About Me 0089: February 2011

Monday, February 21, 2011

Stock Making Money

Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the National Rifle Association, delivered what appeared to be his stock speech, saying the media exploits grief produced by violence by making it about gun control. He read the names of a dozen Americans, all victims of mass shootings, shaming the media for making their killers famous while they are forgotten. His presentation took on the drama of America's Most Wanted as he played the 911 recording of an unarmed woman trying to resist an armed intruder. How safe, he asked women in the audience, do you feel in a dark parking lot? "And these clowns want to ban magazines? Are you kidding me?"

He left no ambiguity about where the NRA stands on congressional efforts to ban large-size magazine clips like the shooter in Tucson used. He patted himself and his organization on the back for maintaining a "respectful silence" in the face of calls for more of what he considers ineffective laws that penalize law-abiding gun owners. "As soon as you leave this hotel, your life is in jeopardy," he said, reciting a laundry list of alarming statistics on the number of Americans who would soon be murdered, maimed, robbed and forcibly raped. He showed a clip out of Cairo with a correspondent reporting on the breakdown in order, and how Egyptians were taking matters into their own hands. "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun," he said.

There was a lot of talk at CPAC about American exceptionalism, and how the elites in Washington, Manhattan, and San Francisco don't believe in it, and how President Obama doesn't command respect in the world the way that, say, Ronald Reagan did. Every speaker paid homage to Reagan; on whatever the subject, and sometimes despite the facts, Reagan is the benchmark for success. But when you translate the American specialness conservatives cite into policy, the results can be disquieting. It apparently means more God, with one display inquiring, "Why are you a conservative?" The most succinct response, "Because God is." It means cracking down on immigration, conveniently forgetting that President Reagan signed an amnesty bill, and of course repealing Obama's health-care law, which Iowa Republican Steve King calls a cancer tumor that must be pulled out by its roots and eradicated before it metastasizes.

A panel on "political correctness" in the military assailed the recent overturning of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy on gay soldiers. Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness claimed the survey of troops was faulty because it relied too heavily on respondents who said they knew and had worked with someone who was gay. That, she said, didn't mean they were ready to overturn DADT.

“As soon as you leave this hotel, your life is in jeopardy.”

Clockwise from left: The audience at CPAC. National Rifle Association Executive Vice President/CEO Wayne LaPierre, Center for Military Readiness President Elaine Donnelly, and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. (AP Photo)

Ilario Pantano, a former Marine and a fiery speaker, said that America is a Christian nation, and that's being denied because we have to be tolerant of everybody else's worldview. "It's time to start offending and start talking about God's truth," he declared, concluding to thunderous applause, "The ultimate founding document is the Bible."

A panel on immigration featured Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who wants the federal government to stop sending money to "sanctuary cities" like San Francisco that don't enforce immigration laws, and states that give tuition breaks to illegal immigrants. Another panelist deplored the notion of granting citizenship to illegal immigrants in exchange for military service, wondering how you can trust people to defend the country when they broke the law to get here.

The hearts of many CPAC activists seem to be with the social issues, and among the speakers, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is the embodiment of those issues. Santorum, who is running for president, implored the CPAC audience to join with him in an army anyone can join, one in which they don't need a uniform. After his remarks a questioner asked, "We're all ready to fight, but how do we know when we've won?"

When we repeal Obamacare, reduce the size of government, and get the courts to stop attempting to redefine life and marriage, Santorum responded.

A panel in support of traditional marriage featured two of the very few African Americans attending this conference. Michael Faulkner got a big round of applause for having run against Democrat Charles Rangel in the last election. Bishop Harry Jackson of the Hope Christian Church in Maryland implored the audience to seize the opportunity to bring blacks, Hispanics, and others into the conservative movement based on their shared conservative social values. "Don't throw us under the bus, don't push social issues over to the corner," he declared. "Stand with me and decide if this is a multicultural, multiracial movement. We can change America!"

• Howard Kurtz: Romney Tries MockeryHe brought the almost all-white crowd to their feet, and then a questioner brought everyone back to reality. Noting the shared commitment to traditional marriage and the antiabortion agenda that conservatives share with black Americans, she asked, "Where do we lose them?" Faulkner, who lives in Harlem, took a stab at answering. "It's not our values, it's our message.... It's a disconnect we need to work on."

Conservatives built their movement on a set of social issues and have regularly capitalized on them. These issues took a backseat during the 2010 elections, but their power to motivate these voters is undiminished.

Eleanor Clift is a contributing editor for Newsweek.

