette!!). He owed the video rental store $40 for late payment as he had also misplaced the cassette. As he walked to the gym, Reed realised that a gym has a much better model. You pay $x a month, but the gym doesn’t care how much or how less you use their facilities.

He then took that model online for the video rental business and called it Netflix. Based on your subscription with Netflix (usually a flat monthly fee), you create a rental queue. Netflix will mail you the first DVD along with a prepaid envelope. When you’re done with the DVD, you mail it back in the prepaid envelope and they send you the next movie from your queue. Some subscription models allow up to multiple DVDs at time and some with a limit of exchanges per month.

Given this time of economic downturn, most people prefer to have a budget monthly expense with no more or less to pay. A fixed price of US$8.99 per month to have 1 DVD at a time with no exchange limit is a great way to save costs. Saves taking the whole family out to the movies – not to forget those ridiculously priced popcorn and coke.

So, over time subscribers have dramatically grown, and hence their stock climbs further.

Question is – how long will it take for major video rentals stores to move to the same model? 

In Australia, Telstra’s Big Pond Movies seem to have a similar model in place – ranging from AUD9.95 to AUD29.95 per month. 

Not bad Telstra, but I wonder how many subscribers you’ve got – and whether your stock price can jump 50%?

A survey held by Morgan Stanley shows that in the US during Q4, 300,000 Android phones were sold while Apple sold 1.75 million iPhones. That’s about 6 iPhones to 1 Android.

Now while Google still has to play catch up, the above figures are only based on two of its mobile manufacturing partners – HTC & T-Mobile. Soon enough we should see Motorola, LG, Sony Ericsson et al.

Surprising figures? Not really. iPhone always had an edge over Google’s acquired Android. Best network operator (AT&T rated 1, while T-Mobile rated at 4), better user experience, better multimedia and even better software.

And software is the key point here – the infamous App Store. That’s Apple’s additional revenue model. For Google? It’s not about selling their Android platform – no no no, it’s about making it easier to get it’s users to use Google services to then see (and hopefully click) on their ads.

Does that mean once we have more manufacturers using Android, we may see a sizable increase in revenue for Google? Unknown…

Don’t forget Google can still be accessed on the iPhone. I mean, I use them when I do a web search on my phone, but do I click on their ads? Well, not really.

So where does Microsoft fit in all this? Recently, they have announced that along with the next version of Windows Mobile, they will also release – guess what – an app store!

It’s called the “SkyMarket”. And along with SkyMarket, Microsoft will also launch “SkyBox” (similar to MobileMe to sync emails, contacts, and other data) and “SkyLine” – similar to SkyBox, but for small businesses.

Now, I’m assuming that the SkyBox will be free (or peanuts) unless they plan to make it work for non Windows devices – like a Nokia N95, iPhone or Android for that matter.

However, all this has been done – it’s not cutting edge. What we’re seeing is a company following the footpaths of the successful ones.

Still, Apple is holding it’s ground pretty well.

Satyam (which in India means “Truth”) released information that over the past few years the company’s profits were over-inflated. In fact, nearly US$1 billion in the company’s book is fictitious – summing up to nearly 95% of the company’s cash.

Founder and Chairman, Ramalinga Raju said that none of the other board members were aware of this fraud. He said “it was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten”. He will be facing some legal action and says that he is prepared for it.

Some say more companies will soon unfold as people believe that similar companies have inflated their profits. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, are the auditors for Satyam and had nothing to say about this matter.

With this recent event, it is unlikely that people will continue to outsource to India and further investments in this country will be thought about twice. It also questions the corporate governance in their lack of scrutiny on this matter.

With the way India works in terms of it’s bribery and false release of public information – I’m not surprised that they have gone this far. But I do wonder why they eventually cracked.

Satyam share prices dropped nearly 80% after the above information was released.

Jerry joined Yahoo at a tough time back in July 2007. 7 months after his appointment, and Yahoo had to lay off staff in Feb 08. And as I mentioned earlier, Yahoo his expecting to lay off more staff by Christmas.

