This is Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh talking about hiring and firing practices at one of the most dynamic Internet-based retail companies in the world. Zappos has grown by leaps and bound over the past few year (passing the multiple millions-per-day sales mark and being acquired by Amazon.com) and their unique corporate culture is a large part of that growth. Zappos has made an art out of a managerial and talent-finding style that most modern businesses would call quirky, but which seem to make perfect sense to those who work there. — This video is definitely worth 4-1/2 minutes of your time.

No… that’s not a typo. It seems that while The XBOX 360, Playstation 3 and Wii have been beating each other up over console numbers, Microsoft has been quietly racking up the cha-ching in the backroom server closet.

Gamers have known for a while that Microsoft’s XBOX Live! trumps Sony’s makeshift PlayStation Network in terms of reliability, playability, features and overall experience; while Nintendo’s Wii doesn’t really have an online component to speak of. The only question has been, “how does that online dominance play out in terms of the bottom line?” — well now we know. Bloomberg has reported that Microsoft’s XBOX Live! earned over $1.2 Billion in FY ‘09-’10. Breaking down that number ever further, about half of subscribers pay $50 a year to play online (~$600 Million), and Microsoft made slightly more than that from Live! sales of movies, TV shows and music downloads. Added into the cost of the XBOX 360 itself andsubtracting production costs of Live!, mainly server space and bandwidth, the entertainment division of Microsoft will post operating income for the year of $1.04 Billion.

More after the Jump »

Not too long ago a bunch of us uberGeeks discovered something strange in the P2P (peer-to-peer) community. Many of us had fat pipes to the Internet, but our P2P transfer speed seemed to take a dive on a regular basis. A little investigatory work by some techies discovered that Comcast was injecting “TCP Reset” packets into the data stream, effectively killing our transfer sessions each time they hit full-speed.

Comcast argued that this was a necessary step because P2P traffic was illegal (not true) and they needed to be proactive in their network management (true). The problem with that reasoning is that many of us used P2P for legal purposes (I used it to seed downloads of my IPTV show) and customers actually PAID for higher speeds that Comcast was making impossible to reach.

Several class-action lawsuits emerged and after years of wrangling we now can say that Comcast is ready to reimburse its users… $16 each.

More after the Jump »

Here’s an interesting little bit of legal news. There’s now a class-action lawsuit against AT&T that claims AT&T and Apple had a secret agreement to form an iPhone monopoly that forced potential iPhone users to sign up with AT&T service.

From Wired: A lawsuit alleging that Apple and AT&T secretly formed monopoly with their exclusive iPhone agreement has received class-action status, meaning the plaintiffs now represent everybody who’s bought an iPhone in the United States.

I’m no fan of AT&T and I have philosophical differences with Apple’s business practices, but even I have trouble stomaching this as a legitimate suit instead of a legal shakedown. I may not like the fact that Apple locks down their phone, but it IS their device and nobody is forced to buy it. There are plenty of other smart phones on the market and to take away a manufacturer’s ability to have “exclusive contracts” is a great way to kill competition between the carriers.

More after the Jump »

Looks like AT&T is gearing up for the next iPhone by raising their Early Termination Fees (ETF) to lock in their new customers. (And users who will pay the ETF on their current iPhone just to have the latest from Apple.) From MSNBC: Starting June 1, smartphone buyers will have to pay $325 for breaking their contract, up from $175 currently. For buyers of regular phones, the fee is being decreased by $25 to $150. The early termination fee goes down for every month customers stay in their contract — by $10 for smart phones and $4 for regular phones. So if a smart phone contract is broken after two months, the termination fee is reduced by $20 to $305. So… aside from a few groans and a little sticker shock, does this uberGeek have anything to say about the upcoming policy? Yeah.. A few things…

More after the Jump »

I can’t quite explain how excited I am by the partnership between Toyota and Tesla. Not just because I’m a big fan of uberGeek EV cars, but because Fremont, CA is my hometown and the shutdown of the NUMI plant was devastating. Under the partnership announced late today, the two companies will develop electric vehicles and components, including a Toyota EV driven by a Tesla drivetrain. Tesla Motors also will invest “a couple of hundred million dollars” retooling a shuttered Toyota factory to build the Model S sedan.