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

Is There a Traffic Bubble, Or Does The New York Times Have an Inefficient Capital Structure?

As I hope my family can attest, I made a great point over dinner a couple of weeks ago about how the New York Times is clearly undervalued vis-a-vis various internet stocks. The NYT’s not an “internet company” but it does run one of the world’s most popular websites. Then I forgot all about it. But via Ezra Klein, I have a chance to revisit the point via Frédéric Filloux contention that we’re experiencing a web traffic bubble:

About 35% of the HuffPo’s users come form Google. They land on cleverly optimized content: stories borrowed from other (and consenting) medias that mostly generate blogging and comments. This is the machine that drove 28m unique visitors in January, which makes the HuffPo close to the New York Times/Herald Tribune audience of 30m UV. With one key difference: each viewer of the NYT websites yields an ARPU of $11, ten times more than the Arianna thing. Based on the HuffPo’s valuation, the NYT Digital would be worth billions. That’s a consolation.

You can think of some rational reasons for Huffington Post to get a premium over the NYT, related to HuffPo’s more favorable labor cost structure. You can also assume they’re getting a certain AOL desperation premium.

But is the basic thesis that the NYT should be worth a ton of money really so absurd? It’s an iconic global brand whose main competition as an iconic serious English-language global media brand is owned by the UK government. The New York Times Company currently has a market capitalization of about $1.5 billion and if their P/E ratio were at the S&P 500 average, it would in fact be worth “billions” right now. So why isn’t it? If I’m so smart why don’t the markets agree? Well, it’s a family controlled company with a two-tier stock structure. There’s got to be some reason most firms aren’t organized this way, and presumably the reason is that you pay a penalty in terms of the price of your equity. That’s a price the Sulzberger family has historically been willing to pay in order to preserve the family’s control over the iconic brand in question—they’ve viewed staying involved and maintaining their vision of the paper’s mission as important enough to weigh against some more narrowly commercial considerations. That seems like a sensible view to me, but it’s also sensible for investors to penalize them for it.

Recall that when Carlos Slim was given the opportunity to make an unorthodox investment in the NYT he wound up making a bunch of money.

Bad News For The PIIGS: Angela Merkel's Party Gets Crushed In ...

In Hamburg, the CDU's share of the vote falls in half.

In WTF News: Charlie Sheen Wants His Ex-Wives To Move Into His ...

What on effing Earth?! What does he want, some bizarre, multi-million, cocaine and stripper-infused real-life Three´s Company?? Charlie Sheen must be feeling a little sentimental - and...

The Week in Android News | Android Central

To say this week was packed full of Android news would be an incredible understatement. Phil headed out to Barcelona, and brought us a TON of news from Mobile World Congress this year. We still question whether he got a chance to sleep ...

free rental agreement forms

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Making Money Software

Editor’s note: The following guest post is written by Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, which is currently the No. 5 app in the Mac App Store. It also didn’t hurt that the app has been prominently featured by Apple.

We just finished our first week on the Mac App Store and it might have been the most important week in Evernote’s history. Here’s how it went and what we learned:

1. Meritocracy is sweet

I remember one of the first computer articles that I ever read (maybe it was in Byte Magazine in the early 80s while I was in junior high). It had a little survey aimed at my fellow nerds. “Do you buy software for your computer?”, was the first question. The choices were, “A) Yes, frequently. B) Yes, sometimes. and C) Rarely, I prefer to write my own.” The fact that C was a viable choice pretty much sums up the early euphoria of the consumer software industry. You just had to make something great and the rest would follow. That was a long time ago.

The following twenty or thirty years brought us monopolies and barriers to entry and this happy state of affairs became a dim memory. Then came the mobile app explosion.

Over the past year, about 70% of Evernote’s new users came from mobile app stores, mostly iOS and Android. This led us to the understandable conclusion that mobile was the crucial thing that made a platform attractive to independent developers. Last week made us realize that the reality is a little bit more nuanced. It isn’t mobile that’s overwhelmingly important, it’s the app store. Until a week ago, all the good app stores just happened to be on mobile devices, but someone with a shiny new Macbook is just as eager to get the best apps as someone with a shiny new iPhone.

A platform without a well-formed app store presents a huge challenge to developers. To succeed on such a platform, the developer has to spend as much time and money on channels, logistics, partnerships and advertising as on actually making a great product. Once an app store takes hold, the software market on a platform starts moving towards a meritocracy. This is imperfect, of course, but focusing on building a great product is the best strategy for succeeding on an app store. This is a huge boon for software nerds of all types, and has resulted in the explosion of mobile apps and services in the past two years. It’s about time that desktops joined the party.

