Monthly Archives: February 2009
Sony President Ryoji Chubachi Stepping Down On April 1
Sony Corporation President Ryoji Chubachi announced that he is stepping down on April 1. Howard Stringer, Sony’s Chairman and CEO will remain on board. Stringer will add President as his title on top of the other two positions. Sony is projecting their first annual loss since the last 14 years.
Later today, Sony plans on holding a news conference to make the announcement. Sixty-one year old Chubachi oversaw Sony’s core electronics. He became President in 2005.
The projected net loss for the company is about 150 billion yen for the fiscal year through March. Last year, Sony had a 369.4 billion yen net profit. This year Sony is struggling to compete with competitors such as Apple, Samsung, and Sharp.
[via AP]
Categories Howard Stringer, Ryoji Chubachi, Sony Corporation
1 Comment
Ads Find Their Way On News.Google.Com
Yesterday Google announced that they will be placing ads on Google News’ search results in the U.S. This means if you search for keywords such as the iPhone or the Kindle, you will notice results for sponsored links from websites such as BlackBerry.com, att.com, Amazon.com, and SonyStyle.com.
“We’ve always said that we’d unveil these changes when we could offer a good experience for our users, publishers and advertisers alike, and we’ll continue to look at ways to deliver ads that are relevant for users and good for publishers, too,” stated Josh Cohen on the Google News Blog.
Google was debating whether to put ads on news.google.com for about 6 years. They were skeptical before because of criticism from newspaper publishers. Content from Google News is aggregated from various blogs and online newspapers.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has reiterated that the search engine company is a friend of newspaper publishers. Google’s own Adwords and AdSense business depends on newspaper publishers and other content publishers.
“When Eric Schmidt says he worries about the newspaper industry, it’s crocodile tears,” stated Brian Tierney CEO of the parent company for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News.
William Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group has a difference of opinion with Tierney. MediaNews is the parent company of about 54 daily newspapers including the San Jose Mercury NEws and The Denver Post. He says that newspaper companies don’t have to let Google take content, but opt to do so because it drives traffic.
Reuters says that they will be watching Google News closely as they don’t have any licensing agreement with them. “We are certainly not surprised by the move, which places Google News in a position to compete with news publishers — giving us cause for concern,” stated Alisa Bowen, SVP for Reuters.
[via New York Times]
BlackBerry Bold Halted By DoCoMo, Overheating Issue Cited
DoCoMo is the biggest mobile phone operations company in Japan. Today they announced that they are halting the sales of Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Bold phone because of complaints regarding overheating during charge. About 4,000 units of the high-end Bold were sold by DoCoMo. Thirty of those sales have complained about the keyboard area heating up. No reports have been made about phones catching fire or being burned.
[via Reuters]
Categories BlackBerry, BlackBerry Bold, Research In Motion, RIM
Leave a comment
Xbox Live: 17 Million Active, Sony Playstation Network: 20 Million Active
Several weeks ago, Microsoft claimed to have about 17 million active users on Xbox Live. There are about 28 million Xbox 360 units that have sold so that makes it about 60% of those who own the console are also on the online service. Basic services are free and the advanced online feature is about $50 per year. About 56% of those who own use Xbox Live pay for the service.
Recently a Microsoft document somehow leaked to the press and revealed that about 56% of the 28 million consoles sold pay for the service. That is about 15.7 million people paying and it comes out to be about $784 million revenue for Microsoft.
Yesterday Sony announced that they have about 20 million users on the PlayStation Network. This includes people using the PSP and PSIII. The PSIII has about 20 million units sold The PSP shifted about 50 million units worldwide. The Playstation Network has about $180 million in download sales to date. Its unclear how much the Playstation Network makes from an overall standpoint.
Based on these numbers, it seems like that the console wars are pretty close in terms of converting users from playing in the living room to playing with people online. And both companies are making a healthy revenue doing so.
[via PCW]
Girl That Identified Herself As A Lesbian Gets Banned From Xbox Live
Teresa, a former Xbox Live user was harrassed by several other people and was later suspended from using the service because she identified herself as a lesbian in her profile. Other gamers supposedly found this offensive. Words such as “gay” and “Jew” will also get your banned.
“As stated in the Xbox LIVE Terms of Use, a member may not create a gamertag or use text in other profile fields that include comments that look, sound like, stand for, hint at, abbreviate, or insinuate content of a potentially sexual nature,” Microsoft reported to Ars Technica. “Profiles that do are asked to change the language and suspended until changes are made. In regards to sexual orientation, for gamertags or profiles we do not allow expression of any type of orientation, be that hetero or other. Players can, however, self identify in voice communication where context is more easily explained to all players involved.”
Microsoft takes harrasment very seriously as demonstrated by this action. It is difficult to maintain policy in favor of different people, but for I recommend not using any sort of offensive word or anything that relates to sexual orientation.
Categories Microsoft Corporation, Xbox Live
2 Comments
Chris Brown Being “Erased” From Marketing Materials For Bone Deep Movie
On February 8, 2009, Chris Brown turned himself in to the LAPD. He was booked on suspicion of making criminal threats to his girlfriend Rihanna. Chris Brown and Rihanna are both famous singers. Brown may also be charged with domestic violence. There are pictures floating around the Internet of what Rihanna looked like after being beaten.
As a result of this incident, Chris Brown has been losing many endorsements. This includes Wrigley’s DoubleMint. Chris Brown will also be removed from all of the marketing materials for upcoming movie Bone Deep. Bone Deep was put together by studio Sony Screen Gems. Sony was planning on heavily marketing stars T.I., Chris Brown, Paul Walker, and Hayden Christiansen. But now the company will not put Brown anywhere on the posters, trailers, or TV ads.
