Filed under: World wide web, Video, Web services, web 2.0

NewsClipper is a news aggregation service that brings together videos from popular news sites like CNN, the BBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, MSNBC, and ESPN. You can sort videos by network, category, most current, or most viewed. Future upgrades will include a search box and the ability to rate the videos you watch.

You can also add videos to a playlist and create your own virtual news channel with videos from various sources. Overall, it’s an extraordinarily useful tiny site. But if it catches on, something tells us some of the TV networks providing its source material aren’t going to be too happy. That’s because CNN, for example doesn’t offer users the ability to embed videos on their own sites. It’s not clear how NewsClipper funnels the video stream, but you can grab embed code from any video on NewsClipper and add the video to your own site.

On the one hand, most videos feature plenty of branding so you always know where the video came from. So you could view each short clip as a commercial for a Television network. On the other hand, if you viewed the video on its original page, you’d actually be viewing other ads as well, which you don’t see if you stream a video from NewsClipper. And that means that we anticipate the site to begin getting cease and desist letters any day now. But we kind of hope it happens later, rather than sooner. In a perfect world, the TV news networks would partner with a site like NewsClipper and share any advertising revenue.

[via TechCrunch]

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Filed under: Internet, Blogging, E-mail, Web services

So you’ve got a a web site, and you want to let people get in touch with you. But you know if you list your email address on that web page you’re prone to get dozens of new messages each day asking if you’d like various parts of your anatomy enlarged. While you could use a service like Contactify to add a contact box to your site, there’s also a much simpler solution: Just embed your email address in an image file so that screen scraping tools won’t recognize it.

Creating an image with your email address isn’t that difficult. Most basic image editing applications will let you embed text in a picture file. But Spam Proof eMail Generator makes things even easier. You don’t have to download any application to your desktop. You can choose from a group of fonts, colors, and text sizes. And you don’t even need to host your image on the internet. The generator will create an image for you and give you then give you an embed code and an image link.

[via MakeUseOf]

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Filed under: Competitive strategy, Next massive thing, Teva Pharm Indus ADR (TEVA), Israel

At their investor day, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (ADR) (NASDAQ: TEVA), the world’s largest generic drug maker, said that they expect to double revenues over the next 4 years. Teva predicts that they will grow faster than the generic market. While that is interesting in its own right, their view on the generic market in general is astounding.

“By 2012, Teva expects to have 30% of the U.S. market for generic prescriptions, up from about 20% now. Over 75% of U.S. prescriptions will be filled by a generic by 2012,” the company stated.

Wow! Three out of each four prescriptions will be filled by a generic in just four years from now. That’s large. If that’s indeed the case Big-pharma needs to look out. Where are their profits going to come from? Even the massive Bio-tech players are squirming over the possibility of bio-generics.

With rising health care costs, governments, HMO’s and individuals are turning to less high-priced, cheaper priced drugs that have the same quality. This seems like a trend which is going to be hard to cease.

Investors looking to health care as a good long-term play, especially with an aging population, might want to check out the ideal of breed, Teva.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer’s fund has a position and owns stock in TEVA and is long the stock. He has no positions in any other stock mentioned as of 2/21/08.

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Filed under: Products and services, Management, Industry, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, eBay (EBAY), Marketing and advertising, Small business

For the past several years, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) has pretty much cornered the market for on the web auctions. It has created such big barriers of entry, that smaller sites have difficulty breaking into the market. But this week’s seller boycott on eBay has opened the door for some smaller companies.

We took a look earlier this week at the reasons behind the current eBay strike. We made note at that time, that some of your larger name competitors, such as Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) were going to be capitalizing on the sellers’ strike, but now we’re also starting to hear about gains made in some smaller companies that you might have never heard of before.

In a recent article from Seattle Post-Intelligencer, two Washington-based companies said they’ve been loving all the negative attention that eBay has been receiving as of late.

The first company that the article mentions is CozyBug.com. Never heard of it? Don’t worry, most people haven’t. This small on the web site is very similar to eBay, but it focuses on selling items that are too massive to ship, or items that people usually want to see first hand before making their purchase. The site, while being nationwide in its reach, has been trying to establish itself as the web’s “local on the internet flea market and garage sale”.

Sounds like a great concept, but there has been one problem… luring in eBay users and convincing them to switch to CozyBug. Well, this week eBay’s new policies have become CozyBug’s best marketing campaign ever.

Just how much of a difference can a week make? The numbers don’t lie. Before this week, CozyBug has been getting about 10,000 visitors per month. This week traffic has ballooned. Its per day traffic has jumped to 15,000 visitors! In case you were wondering, that is more than a 4,400% daily increase. Not too shabby.

