Eubie's notes

NY Times: Investors Said to Seek a Takeover of CNet

The company, founded in 1992, has more than 2,600 employees. It has been particularly hard hit because of increased competition in its core market from technology-focused blogs like TechCrunch, written by a handful of people at a fraction of the cost. In September, page views at TechCrunch surpassed those at CNet’s News.com, long considered the industry stalwart. In October, TechCrunch and its sister site had eight million page views compared with News.com’s six million page views, according to comScore Media Metrix.

TechCrunch adds this:

CNET is currently worth $1.3 billion, but many people argue that the value of the parts is greater than that, and have recommended that the company sell off more assets for cash. Last quarter, CNET lost $16.65 million on $99.5 million in revenue.

Another media company in play this year is Weather Channel. Tech Crunch: The Weather Channel On The Market For $5 Billion+

One more from NY Times: The Problem With CNet: No One Wants to Buy It

Usually trouble-making investors find undervalued companies with management that is resistant to being acquired. CNet, I suspect, would be quite happy to sell, but its big problem right now is that it is overvalued, especially to the established media companies that are its most likely buyers.

How big a nest egg should a 45-year-old have? Here’s a look at who faces a midlife financial crisis and who might be able to retire early.
read more

Track your own retirement at www.dinkytown.com.

Right after his review of his 2007 predictions, Battelle writes on: Why No One Comments on Google News

But Google News is driven entirely by a computer algorithm. There is no explicit community.

In Predictions 2008, John Battelle predicts web-based advertising businesses will enjoy significant gains, Wall Street getting frustrated with Google, Yahoo still trying to figure out what it’s best at and a shake-out of venture-funded companies that haven’t taken off.

Last week, he reviewed his 2007 predictions, which is a good review of web 2.0, Google, eBay, Amazon and few others.

After 30 years of playing LPs, cassettes, CDs, MP3s and a lot of rock and roll on the FM, the Pioneer SX-750 receiver became unusable. A loud buzz developed, I could not find someone to repair it, so we bought a new received , an Onkyo TX 8222.

When I bought it, I spent a lot of time trying to choose the best one. This time there wasn’t many choices. At Best Buy, there was one receiver to choose from — take it or leave it. The Onkyo may not have as high quality or last as long as the Pioneer, but I may not be able to notice the difference anymore. See Not worrying about what you can’t hear

When I was growing up in Hendersonville, there were lots of big farms along Gallatin Road. Now most of them are gone and are now shopping centers or subdivisions. This is one of the best of the remaining farms. I’ve always loved that old stone horse barn. I’m not sure how much longer it will be there.

Others from that farm:

This sheet of stamps is causing me problems. I hate to use it to pay bills or routine use. I hate using it at all. I’m sure the electric company doesn’t care. It’s call Nature of America: Alpine Tundra, and is the ninth in the series showing animals and plants in America

To use the stamps then I had to make this deal: Here’s the USPS image and part of the description of the stamps.

To illustrate the diversity of species associated with alpine tundra, artist John D. Dawson depicted more than 24 animal and plant species in his beautiful acrylic painting. The scene itself is imaginary: Such a dense grouping of plants and animals was necessary to illustrate as many species as possible on the stamp pane. Even so, all of the species could be encountered on the alpine tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park; all were recommended by scientists.

The change to more efficient bulbs has some claiming that Congress has now banned incandescent light bulbs. But they only banned inefficient incandescent bulbs in 2012. According to NY Times No Joke, Bulb Change Is Challenge for U.S. there are more efficient bulbs on the way.

Other highlights of the article:
* compact fluorescents have a mercury problem that could grow as use of them increases.
* LEDs may be offer the best hope. Their life span is 50,000 hours while incandescents is 1,000 hours and compact fluorescents is 6,000 hours. One problems is that they do not deliver the white light of the other bulbs.

NY Times: Entrepreneurial Journalism in the Facebook Age — If journalists worry about their future value as the online world grows, they should think of themselves as journalist entrepreneurs. For those who can develop and market their content, it could be a very lucrative time.

This is almost unbelievable. Sydney Morning Herald: In Japan, cellular storytelling is all the rage

Remarkably, half of Japan’s top-10 selling works of fiction in the first six months of the year were composed the same way – on the tiny handset of a mobile phone. They sold an average of 400,000 copies. By August, the president of Goma Books, Masayoshi Yoshino, was declaring in a manifesto that he was determined “to establish this not simply as a fad, but as a new kind of culture”.

It’s a targeted audience

Usually they are written by first-time writers, using one-name pseudonyms, for an audience of young female readers – who, in Japan especially, consult their mobile phones so regularly that the habit could be mistaken for a tic. The stories traverse teen romance, sex, drugs and other adolescent terrain in a succession of clipped one-liners, emoticons and spaces (used to show that a character is thinking), all of which can be read easily on a mobile phone interface. Scene and character development are notably missing.