2. Desktop software is viable again

It took a few weeks of non-trivial effort to get our existing Mac application ready for the app store. There’s never a convenient time to take a few weeks out of a busy development schedule, and December is as inconvenient as it gets, but Apple’s developer relations folks were helpful and the approval process itself worked reasonably well once we’d worked out the kinks.

The results speak for themselves. About 320,000 people downloaded Evernote in the first week of the Mac App Store. Of this number, about 120,000 had never used Evernote before, and created new accounts. This represents more than 50% of all the new Evernote accounts created last week. The Mac platform—which used to be in fourth place for new user registrations behind iOS, Android and Windows—has now jumped to first.

It’s obvious in hindsight, but the presence of a well-formed app store is the single most important factor for the viability of a platform for third party developers. If you want to take this a step further and say that a robust third-party software market is the most important factor for the success of the platform overall, well…

I hope Windows gets a good app store soon.

3. Multi-platform users are the best kind

Not only is the Mac App Store getting us new users, it’s making our existing users more valuable. Neat, but how?

So 320,000 people downloaded Evernote in the first week and 120,000 of them became new users. What happened to the rest? Well, about 80,000 people were either switching their Mac client from our direct-download version to the app store version or had simply downloaded the app and didn’t complete registration. Another 100,000 people were existing users who had previously used Evernote from other platforms (mostly the iPhone) and added the Mac version for the first time.

This is both interesting and important. Interesting because the vast majority of these people must have (1) already had Macs, and (2) known about our Mac version from previous interactions with Evernote but hadn’t bothered to install it until the Mac App Store appeared. Important because people who use Evernote from multiple devices are much more likely to stick around and to eventually pay for the premium version. This makes intuitive sense and the data is clear: in a Freemium model, people choose to pay for what they love and the more devices they use Evernote from, the more likely they are to fall in love with it.

The Mac App Store effect works the other way as well: many of the new users who first found us on the Mac App Store went on to also download Evernote on their mobile devices. Our iTunes downloads for iOS devices were up by 54% during the same week that the Mac App Store came out and that’s without any new versions or noticeable change in iOS app visibility.

4. A strike against lowest common denominator

If Evernote’s desktop clients were written in Adobe AIR, I’d be worried right now. The immediate popularity of the Mac App Store, and the iPhone App Store before it, reinforces my belief that in a world of infinite software choice, people gravitate towards the products with the best overall user experience. It’s very hard for something developed in a cross-platform, lowest-common-denominator technology to provide as nice an experience as a similar native app.

As the CEO of a software company, I wish this weren’t true. I’d love to build one version of our App that could work everywhere. Instead, we develop separate native versions for Windows, Mac, Desktop Web, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, HP WebOS and (coming soon) Windows Phone 7. We do it because the results are better and, frankly, that’s all-important. We could probably save 70% of our development budget by switching to a single, cross-platform client, but we would probably lose 80% of our users. And we’d be shut out of most app stores and go back to worrying about distribution.

Does this mean that web apps are doomed? Not at all, but the most successful web apps will be the ones that emphasize unique benefits—sharing, communications, integrations—that are better implemented on the web than in native code. This is the main design goal for the next version of the Evernote web client, by the way.

Lost among all the gloomy economic news of the past few years is the fact that there’s never been a better time to be in software. Sure, the emergence and inevitable dominance of app stores will permanently disrupt existing industry practices—I’m glad we’re not in the business of preventing people from making copies of bits, shipping shrink-wrapped boxes or charging people for periodic upgrades—but a company like Evernote simply could not have attained a fraction of our current momentum even three years ago. App stores, cloud services, cross-platform users and Freemium economics made it all possible. The download numbers are certain to decline a bit as the excitement of the first week finds a sustainable steady-state, but the launch of the Mac App Store will have a major, and permanent, positive impact on developers.

It was worth the wait.

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Sunbelt Software. All opinions are 100% mine.

By David Ponce

The anti-virus/anti-malware space is certainly crowded, with Symantec’s Norton the ubiquitous elephant in the room. And elephant is a particularly good analogy in this case, as most anti-virus programs suffer from inevitable bloat. As generations of software pass, it seems as though features are bolted on and on and on, making the final product a resource hog and transforming your PC into a sluggish carton of metal. Not to mention that products get increasingly complicated, confusing the end user with what to buy by fractionalizing their offerings in an effort to artificially drive up prices.