Shortly after the Feb 08 layoffs, there was the Microsoft bid. I think Jerry should have taken that deal. I mean, most of the analyst thought it was a dumb thing not to. Now, Yahoo! is worth a third of Microsoft’s initial US$45 billion offer.

Then there was the opportunity to partner up with Google and have Google sell their ads, which would have added an approximate $800 million a year to Yahoo’s bottom line. However Google pulled the plug on that deal due to regulatory objections. On Nov 11th, the share price for Yahoo! went up as analysts believed that Microsoft would make another offer since Google threw Yahoo out on the highway. But those rumours were dismissed by Yahoo spokesman Tracy Schmaler – who also denied that Jerry was on his way out.

We then have Carl Icahn, the man who owned a good amount of Yahoo! shares and pressed hard to get Yahoo back in talking with Microsoft for a takeover bid. With that failing, Carl tried to get on the Yahoo!’s board of directors. Yang and the board at that time put a notice on Yahoo!’s homepage suggesting that Carl didn’t know what he was talking about. Days after Carl got his seat on the board.

Sorry Jerry – but being a founder of a giant company doesn’t always mean that you’re the best CEO to run it. Back to Chief Yahoo! is it for you.

Now that Jerry is out, what is Carl’s plans for Yahoo!?

Yahoo!’s stock jumped up after Jerry’s announcement, on the hope that Microsoft may come back with another offer.

Steve, US$45 billion divided by 3 – it’s not hard.

Overall revenue figure of SU$1.78 billion is only 1% increase from Q3 last year.

Yahoo has struggled compared to the like of Google, MySpace and Facebook. Seems like the worldwide crises have hit Yahoo! pretty hard as people close their wallets on advertising budgets.

The company announced that they expect “to reduce its global workforce by at least 10% during Q4 of 2008″. This will reduce their costs by approx $400 million. When asked during a phone interview when Yahoo! intends to do so, Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo!, said “We want to do it before the holidays”.

Yahoo is yet to get an approval from the US Justice Department in regards to their deal with Google and if it can go ahead. A decision is expected soon.

However, should the deal go through Yahoo would make millions (as I am sure Google would too). Over the last 3 months Yahoo!’s shares have dropped over 40%, but rose 7% (in after trading hours) when the layoffs were announced.

Maybe Microsoft can pull them out from this mess – this time at say $15 a share? Come on Steve Ballmer, make that phone call!

Imagine sitting on your own private jet – you’re high up in the clear sky, no clouds, things are clam and you’ve been given a flute of champagne to sip on. Then you look out the window, towards the land – and you see flames. Other planes burning up and some colliding in to each other. The land filled with chaos and you can only imagine people screaming their heads off.

But you don’t care – you’re mile above that problem and enjoying life.

The the above scenario is where Apple is at given the current worldwide economic crisis

You see, despite the thinking of cheap US$800 laptops that companies like DELL, Toshiba, Acer, Asus and others are churning out – that’s just not Apple’s style.

Sure we would all love cheap laptops, but we would look just like anyone else. Apple have a premium brand, with premium products and therefore premium prices to match.  During their recent launch of new laptops, Apple announced prices from US$999 up to US$2499. So the question is – if you like a good premium product – would you pay an extra $199? (Agree that some specs may differ)

People are willing to pay extra for that premium feel and ‘oh-so-awesome-one-click-mouse’. No doubt Apple has grown tremendously and maintained that reputation over the past few years – and Steve Jobs has done a hell of a job to keep his plane cruising at that altitude.

So why isn’t Apple down with the mess that the others guys are in?

You have companies below competing, trying to save costs, laying off staff, whipping sales people to make more cash and that just isn’t how Apple sees it. Yes, no doubt Apple’s margins will be a little lower and growth won’t be as before – but Apple’s sells to a market that is not a price-sensitive one and will not compromise on premium quality goods. Hence Apple doesn’t bring its price down nor sacrifices it’s brand.