According to the company’s founder and CEO, David Cantu, “EBay is too big… this was bound to happen…” But how has the increased site traffic translated into members? The site has gained 100 newly registered members so far. OK, I know what you are thinking, 100 new members doesn’t sound like such a big change. Fair enough, but consider that in the previous 10 months that the site has been up and running it had gained a total of 700 members, so this week has seen over a 14% jump in members. Yes, that is a material increase for the site to state the least.

Enough about CozyBug, let’s take a look at the next company, MommyAuctions.com. The eBay strike has boosted the number of items listed for sale on the site from 2,500 to 4,000 this week alone. As far as traffic, the site has seen an increase from 3,630 average visitors in January to a current average of 4,650, a 28% increase.

The real question is, what’s going to happen next week? Will eBay users go back to what they know ideal, or can we expect to see some of these migrating sellers staying away from eBay permanently?

If you are an eBay seller that’s currently involved in this week’s boycott, I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter. Are you basically planning to just boycott the site this week, and return to business as usual next Monday? What options have you been exploring this week for the selling of your goods, or have you basically just taken the week off and not selling on other sites?

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 web investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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Filed under: Management, Rants and raves, Competitive strategy, Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Dell (DELL), Starbucks (SBUX), McDonald’s (MCD), MBIA Inc (MBI)

When things are not going as planned and you start to reminisce about the good ‘ole days, what superior tactic than to bring back the old CEO for a second tour of duty.

When Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) dumped Terry Semel, founder Jerry Yang took over the top spot again only to languish in the same murky waters with a lackluster stock. Yahoo’s biggest news since Yang assumed the wheel was Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)’s recently rejected offer of $31 per share for a stock that shut yesterday at $28.83.

It is of interest to me that in such high stakes M&A bartering, Yahoo thinks the offer is too low — based on what, it did not say — but if the deal does not happen, the stock may not be worth the current price. Go figure. Plenty of people that invested in Yahoo, like Legg Mason (NYSE: LM), agree with Yang.

Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) stock, which collapsed over the the past 18 months, has not been a pretty sight as it traded down from a high of $40 to yesterday’s close of $18.26, near its 52-week low of $17.66. Other coffee home chains have sprung up over the years and now McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) is moving into its turf, full steam (of coffee) ahead, announcing plans to roll out coffee bars with similar-tasting beverages, served by baristas, at lower prices, to its 14,000 U.S. stores in 2008.

Howard Schultz was restored to his CEO post by the board last year in an effort to get the company back on track. Given that he was the principal architect of all of the company’s major concepts and growth, there’s renewed hope. The jury is still out on his chances of success to bring the company roaring back. It is more likely, given the current landscape, that the stock will come back, albeit fighting and scrapping.

Michael Dell, the wunderkind that built Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) into a tech powerhouse, took back the reigns of his stalled-out company after his hand-picked longtime partner failed to spark Dell in the marketplace. Despite Dell’s optimistic view that he could turn things around, he has not, and the stock has dribbled down to a six-year low. Furthermore, there does not seem to be much on the horizon that’s very inspiring; quite the contrary. Hewlett-Packard soars while Dell flounders.

And now, this week, Jay Brown has returned to MBIA, resuming prior positions as chairman and CEO, allowing battered and bruised Gary Dunton, MBIA (NYSE: MBI)’s CEO so far, to step down. This may be a case where it was not so much the company’s dire need to bring back a stronger leader, but one where Mr. Dunton just had enough. After all, much of the poor quality, subprime loan mess was created during Brown’s watch, but left to Dunton to explain. Now it appears after Dunton has taken most of the heat and reset the company’s course somewhat, Mr. Brown may get all the glory. This will come much later though. MBIA still has a torrid journey ahead of it.

All of these CEOs have there work cut out for them. They may not see any improvement soon. It might be deep into the administration of a new CEO in the White Home before things get better.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own shares of MBI and SBUX.

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Filed under: Industry, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Politics

For big pharmaceutical companies, the largest business challenge is that patents are expiring on some of their most popular drugs. If they don’t have new “blockbusters” to replace those, revenue is certain to fall. The solution is to raise prices on the ideal selling drugs and milk them before generics cut sales.

Unfortunately, while this may be a great deal for the companies, it is not so hot for patients and health-care costs. According to The Wall Street Journal [subscription required], “Pharmaceutical companies increased wholesale prices for the 50 top-selling branded drugs by an average of 7.82% in 2007.” Prices on some drugs went up 50% or more.

Of course, the costs to produce these drugs is probably not rising much at all. What is obvious is that drug companies will probably face pressure from the government to keep prices down because the costs of health-care are still rising faster than GDP. The Congress may simply elect to put a cap on how much drug prices can rise. Or, the Feds might allow generics to come into the market sooner to provide substitute treatments that are cheaper.

But why should the government involve itself in an industry’s pricing? The answer is that it is for the common good. That leaves out the companies themselves and their shareholders.