Well… competition is rarely a bad thing and VIPRE Antivirus software from Sunbelt Software claims to have developed their anti-malware program as a one-stop-shop shield against viruses, spyware, rootkits, trojans and more.

To put their money where their mouth is, Sunbelt Software commissioned a report (which you can download here (PDF)) that concluded “[VIPRE] consumes up to 38% and 45% less memory, and offers up to 2.6x and 3.6x scanning speed compared to Symantec and McAfee.” Also, “VIPRE has been VB100 and ICSA certified, which means you get world-class protection.”

Well, at the very least, VIPRE sounds like it’s worth a try… and if you’re so inclined, why don’t you enter to win a 1-year license (a $30 value)? Like always, say something in the comments and we’ll randomly select a winner in one week from now.

[ Download Here ]

benchcraft company scam

Washington Extra – Royal news | Analysis & Opinion |

As is increasingly the case, the United States is finding that talking pro-democracy is one thing. Dealing with the aftermath of uprisings another.

NBC Nightly News Report on Toomer's Poisoning - Track Em Tigers

Your best source for quality Auburn Tigers news, rumors, analysis, stats and scores from the fan perspective.

ABC News Correspondent Beaten in Bahrain - The Hollywood Reporter

Miguel Marquez says he began yelling "Journalist!" during the military crackdown to show he wasn't a protestor.

benchcraft company scam

Washington Extra – Royal news | Analysis & Opinion |

As is increasingly the case, the United States is finding that talking pro-democracy is one thing. Dealing with the aftermath of uprisings another.

NBC Nightly News Report on Toomer's Poisoning - Track Em Tigers

Your best source for quality Auburn Tigers news, rumors, analysis, stats and scores from the fan perspective.

ABC News Correspondent Beaten in Bahrain - The Hollywood Reporter

Miguel Marquez says he began yelling "Journalist!" during the military crackdown to show he wasn't a protestor.

benchcraft company scam

Washington Extra – Royal news | Analysis & Opinion |

As is increasingly the case, the United States is finding that talking pro-democracy is one thing. Dealing with the aftermath of uprisings another.

NBC Nightly News Report on Toomer's Poisoning - Track Em Tigers

Your best source for quality Auburn Tigers news, rumors, analysis, stats and scores from the fan perspective.

ABC News Correspondent Beaten in Bahrain - The Hollywood Reporter

Miguel Marquez says he began yelling "Journalist!" during the military crackdown to show he wasn't a protestor.

bench craft company scam

Washington Extra – Royal news | Analysis & Opinion |

As is increasingly the case, the United States is finding that talking pro-democracy is one thing. Dealing with the aftermath of uprisings another.

NBC Nightly News Report on Toomer's Poisoning - Track Em Tigers

Your best source for quality Auburn Tigers news, rumors, analysis, stats and scores from the fan perspective.

ABC News Correspondent Beaten in Bahrain - The Hollywood Reporter

Miguel Marquez says he began yelling "Journalist!" during the military crackdown to show he wasn't a protestor.

bench craft company scam

Washington Extra – Royal news | Analysis & Opinion |

As is increasingly the case, the United States is finding that talking pro-democracy is one thing. Dealing with the aftermath of uprisings another.

NBC Nightly News Report on Toomer's Poisoning - Track Em Tigers

Your best source for quality Auburn Tigers news, rumors, analysis, stats and scores from the fan perspective.

ABC News Correspondent Beaten in Bahrain - The Hollywood Reporter

Miguel Marquez says he began yelling "Journalist!" during the military crackdown to show he wasn't a protestor.

bench craft company scam

Washington Extra – Royal news | Analysis & Opinion |

As is increasingly the case, the United States is finding that talking pro-democracy is one thing. Dealing with the aftermath of uprisings another.

NBC Nightly News Report on Toomer's Poisoning - Track Em Tigers

Your best source for quality Auburn Tigers news, rumors, analysis, stats and scores from the fan perspective.

ABC News Correspondent Beaten in Bahrain - The Hollywood Reporter

Miguel Marquez says he began yelling "Journalist!" during the military crackdown to show he wasn't a protestor.

bench craft company scam

Washington Extra – Royal news | Analysis & Opinion |

As is increasingly the case, the United States is finding that talking pro-democracy is one thing. Dealing with the aftermath of uprisings another.

NBC Nightly News Report on Toomer's Poisoning - Track Em Tigers

Your best source for quality Auburn Tigers news, rumors, analysis, stats and scores from the fan perspective.

