10/10/2008 Stock Market bottom?

Written at 9:47 AM ET 10/10/2008

The long holiday weekend couldn’t come at a better time.

It is time for everyone to come to grips with this thing with the market open and trading occurring, we lack perspective. With the 3 day weekend and regulators doing their best to work out the problem, we could be at the turning point. In my opinion, we are.

This is about psychology.

  • The weather is supposed to be beautiful in the northeast. Believe it or not, that will make a difference. People will gain some perspective about what is really important in life. Family, friends, etc.
  • The 3 day holiday will give regulators time to be rational and hash things out and possibly Instill some confidence into the commercial paper market. Money needs to flow again.
  • GE came out with earnings and instilled a little bit of confidence in discussing the fact that commercial paper is available. Sure they are the most blue of the blue chippers, but it needs to start somewhere.
  • Bad, bad, bad news priced in. Don’t get me wrong, our economy is on the skids. My feeling is that most of that is priced in for the most part. Earnings season will come and companies will be given a lot of leeway in terms of missing any guidance. This has happened many times in the past and we will see relief when companies don’t miss as bad as expected.
  • Buyers will arrive (probably a combination of foreign funds/US investment management… KKR, Blackstone, etc.). With prices where they are, now is the time to be a buyer. Assets are cheap, cash is king.

Again, I believe the economy will be bad, companies will go away, new markets will be formed, unemployment will be high…. But, buyers with cash will benefit. Where is the automatic retirement deposit money going? Where are the automatic monthly investment plan dollars going? There will be enough buying to sustain the market at certain levels. I think we are there.

Google Chrome, IE Killer, Nah. Firefox, look out

I am a web developer who uses IE and Firefox. Google Chrome will do more short term damage to Firefox than to IE.

I was very excited to hear about Google Chrome the other day (surprised). I downloaded as soon as it was available and began using. It has a couple of nice features. The import tool worked well and the page rendering was solid. The V8 Javascript engine that Google built certainly makes things faster on a couple of the sites that I visit on a daily basis. There are some simple features that let you modify a form on a web page to make the chore of filling things out a bit easier (You can resize a textarea box to make things more readable).

One of the biggest reasons that I jumped on Chrome was due to the fact that each tab is in its own process and can crash without crashing the entire browser. Of all things GMail doesn’t play nice with Firefox in my setup. It will crash the entire browser. If Chrome can eliminate this, it will make my day a little more productive.

Overall, things aren’t much different than what I am used to in Firefox. By midday, I found myself with Chrome and IE open. No Firefox. Other than the plug ins that I have installed with Firefox, I didn’t miss it. I still had IE open for various reasons but my expectation is that Chrome will replace Firefox once there are sufficient plug ins to make the browser as functional.

Short term, this could put Firefox out. My guess is that Firefox will see this occur and will jump into Google’s (GOOG) arms. Google will be oh so pleased to bring that development team in house.

Long term, Chrome should be able to get some footing when the price of a Windows PC is $70 more than the price of a Google PC. Heck, the $100 PC? Give away the razor to sell the blades (give away the PC to get the Searches)?

This is an interesting play and will force MSFT to once again jump through hoops. Will Bill make a triumphant return? Did he actually ever leave?

Chrome is nice. Not ready to drop IE yet (because Microsoft doesn’t play nice with standards). I expect that the browser market in the next year will be 70% IE, 10% chrome, 12% Firefox, 8% other. We’ll see how this one plays out.

A SitePro Article I Couldn’t Read

Not sure if this says something about me…

I read the SitePro newsletter every day. There are some great articles for any SEO or webmaster.

Today’s article was titled “How Digg Got Me On ESPN and Fox News”. I thought that was an interesting topic and I wanted to know a bit more so I read on. It was in the 4th paragraph that we learn that the writer is Mark Cuban’s brother

I actually thought my brother Mark Cuban coined the phrase

Of course a Digg post got you on Fox News and ESPN. YOU ARE MARK CUBAN’S BROTHER! Would “Mark Cuban’s Brother” have been moved up at Digg if it weren’t for his name? Make no mistake here, he makes it abundantly clear that he is Mark Cuban’s brother. In fact, that is the only name I caught. Not sure what his first name is, but there was enough mention of being Mark Cuban’s Brother at his own Blog/Site that you really don’t need to know his first name.

Not that Mark Cuban’s brother isn’t accomplished. He is an attorney (for his brother’s company) and, for all we know, he is the brains behind the Cuban operation.