The partnership gives Toyota — which until now has shown little public interest in EVs — access to proven EV technology and gives Tesla a crash course in engineering and building a mass-market car. That expertise will serve Tesla well as it scrambles to build the Model S, a car it keeps promising to have on the road in 2012.

More after the Jump »

Techcrunch has come up with this little piece of news about a record quarter for online advertising in the US. It seems that companies are more than ready to get back into the saddle and confident enough in the recovery to start advertising their wares once again. My only question is, “if online advertising is doing so well… where’s MY cheddar?!?!”

From Techcrunch: “Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. hit $5.9 billion for Q1 2010, representing a 7.5 percent increase over the same period in 2009, according to numbers released moments ago by the Interactive Advertising Bureau in tandem with Pricewaterhouse Coopers. This marks the highest first-quarter revenue level ever for the industry.”

There’s no doubt that one of the reasons for this upgrade is some behind-the-scenes negotiations with Apple over the release of the iPad on the ATT 3G network. (Think: “Fix your damn network or the iPhone AND iPad are going to Verizon!”) As consumers we can only applaud any time a corporation decides to undertake a major capital expenditure project in hopes of improving service to their paying customers.

However, with the mad media blitz that ATT has made over the past few months I can’t help but wonder if we wouldn’t already be a good way to fixing ATT’s crappy 3G network if they hadn’t wasted so much time and money on trying to convince us that their network wasn’t really crappy.

From CNET: AT&T said Thursday that it will invest an additional $2 billion in its network in 2010 to make sure it keeps up with the growing demand from new smartphones and other 3G data devices, such as the Apple iPad, on its network.

During its fourth quarter 2009 conference call, Chief Operating Officer John Stankey said AT&T plans to spend between $18 billion and $19 billion in 2010 upgrading its wireless and backhaul networks to handle the onslaught of new traffic. This is roughly $2 billion more than the company had invested in the previous year.

From CNBC: A Wisconsin judge has ordered PepsiCo Inc to pay $1.26 billion to two men who said it stole their idea to sell purified water after a secretary mislaid a document alerting the world’s No. 2 soft drink maker the lawsuit existed. The case was reported earlier on Wednesday by The National Law Journal.

The judgment amount is equal to more than 20 percent of PepsiCo’s reported annual profits in recent years, regulatory filings show. According to filings with the Jefferson County Circuit Court, Charles Joyce and James Voigt won the Sept. 30 judgment five months after first suing PepsiCo and two distributors.

There isn’t even a little hope that this judgment is going to stay as-is, but it does beg a few interesting questions. First, what in the world was this PepsiCo executive thinking when she brushed off a motion for a summary judgment. I’m no lawyer, but when you get the legal equivalent of somebody shouting, “HEY… YOU!!! Are you SURE you want me to take all your stuff?!” I would think that you would give it a bit more importance than dropping it into the circular file. I’m thinking that MY response would have been to say aloud, “hmmm… perhaps this is something we should get legal on” or at least, “wait… summary judgement? Did we lose a court case?”

A second, more troubling question is why this case was allowed to go as far as it did without contestation from PepsiCo. It case seems pretty thin and borders on “crazy train”-bound, but even if it does have merit, is our legal system so screwed up that it can award a billion and a half dollars on the grounds that the defendant was a no-show?

Google Inc is planning a direct attack on Microsoft Corp’s core business by taking on the software giant’s globally dominant Windows operating system for personal computers. Google, which already offers a suite of e-mail, Web and other software products that compete with Microsoft, said on Tuesday it would launch a new operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Called the Google Chrome Operating System, the new software will be in netbooks for consumers in the second half of 2010, Google said in a blog post, adding that it was working with multiple manufacturers.

