Filed under: Internet, Web services

Look, we know the reports of RapidShare’s demise a few weeks ago were greatly exaggerated. And we’re not trying to cry wolf here, but now the German file sharing service has suffered a major blow in a German court. And that could result in RapidShare either being shut down or having to find some way to implement a copyright filter. Either way, the RapidShare we’ve all come to know and love/hate might never be the same. At least for German users.

The German royalties collection agency GEMA, which is basically like Germany’s version of the RIAA, took RapidShare to court a while back. And last week a court ruled that RapidShare couldn’t hide behind the “we don’t know what our users are uploading” defense.

Of course, RapidShare can still appeal the ruling, so this isn’t over yet. But it’s no secret that there are plenty of pirated movies, music, and software applications hosted on RapidShare at the moment. So we don’t expect GEMA to step aside anytime soon.

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Filed under: Internet, Web services

Look, we know the reports of RapidShare’s demise a few weeks ago were greatly exaggerated. And we’re not trying to cry wolf here, but now the German file sharing service has suffered a major blow in a German court. And that could result in RapidShare either being shut down or having to find some way to implement a copyright filter. Either way, the RapidShare we’ve all come to know and love/hate might never be the same. At least for German users.

The German royalties collection bureau GEMA, which is basically like Germany’s version of the RIAA, took RapidShare to court a while back. And last week a court ruled that RapidShare couldn’t hide behind the “we don’t know what our users are uploading” defense.

Of course, RapidShare can still appeal the ruling, so this isn’t over yet. But it’s no secret that there are plenty of pirated movies, music, and software applications hosted on RapidShare at the moment. So we don’t expect GEMA to step aside anytime soon.

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Filed under: Web services

If you’re not sure which presidential candidate deserves your precious vote, spend 5 minutes on Glassbooth to learn which candidate’s views most closely relate to yours. Glassbooth uses a two-part process to lead you to voting enlightenment.

The first part is a point-assignment exercise where you assign a total of 20 points to specific topics (gun control, abortion, health care, etc.) based on how important the issues are to you. It’s kind of like video game “Create a Player” modes where you’re given limited points to apply to your player’s attributes to tweak the player the way you want.

Continue reading Glassbooth: which candidate agrees with you?

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Filed under: Web services

If you’re not sure which presidential candidate deserves your precious vote, spend 5 minutes on Glassbooth to learn which candidate’s views most closely relate to yours. Glassbooth uses a two-part process to lead you to voting enlightenment.

The first part is a point-assignment exercise where you assign a total of 20 points to specific topics (gun control, abortion, health care, etc.) based on how important the issues are to you. It’s kind of like video game “Create a Player” modes where you’re given limited points to apply to your player’s attributes to tweak the player the way you want.

Continue reading Glassbooth: which candidate concurs with you?

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Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services

Want to sell some old junk lying around the house on eBay, but don’t feel like putting up with listing fees? The company has announced plans to cut listing fees by up to 50 percent.

The cuts aren’t across the board. In fact, some fees will be raised. For example, if your items sells for less than $25, you’ll now be charged 8.75%, which is a 67% increase.

The new fees take effect on February 20th and are aimed at the US, even though eBay plans to announce rate changes in the uK and Germany soon. The move comes at a time when eBay is struggling with flattening growth and competition from other online auction sites.

Do you still use eBay to buy and sell new and used items? Or have you started turning to other auction sites? What do you think of eBay’s current listing and transaction fees?

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Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services

Want to sell some old junk lying around the home on eBay, but don’t feel like putting up with listing fees? The company has announced plans to cut listing fees by up to 50 percent.

The cuts aren’t across the board. In fact, some fees will be raised. For example, if your items sells for less than $25, you’ll now be charged 8.75%, which is a 67% increase.

The new fees take effect on February 20th and are aimed at the US, although eBay plans to announce rate changes in the uK and Germany soon. The move comes at a time when eBay is struggling with flattening growth and competition from other on the web auction sites.

Do you still use eBay to purchase and sell new and used items? Or have you started turning to other auction sites? What do you think of eBay’s current listing and transaction fees?

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Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Web services, Google, Googleholic, Search

Welcome to Googleholic - your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!

This edition covers:

• Google Television ads to let advertisers bid for shows
• Blogger is infused with three more languages
• Accessing Google Docs offline

Google TV to let advertisers bid for shows

Instead of purchasing airtime based on time slots or demographics, Google Adword’s Television ads will let advertisers bid for specific shows. From the looks of it, this will give advertisers a lot more flexibility when setting up budgets for television advertising.

Blogger is infused with three more languages

Blogger has added support for three more languages, bringing its total number of supported languages up to 40. The new languages available are Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew, and are fully fleshed out with right-to-left features such as right-to-left templates, as well as bi-directional input to give users flexibility in how they want their posts to appear. If you would like to use these new languages on your Blogger blog (or any of the other languages for that matter) you change the language settings from the dashboard.