When the government interferes with the free market systems, it opens a Pandora’s Box. Which industries will be regulated and which won’t? Which affect the common good and which don’t? Call it socialism, because that is what it is.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

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Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Marketing and advertising, AT and T (T), Sprint Nextel Corp (S), Verizon Communications (VZ)

Tom Taulli wrote Tuesday about Verizon (NYSE: VZ)’s unlimited wireless calling plan, and competitors AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) and T-Mobile (part of Germany’s Deutsche Telekom) followed suit with unlimited wireless calling plans for U.S. customers. This is a first in the wireless industry for the major carriers, but it’s a welcome one for many consumers. Both AT&T and T-Mobile will offer unlimited calling starting by the end of this week — T-Mobile starting this day and AT&T starting tomorrow.

Where is Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S), you may ask? The carrier also announced unlimited calling plans two weeks ago, but just in a few select markets — and starting at $119.99 per month. Even though the unlimited calling plans vary from carrier to carrier, generally, there is a $99.99 per month price of admission with all of them. T-Mobile offers the best value, with all call minutes and unlimited text messages included. Why did all the carriers — except Sprint — unveil unlimited calling within just a few days of each other?

Something has to keep growth churning along in the wireless industry. With 85% of Americans now owning a cellphone, wireless is heading for commodity status (it may already be there), where price wars will start erupting and “me too” marketing campaigns following shortly thereafter. The Computer industry knows all about this. But price wars only help the consumer — not the wireless carrier. Yes, many of us heavy wireless users might soon have lower bills, but the carriers may have lower bottom lines as well. What wireless company stocks do you have in your portfolio? Will this cause more customers to abandon landline telephones and switch to unlimited-minutes wireless only, pumping in growth into the wireless sector for the time being? Food for thought.

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Filed under: Launches, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG)

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) will begin to sell ads that will run with videos on third party sites. The company wants to try to take advantage of the boom in on the web video using a targeting system similar to the one it has developed for text ads.

According to the FT, “Google’s video ads will take one of two forms: banner ads, which will run at the top of the video screen, and ‘overlay’ ads, which will be inserted on top of videos as they play.”

Sites with video will be able to sign up for the service the same way that they do for the Google Adsense text ad program.

The project has a lot of risk. Text ads appear off to the side of content and don’t directly interfere with the user’s experience at a website. Ads that “overlay” video insert themselves directly into the user’s line of site, which could lead to people actually deciding they don’t want to watch video with market messages. Viewership at some sites could then drop.

The new Google program may look good on paper, but the consequences of the project might make it unpopular with website operators.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

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Filed under: Launches, Industry, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, AT and T (T), Verizon Communications (VZ)

Get ready for the price of making phone calls to drop, probably a lot. T-Mobile is introducing a product to replace most home landlines with internet-based phone service. According to The Wall Street Journal, “The service will be available only to T-Mobile cellphone customers. To sign up, they must buy a $50 Internet router from T-Mobile and pay $10 a month for unlimited local and long-distance domestic calling.”

It is a good bet that the service will be rolled out to reach customers that T-Mobile does not have as cell subscribers or that AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Wireless will have to match the program. In the case of AT&T and Verizon (NYSE: VZ), they’ll be competing with the shrinking but profitable landlines businesses which are being eroded by VoIP, especially from cable companies.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless have already announced flat-rate unlimited calling plans for $99.99 a month. The price war in the cellular market is cutting these stocks down to 52-week lows, but the deal for consumers is outstanding. And, that pricing pressure is about to move into the consumer home phone market.

A cellular price war. A home phone price war. For shareholders in major telecoms, it’s bad news For consumers, it doesn’t get any superior.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com

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Filed under: Launches, Competitive strategy

One of history’s greatest investors is Peter Lynch, who managed Fidelity’s Magellan mutual fund from 1977 to 1990. For the most part, he focused on investments that he understood well, such as GE (NYSE: GE), Kemper, Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) and so on.

So, what is he doing now?

Interestingly enough, he’s an investor in a dot-com startup, Jackpot Rewards, which has raised $16.7 million so far.

It’s hard to pigeonhole the company. For example, it is a for-profit entity — yet it plans to contribute 50% of its profits to charitable causes.

The site is a place for consumers to get discounts, such as from Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Best Purchase (NYSE: BBY), Nike (NYSE: NKE) and so on. And yes, these seem like the kind of companies Lynch would invest in.

Oh, and Jackpot Rewards says it will give away $1 million per week to its members. There’s even the possibility of a $100 million prize.

OK, so where does Jackpot Rewards gets its own revenues? There’s a $3 weekly fee.

Sound kind of looney? Not really. Hey, Lynch is a math maestro. Essentially, the site needs about 150,000 paying users to get to critical mass.

So, yes, this could be one of those situations where there really is a “win-win.”

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar On the web Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

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