This announcement is a long time coming. Many of us uberGeeks have been hoping for a Google OS for at least the last 4 years. I know that fanboys in the Linux/Unix/OSX/Windows camps will look at this with more than a little skepticism, but I think that it’s always a good thing for another big player to shake up the game. (Think of WinTel forcing Apple to switch to the PC platform, or OSX forcing Microsoft to scramble for Vista and Windows 7.)

This story has been going around for a while but it doesn’t get any easier to read it with time. — Imagine that you’ve spent a lifetime building up a car dealership. You have a loyal customer base, you’ve done your level-headed best to be smart about your business and to grow it within reason. You’ve expanded your operation to include vehicles from the biggest manufacturers and you’re confident that you’ve created a life for you, your family, and your employees.

Then you recieve a letter saying 1. “Your franchise license will be revoked in 45 days”, 2. “You are not allowed to sell our cars AT ALL after that point”, and 3. “We will not be taking back our crappy cars.”

From CNN: O’Bryhim cannot legally sell any new cars he has left after June 9 — and because the manufacturer is in bankruptcy protection it isn’t obligated to take them back.

O’Bryhim points to a new Nitro he has discounted 40% off the sticker: $17,510 instead of the MSRP of $29,170. Soon, he says, he may mark it down even further.

Rupert Murdoch, pretty much the emperor of traditional media, has stated his intent to charge for all NewsCorp web sites within a year…

In other news from 18 months in the future, NewsCorp has announced that they are shutting down all of their web sites due to lack of visitors.

From CNN: “Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch expects News Corporation-owned newspaper Web sites to start charging users for access within a year in a move which analysts say could radically shake-up the culture of freely available content.

“Speaking on a conference call as News Corporation announced a 47 percent slide in quarterly profits to $755 million, Murdoch said the current free access business model favored by most content providers was flawed.

“We are now in the midst of an epochal debate over the value of content and it is clear to many newspapers that the current model is malfunctioning,” the News Corp. Chairman and CEO said.

Murdoch has firmly cemented his place in the long list of traditional-media moguls who “just don’t get it.” Like the RIAA, the MPAA, and other hallowed traditional-media strongholds, Murdoch seems to believe that a loss of profitability in an industry that he has essentially controlled for the past three decades must necessarily mean that his content is being stolen or that somehow he is being cheated. — The problem with that kind of thinking is that it fails to see that what the Internet offers most isn’t a new avenue of piracy or an easy way to cheat the existing content providers out of their hard-earned buck, but rather something much more basic…

First there was the infamous Jim Goldman screw-up in which the CNBC Silicon Valley chief so thoroughly bought the Apple PR line about Steve Jobs that he publicly chastised all those blogger sites that were daring to question the powers that be Apple. (Those irresponsible bloggers turned out to be 100% right and Apple was investigated by the FCC over their candor about Jobs health to stock owners.)

Now Jim Goldman has again inexplicable hitched a ride on the crazy train by filming a CNBC segment in which he touts the overall lower Total Cost of Ownership by proving that a typical PC will need and additional $600 of software and services to be the equal of a Mac — Nice idea… the only problem? — Everything he says is total bunk.

More after the Jump »

From Internet Revolution: “Google is spending more than $2 million a day on YouTube — and it is nowhere near seeing a return on that investment. Indeed, it may be losing up to $1.65 million daily on the video site. According to financial firm Credit Suisse and Internet measurement provider comScore Inc. , YouTube Inc. is on track to serve 75 billion video streams to 375 million unique visitors in 2009.”