[via Woooha]
Categories Bone Deep, Chris Brown, Rihanna, Sony Screen Gems
Leave a comment
Jealous Of StumbleUpon’s Success, Digg Is Developing Of Web Toolbar
If I had to choose between StumbleUpon and Digg about whether I believe one is more valuable, I would definetely choose StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon suggests different content to every one of their users using an algorithm that is based on interests. If I like reading about airplanes, StumbleUpon will suggest similar content to me about airplanes. Digg basically suggests content to me that a bunch of random hardcore users selected.
Digg has taken a lot for being biased in the past. There are certain users that seem to dominate the homepage over others. Digg users such as MrBabyMan, msaleem, mklopez, louiebaur, irfanmp, MakiMaki, etc. submit a lot of content and have a good enough of a fan base to get homepaged regularly. I have no problem with that because it is important for several users to be a benchmark in order to make other users more competitive and keep people interested in the site.
But I strongly believe that Digg has become too biased in terms of the sources of content being homepaged. The other day I calculated that about 8 websites control over 30% of Digg’s technology section. Arstechnica, AppleInsider, and Torrentfreak are about 18% of the stories that are homepaged in the technology section. Now that gets pretty annoying. If StumbleUpon showed me one of those websites every once every five times I click on the “Stumble” button, I’d get annoyed and uninstall the toolbar.
Let’s also not forget the facts here too. Is StumbleUpon profitable? Yes. Is Digg profitable? No. Was StumbleUpon acquired? Yes. Was Digg acquired. No. Has StumbleUpon’s users revolted in the past? No. Has Digg’s users revolted in the past? Yes, multiple times. By definition, I’d say StumbleUpon has been more successful than Digg.
What do you do with successful services? Emulate them. Digg has admittedly done this with Slashdot and now they’re doing it to StumbleUpon as pointed out by TechCrunch (good catch Schonfeld via Belmont).
Digg is secretly working on a web toolbar. The toolbar gives the ability to Digg or Bury a page that you are on. It also shows how many Diggs the story. The toolbar also reports links to related pages and reports what other pages from the same website have a ton of Digg votes along with upcoming. There is also a random button that works similar to StumbleUpon.
Another interesting feature that the toolbar has is the ability to create a shortened URL. It does not use TinyURL or Bit.ly to do so. It creates six random characters after the Digg.com/ URL. Then you can share this on Facebook or Twitter. This feature was pretty much copied from what TinyURL and Bit.ly were already succeeding in doing.
In creating this toolbar, Digg has implied that they want to take on TinyURL and other URL shortening services along with StumbleUpon. Out of spite, I have decided that I’m never going to use the Digg toolbar or use any of their URL shortening services when this feature comes out. Instead I will always use TinyURL and StumbleUpon as long as they exist.
By the way, those who think that Digg is not necessarily “jealous” of StumbleUpon’s success because it is not an apples-to-apples comparison, I feel that they should be. What is your opinion? Leave it in the comments.
Categories Digg, StumbleUpon, TinyURL
2 Comments
Natalie Cedeno Taking FriendFinder To Court Over Labor Laws
Natalie Cedeno is a former Director of HR at Penthouse Internet slash Various, Inc. slash FriendFinder Networks. Penthouse acquired Various Inc. (parent company of FriendFinder) for $500 million around December 2007.
“Natalie is one of the best HR managers I have worked with. She is a true professional and is always there to assist and guide staff through any situation. Natalie possesses strong organizational skills and a deep knowledge of many other areas including leadership/executive level coaching, facilities management, payroll and office operations,” stated Mike Rogers a colleague of Cedeno, on her LinkedIn profile as a testimonial of her work. “I would recommend Natalie to any organization looking to hire a seasoned HR manager and would gladly work with her again.”
It sounds like Cedeno was a good employee, but it appears that FriendFinder pushed the wrong buttons. She has been fired since then and she is taking FriendFinder to court over labor laws. Here is the full story.
Cedeno claims that FriendFinder withheld two years of pay that she was owed under her contract unless she stayed silent about FriendFinder’s violations. Cedeno’s lawyers believed this is a case of extortion. Cedeno filed the claim under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
Both FriendFinder Networks and Penthouse Media Group are adult entertainment companies. As a token of appreciation to the FriendFinder, Penthouse sent a few Penthouse Pets to the California offices from Florida where Cedeno worked.
When one female employee complained about the Penthouse Pets coming to the FriendFinder officers, executives had the Pets humiliate the employee. “They came into her office and placed her breasts on her head in an attempt to humiliate her, and they had someone ready to take pictures,” stated Cedeno. The employee quit one month after.
Valleywag points out that if Cedeno wins the law suit, it could affect the IPO that FriendFinder was planning. And if FriendFinder’s executives are penalized financially, the company may have a hard time paying off the $420 million in debt that they currently have.
There are a plethora of other problems that the company has right now. This includes the recent firing of the company’s sales department, the COO hating on the operations team, and a former controller planning to file an age-discrimination lawsuit. Its just one big mess.
What are your thoughts? Leave a comment.
New Wii Controller Is Uglii
Nintendo in Japan has unleashed a new controller for the Wii. To best honest, I think I liked the look of this controller when the Nintendo 64 first came out. But that was 1996 and this is 2009. Nintendo, its your own fault for setting the bar high for yourself. I rate this controller as being “uglii.”
The controller is coming this summer and no price has been announced yet. No word yet on whether it is going to make its way overseas to the U.S. Do wii care? Not reallii.
Categories Nintendo, Nintendo Wii
Leave a comment