ABC News Correspondent Beaten in Bahrain - The Hollywood Reporter

Miguel Marquez says he began yelling "Journalist!" during the military crackdown to show he wasn't a protestor.

bench craft company sales

Washington Extra – Royal news | Analysis & Opinion |

As is increasingly the case, the United States is finding that talking pro-democracy is one thing. Dealing with the aftermath of uprisings another.

NBC Nightly News Report on Toomer's Poisoning - Track Em Tigers

Your best source for quality Auburn Tigers news, rumors, analysis, stats and scores from the fan perspective.

ABC News Correspondent Beaten in Bahrain - The Hollywood Reporter

Miguel Marquez says he began yelling "Journalist!" during the military crackdown to show he wasn't a protestor.

benchcraft company scam

Washington Extra – Royal news | Analysis & Opinion |

As is increasingly the case, the United States is finding that talking pro-democracy is one thing. Dealing with the aftermath of uprisings another.

NBC Nightly News Report on Toomer's Poisoning - Track Em Tigers

Your best source for quality Auburn Tigers news, rumors, analysis, stats and scores from the fan perspective.

ABC News Correspondent Beaten in Bahrain - The Hollywood Reporter

Miguel Marquez says he began yelling "Journalist!" during the military crackdown to show he wasn't a protestor.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Affiliate Making Money

UPDATE: DirecTV has given Consumerist its side of the story.

_________________

For years, DirecTV has been advertising its "refer your friends and get $100" promotion. But for one DirecTV customer in Florida, that referral didn't end up profiting her; in fact, it ended up draining her bank account after that friend passed away.

The woman referred her friend to DirecTV a few months ago, but when that friend died unexpectedly, DirecTV debited at least $800 — without notifying her — from her bank account to pay for her late friend's unpaid service.

"I was never told of this," she told the NBC affiliate in Jacksonville. "I didn't see any of this. I never signed for this. I was blindsided. I have no record of this....

"I have a sick child at home that I couldn't afford to buy her Pedialyte... I had to ask for help from family. I had to get money for gas to get to work today, and DirecTV hasn't offered anything."

There is nothing in the DirecTV terms and conditions that ties a referrer's account to anyone they refer to the company. But the customer says that all her phone calls, letters and faxes to DirecTV failed to get her an explanation or refund.

It wasn't until after the local TV news got involved that she got any sort of response from DirecTV, who wrote, "This is definitely not part of DirecTV's policy. If a customer refers a friend, they are not responsible for making payments on their friend's account."

Eventually, she received a call from the company's president, who told her that DirecTV would be refunding all the money that was taken from her account. The next day it was back safely in her bank.

We've reached out to DirecTV to see if anyone there can explain what caused this huge error and will update if we get a response.

DirecTV Bills Woman After Friend Dies [News4jax.com]

Thanks to Jeff for the tip!

Affiliate marketing is easy once you find the tactics that work for you. The time it takes to become a master depends upon your learning abilities and also your problem solving abilities. There are no rules carved in stone. Everything changes very fast, so you need to change your strategies, too, every day. One method that was extremely great two years ago and you read about it in an e-book might not work today, or might work differently.

The pitfall of most e-books is that they are only listing the general processes and don't give you a step-by-step guide to affiliate marketing. Since there are literally hundreds of tactics to be successful, it would be a very long book to cover every single method. That's why those so-called gurus are only writing about their favorite methods, which would possibly not be the methods that you can utilize the same way.

Not every method will bring in the same results, so you will need testing. You must choose one that is the most appropriate for your personality, and abilities, too. Loads of people find some traffic generation techniques boring or too complicated. That is why about 90% of people starting with Adwords will fail, because they don't like testing and analyzing the keywords. If you are this kind of person, don't even go there, or you will end up losing money instead of making affiliate revenue. Although, if you are a person who loves sharing and communicates easily, social networking would be your best method.

Prior to spending much money on ads, it is always useful to test an offer on free traffic. I started to apply this rule long ago and it has already saved me a lot of money. If I am sending out a free solo e-mail for my list, for example, and it turns out to be a success, I might consider buying e-zine advertising and advertise that way. But if not, I can still do split-test campaigns, therefore maximize conversions prior to paying for traffic.

Continued on the next page

bench craft company reviews

CBS News reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted in Egypt - From ...

CBS says Logan was the victim of “a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating” while covering the events in Egypt last week.

Experiments In Realtime News: The Eqentia Streams

When it comes to realtime news, the prevailing wisdom these days is to let your friends tell you what to read through Twitter or Facebook. Instead of editors, people are using these social stream sto filter their news, and a whole bunch ...