All of the numbers being used to calculate the profitability of YouTube are speculative, but it seems pretty clear to those who follow new media that Google can’t possibly be making a direct profit from YouTube. Sure, YouTube might be pulling in millions of eyeballs a day, and they seem to have an ever-increasing stable of quality content (read: not just kids filming each other getting set on fire or kicked in the crotch), but the cost of bandwidth, licensing, revenue sharing and typical overhead puts YouTube firmly in the red.
More after the Jump »

Now I know what you’re thinking… with a title like that, this is going to be yet ANOTHER blog post about some elitist, out-of-touch, Bush&Co sychophant whose negligence/incompetence/corruption has allowed our economy to hit the skids. — Only thing it… I actually like this guy.

Paul O’Neill was the Secretary of the Treasury under the Bush administration from 2001-2002. He raised the alarm that the US needed either tax increases or massive spending cuts to avoid an economic meltdown. — The response of the Bush administration? — Cut taxes, massive spending INCREASES and a complete omission of O’Neill’s report from the annual budget report.

From CNN: “You know, I’ve got to tell you, I’m praying for a V- shape. But I’m one who doesn’t believe we’re going to start moving back up until there is a credible fix for our financial system. And I think, in spite of all of the things that have been done now by the federal government, we’re not quite there.

If I were secretary, I would do this. I would order the 19 major financial institutions to put on the Internet the classifications of their assets by investment grade rating, beginning with AAAs down through BBB-minuses, which is the final level of investment grade ratings.”

His thoughts are worth a read.

Ahhhh… AIG is in the news yet again. The money-toilet that you love to hate is ratcheting up the “dare to be a douche” volume by begging for a few more BILLION dollars at the same time that they are trying to pay off at least $165 Million in bonuses.

Let’s forget for a moment that a “bonus” generally is awarded to an employee who has contributed to the welfare of a company. Let’s also ignore the fact that AIG already spent more than $500 million of their bailout as “retention bonuses.” Perhaps we’re even willing to set aside the crazy spa party that AIG execs threw for themselves a few days after getting their first $85 Billion taste of the American Taxpayer teat. — But rewarding the very employees who caused this mess because of dubious “contractual obligations?” — REALLY?

More after the Jump »

From KETV Omaha: “An Iowa State trooper who was investigated after it was shown that he forwarded an e-mail showing mug shots of people wearing Obama t-shirts has been suspended for 30 days.

Sgt. Rodney Hicok was at home and off-duty when he forwarded the e-mails, said an official with the Iowa Department of Public Safety Bureau and Professional Standards.

The e-mail made disparaging remarks about 15 people in the photos and referred to Obama as having “quite a fan base.”

Personally I don’t think this guy should be punished more than he already has been. Sure it was in bad taste, and maybe it was against department policy, but I ALWAYS see the media making fun of the Bush/McCain fan base on the nightly news… of course they’re just showing the CEOs and executives of the banks and financial institutions that are looking for government handouts to cover their own incompetence and irresponsibility… but is that really all that much different? (/sarcasm)

No… you didn’t misread the title…. Back in October Sony was estimating that they would have a $2.2 billion profit for fiscal year 2008. Now they are conservatively estimating that they will lose $1.1 billion for that same time. — While I understand that the economy has gone into the crapper the world over, how in the world do you have a $3.3 billion swing in just under three months? Either somebody was INSANELY optomistic about holiday sales or they’re playing fast and loose ith their financials.

From Variety: “Black ink has turned red because of lower-than-expected sales of Sony’s flat-panel TVs and other products, primarily in the U.S. market, while the rapid strengthening of the yen has devastated the bottom lines of all Japanese export industries.

In December Sony announced it would cut 16,000 jobs, shut plants and take other restructuring measures. Many analysts later insisted that more radical surgery would be needed to restore the company to financial health.”

I don’t take credit for this… it’s just something that I received in a junk email… but it’s bitingly true.

Once upon a time a man appeared in a village and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He next announced that he would now buy monkeys at $20 each. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so scarce it was an effort to even find a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announce d that he would buy monkeys at $50 each! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would buy on his behalf. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: ‘Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has already collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.’

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys for 700 billion dollars.

They never saw the man or his assistant again, only lots and lots of monkeys!