Accessing Google Docs offline

Google Blogoscoped gave Google Gears a shot to see what kind of offline functionality could be had with Google Docs. Unfortunately, from the looks of it, offline capabilities are capped to renaming and starring files - viewing and editing isn’t possible at this point in time. So even though the capability to “access” your Google Docs files offline is there, it is going to need a little more work before it’s going to become standard fare for Google Docs users.

And other bits of Google we tracked since the last issue:

Google Reader adds timestamp - For those that don’t enjoy the wait between the time it takes for a published post to update, the timestamp in Google Reader will let you at least know just how big the discrepancies are.

Google adds new search result views - If you’re feeling adventurous and want to experience what it’s like to be on the cutting edge of search, Google has just released three new experimental search views for you to play around with - map view, timeline view, and info view.

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Filed under: International markets, Earnings reports, Forecasts, Products and services, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Commodities, Oil

Oil and Gas giant Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY) has had a nice 2% jump this morning following the company’s announcement that its fourth quarter profit surged 56%.

It really shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the company was able to rake in strong earnings considering just how high oil prices were during the fourth quarter. Occidental had been expected to show earnings this morning of $1.69 and surprised Wall Street with actual earnings of $1.74.

For the full year, the company posted its strongest ever yearly numbers. The full year profit came in at $5.4 billion, which is 28.9% higher than the $4.19 billion profit that the company realized in 2006.

Looking at the company’s oil production,there’s a 3.5% increase in the fourth quarter, up to a 590,000 barrel a day average. The extra production came in handy considering the average price the company was able to get for its oil. During the fourth quarter the average realized price per barrel for the company was $80.30. This is over 50% greater than the $52.55 per barrel price tag the company saw back in the fourth quarter of 2006.

So far in 2008, prices have cooled off a bit from their highs, which saw oil bust through the $100 barrier, but we have still managed to stay above $90 a barrel for most of the year, leading me to believe that oil and gas companies will be anticipating another quarter of high sales prices for their crude.

OPEC is meeting later this week, and although U.S. President George Bush has recently toured the Middle East trying to convince OPEC nations to increase their oil output, OPEC ministers have hinted that production will remain the same at this week’s meeting, and that we can actually anticipate to see production cuts coming later this spring.

All signs are pointing to another strong quarter for oil companies again this time around.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor’s Observer

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Filed under: Earnings reports, Good news, Competitive strategy

Despite rising commodity, packaging and energy costs, spice manufacturer and distributor McCormick & Company (NYSE: MKC) posted good 4Q and FY2007 earnings results reported last week. Fourth sales increased 7%, with the bulk of that coming from international markets, especially China which posted 20% increase in sales. EPS increased 12% to $1.92, beyond the high end of the previous forecast, and the company raised its dividend 10%.

McCormick & Company is doing all it can to improve and solidify its financial position. Several years ago, the company instituted a restructuring and cost cutting initiative that has resulted in annual savings approaching $50 million. McCormick is simplifying its supply lines, reducing inventories and introducing a new gravity-fed merchandising systems for grocery store shelves.

McCormick is discontinuing lower profit margin products and making acquisitions with high margin potential. Current acquisitions include Simply Asia Food and Lawry’s. MicCormick is also growing its Hispanic spices product line and preparing to introduce a line of health and wellness products.

The only fly in the ointment is that McCormick increased tis debt level to buy back $157 million worth of stock and pay out $104 million individends. Given the slowdown in consumer spending, its unknown severity and duration, it makes tiny sense for a company to take on more debt. The stock currently trades in the mid-$30s.

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Filed under: International markets, Earnings reports, Forecasts, Products and services, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Commodities, Oil

Oil and Gas giant Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY) has had a nice 2% jump this morning following the company’s announcement that its fourth quarter profit surged 56%.

It really shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the company was able to rake in strong earnings considering just how high oil prices were during the fourth quarter. Occidental had been expected to show earnings this morning of $1.69 and surprised Wall Street with actual earnings of $1.74.

For the full year, the company posted its strongest ever yearly numbers. The full year profit came in at $5.4 billion, which is 28.9% higher than the $4.19 billion profit that the company realized in 2006.

Looking at the company’s oil production,there is a 3.5% increase in the fourth quarter, up to a 590,000 barrel a day average. The extra production came in handy considering the average price the company was able to get for its oil. During the fourth quarter the average realized price per barrel for the company was $80.30. This is over 50% greater than the $52.55 per barrel price tag the company saw back in the fourth quarter of 2006.

So far in 2008, prices have cooled off a bit from their highs, which saw oil bust through the $100 barrier, but we have still managed to stay above $90 a barrel for most of the year, leading me to believe that oil and gas companies will be expecting another quarter of high sales prices for their crude.

OPEC is meeting later this week, and although U.S. President George Bush has recently toured the Middle East trying to convince OPEC nations to increase their oil output, OPEC ministers have hinted that production will remain the same at this week’s meeting, and that we have the ability to actually anticipate to see production cuts coming later this spring.

All signs are pointing to another strong quarter for oil companies again this time around.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the on the internet investment advisory service Investor’s Observer

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