You take the same case for car manufacturers – just because the current crisis affects people’s spending, we don’t see BMW or Mercedes bring down their sedan prices to match Toyota’s Camry?

It’s an economic dip that will affect BMW’s margins, but that’s reality. Like every other car manufacturer, they will take a hit. But when we all do recover from the economic issues, BMW will still maintain it’s reputation for a company producing quality cars.

Here is a quick Apple health check – the company has $20 billion in cash, no debts and the highest margin and growth rate it in the industry. If you see Apple’s stock price going down, it’s not because the company is in trouble – it’s because everyone else in the same industry will dip, and Apple economically follows suit.

Sources:
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/apple-won-t-get-crushed-by-the-recession
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/business/19digi.html

Look familiar? If you use Facebook or MySpace, you would be looked a red-tinted-logo mirror image.

By having a Yahoo! account, users can add friend connections from it’s address book and write updates about themselves known as Yahoo Buzz (their activity feed).

This is all that is initially planned, however, Jim Stoneham (VP of communities, Yahoo!) stated that this is the “foundation release” which will then enabled Yahoo! to develop on further.

The Yahoo Buzz activity feed will soon be a widget on the Yahoo! homepage for logged in users to see what’s happening within their social group.

But Yahoo! is looking to make this integration within various areas of its website – for example, if someone reviews a product on the Yahoo Shopping page, it will be added to their activity feed for the user’s friends to take a look at. The same is planned for sections like Finance, Sports, Flickr et al.

This sort of social community could increase user interactivity of Yahoo!’s products and services. Back in September Yahoo had opened access to it’s social API and Yahoo Application Platform for developers to write applications around this framework. Sounds like the following of Facebook, Apple and Google.

I guess Gigaom was right after all – Social Network is just a feature (http://gigaom.com/2007/02/05/are-social-networks-just-a-feature/)

Yahoo! is throwing it’s annual multi-million dollar party in December – themed as a Las Vegas casino. The layoffs are rumoured to be around the 10th Dec, apparently days after the party will be held.

Why have a Las Vegas themed party costing millions – and then lay off your staff? I suppose Jerry wants to gamble that decision (no pun intended)

Not only that, but the rumour also states that the CFO is planning on cutting it’s employees’ severance package (that’s probably what’s paying for the holiday).

Recently, Rojeh Avanesian (Head of Finance, Yahoo! Santa-Monica media group) left and I suppose many more to follow on.

Some of us have to wait for that torrent file to download a newly aired episode which would otherwise air on Australian TV weeks after.

But now Google might have a quicker solution to that 15kbps download on BitTorrent that we’re looking at. The answer is YouTube. Sure, you all have used it before, and it’s great for those few minute clips. But Google is now testing full-length programs on YouTube.

Why? The idea aims to bring in more users to the YouTube website. More so, it can also display more ads and hence more revenue possibilities.

Google is testing the system by placing 15 second ads before and after viewing each episode, as well as putting a message in between viewing. However, other options are also being tested, to be more appealing to both viewers and advertisers.

Google and YouTube did attempt to have the ads run before videos that are currently on YouTube. But who’s going to wait 15 seconds before watching a quick 2 min clip? Since that was not a sure way to gain viewer, perhaps we will be willing to make that sacrifice to watch a 30 or 60 min episode.

However, do not uninstall BitTorrent just yet – this feature will only be available in the US to start off with and through partnership with CBS, they will start with series of Dexter, Beverly Hills 90210, Star Trek, Californication and MacGyver.

Question now is, when will this come to Australia? And if it does, how good will it be? Would we all need to upgrade our connections to the “oh-so-super” 30mbps broadband from Telstra? Or wait for the video to load as we cook dinner?

Furthermore, how does this impact our local TV channels? Channel Ten, for example, airs the Californication episode about a week or two after the US does. If I can watch it online a day after it’s aired and not have as many ads as Ten does, then heck – I’d do it in a heartbeat.