Perhaps it was Mark Cuban’s brother that suggested mark hedge his Yahoo stock after the purchase of Broadcast.com… or … perhaps it was he who suggested Mark create his own reality show (I really wanted it to be good. It just wasn’t).

Perhaps it was Mark Cuban’s brother that suggested he buy the Dallas Mavericks… or … Perhaps it was he who suggested Mark go on dancing with the stars.

Can we learn anything here?

In my opinion, spotlight seekers will always find the spotlight in some way. Julia Allison anyone? If you can work that bit of spotlight to help your business interests, bonus. Otherwise it is just a “look at me” move.

Felt like spewing a bit this morning. After all, it didn’t have to spend the past 10 minutes reading my daily SitePro newsletter.

Time to buy Google

I started this post on 4/6/2008. I saved it as a draft and never completed it. I thought it was interesting that Google continues to make moves to enhance this argument.

This reminds me of when there was a war in the online auction space. Of course, there was Ebay. After Ebay there were a number of also rans. I actually liked the fractured environment since bargains were more abundant. The smaller auction sites weren’t just p2p exchanges, they actually sold the goods. Perhaps that was the big mistake. Perhaps they needed to do that so that there was some action in their market place….. UNFINISHED DRAFT

The chart of Google (GOOG) from 4/6/2008 through today.

google stock chart

Not a bad return.  From $479 to $571.

By the way, I have to mention that the Yahoo Finance Interactive Charts are really, really good.   This will keep me as a Yahoo Finance user.  Now if Yahoo could just find a good way to leverage (monetize) their huge base of Finance users.

Google Docs Offline Now Live?

I was in Google Docs today and noticed a new menu item as I was closing my browser tab. Looks like Google gears is getting put to use.

Google docs offline

After clicking on the offline tab (menu item above) the steps below followed

google docs offline install

google docs

After agreeing to the terms and the install, Google Docs does a scan for new documents much like programs like Picasa do.

They were even kind enough to create a desktop shorcut for me

google-docs-offline-3.gif

There was a message near the top of the screen stating that Google was synchonizing my documents. The message disappeared when complete. That is it, Big Brother is officially in my system!

Once complete, there is an “online” indicator in my browser much like what you might be used to seeing in Gmail when someone who is in your contacts list is online.

google docs im online

The offline experience is nearly identical.  There is hardly a difference in speed use, etc.  It runs right through my browser just as the online Docs do.  Pretty seamless.

docs offline

What are your thoughts about the desktop war? Is it on with the OS? Is Android the a foray into the OS space? If you were building an OS today, would you start with something big and clunky, or would you create a super thin platform and open it up to developers? Say… a cell phone O.S. for starters??

The battle has been on for a while. Microsoft must be pulling their hair out! Well, not Ballmer, but others.

Google Exec Sells 6000 Shares…

I am not sure why this kind of news still garners headlines. It is a nice bit of spin. Really a non story. A Google (GOOG) insider that sells shares. Pre arranged trading plan and well within a normal pattern.

Google Exec Converts, Sells 6,000 Shares

Many will simply read this headline and think that this is an unusual event. Most won’t even get to the first paragraph…

NEW YORK — The senior vice president of worldwide sales and operations for Internet company Google Inc. sold 6,000 shares of common stock under a prearranged trading plan, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings Thursday.

Look at the history of Omid Kordestani. Continue reading Google Exec Sells 6000 Shares…

Craigslist moving to paid?

Is Craigslist moving to a paid model?

Has anyone else noticed the subtle changes when posting a listing at Craigslist.org. As a developer, I am aware of the steps that I take to move something in a new direction. The changes that they are making (displaying a zero dollar invoice upon submission) could be in place so that they are able to flip a switch and let the charges start rolling in.

Total To Be Charged: 0.00

Keep your eyes open… and buy shares in Ebay (ebay).

Google Operating System “gOS”

Well, it is on. Google is attacking the Operating System Space. They are not boxing something up with millions of lines of code, they are actually providing a platform for their other apps. This is an open source OS that is juiced up to work better with Google.

gOS

Oh wait, Google isn’t the one putting this out. Well, the group who has produced gOS is basing this on Ubuntu Linux. That is what Google uses internally. I have to believe that this comes with a blessing from inside Google. Why wouldn’t it? This is free promotion for a slew of their products.

More users=More Ad Space

In any event, I know that that this is great for competition, pricing, and product quality.