Archive for April 3rd, 2008
Posted by: in Rights Online
ConfusedVorlon writes “The BBC reports on the sad case of Simon Bunce. Mr. Bunce had his identity stolen, and credit cards were made to capitalize on the theft. Some of those cards were used at sites offering child pornography, and as a result Mr. Bunce was swept up in Operation Ore. The poor man was prosecuted for his ‘crime’, and was eventually found innocent, but in the meantime he lost his job. It took him six months to find another at a quarter of the salary. ‘The police’s computer technicians take several months to examine [his computers and records], and Mr Bunce could not afford to wait to repair the damage done to his reputation. “I knew there’d been a fundamental mistake made and so I had to investigate it.” Current surveys recommend that as many as one in four Britons have been affected by it. In 2007 more than 185,000 cases of identity theft were identified by Cifas, the UK’s fraud prevention service, an increase of almost 8% on 2006.’”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Posted by: in Services
Filed under: World wide web, Web services
 Want to save up for a new house, automobile, or computer, but don’t have the self discipline to set aside a bit of your paycheck every month? SmartyPig is an online banking service designed to help.
Here’s how it works. You set up an account, tell SmartyPig how much you want to save, and when you want to save it by, and the service will tell you how much you need to set aside each month. You can then set up an online savings account with a pretty decent interest rate to start saving. Like ING Direct, HSBC Direct, and other on the internet bank accounts, SmartyPig offers higher interest rates than your typical neighborhood bank because the company doesn’t have the same administrative overhead costs as a bricks and mortar operation. But the company partners with a real bank (West Bank), and the accounts are FDIC insured.
In addition to helping you setup a savings account to reach your goal, SmartyPig offers one more feature. Other users can pitch in to help you save. State your friends, relatives, or coworkers really want you to have that large screen TV so that your football celebrations aren’t as dull as your charades shindigs. They have the ability to transfer money from their accounts to yours for free, or make contributions with a credit card, which will be subject to a 2.9% processing fee.
[via Somewhat Frank]
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Posted by: in Services
Filed under: Internet, Windows Mobile, Web services, Google, web 2.0
 Google has developed a version of Picasa Web Albums optimized for Windows Mobile 6 devices. The update packs many of the features you can find in the iPhone version of Picasa Web Albums, including slideshows, search, and full image views.
The Windows Mobile version also makes use of the recently released Google Gears for Mobile to enable offline viewing of your web albums. You’ll need to download and install Google Gears for this feature to work.
You can also add a Picasa icon to your Windows Mobile programs fodler so that you can launch Picasa Web Albums without firing up your web browser first.
In order to access the new Picasa Web Albums interface, just visit picasaweb.google.com using the mobile version of World wide web Explorer on any touchscreen Windows Mobile 6 device.
[via My Today Screen]
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Posted by: in Services
Filed under: Business, Finance, Web services
 Zillow is taking the wraps off its new service today, the Mortgage Marketplace.
Designed as a meeting ground between mortgage borrowers and lenders, Zillow Mortgage Marketplace aims to solve most of the common complaints that borrowers and lenders have with the normal mortgage process.
For starters, the marketplace does not require that borrowers provide extensive personal information up front. In place of personal information are detailed loan request forms, where you can customize the offering you’re looking for. When a lender sends a quote, you are alerted by e-mail to view, then accept or decline, the customized offer.
Lenders can register for a small fee; once registered, they have the ability to submit quotes to potential borrowers, and view any competing quotes for the same borrower. Zillow requires full disclosure from the lender; that is, any quote must include all fees, as well as estimates of taxes, insurance, the whole kit and kaboodle.
The Mortgage Marketplace is an excellent idea. It grants the borrower to shop extensively without having to reveal all of their personal information, and saves them the time of filling out form after form. Zillow’s full disclosure policy insures that there will be no surprise costs. Lenders will also benefit from having a large pool to pull customers from for a relatively low cost.
The question is: is anybody even buying a house right now?
[via CNet]
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Filed under: International markets, Other issues, Products and services, Management, Consumer experience, Rants and raves, Competitive strategy, Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL), Starbucks (SBUX), McDonald’s (MCD), Adobe Systems (ADBE), Serious Money, Commodities
 We have seen this play before, and there are two scenarios as to how it could end. Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) is being challenged like never before, having saturated the market place in some locations it is now facing the challenges of selling high-priced coffee in a slowing economy.
Would you rather pay $4 for a cup of coffee or a gallon of gas? You can find cheaper coffee but you’ve few options to find cheaper fuel. Amid the already difficult operating environment Starbucks is faced with competition from the largest restaurant chain in the world, McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE: MCD). McDonald’s is looking to steal its morning thunder with competitive offerings at a far lower pricing structure. The threat is very real no matter what spin Starbucks puts on it.
This brings to mind two similar situations both involving Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and past competitors. Early on there were two word processing programs that together probably had 90% market share. Those were Wordperfect and Wordstar. Both of them were fine programs offering strong features, and now they are nowhere. Microsoft displaced both of them with MS-Word integrated with their Office suite of products, and is now king.
McDonalds is attempting to do to Starbucks coffee (and others) what Microsoft did to WordStar. And like MSFT, MCD is packaging it’s coffee with its existing bundle of food products and experiences to gain market share. Besides offering lower prices and one stop shopping, they are wisely refurbishing stores in a mock-Starbucks motif, softening colors from bright yellow and red to beige and brown. They have added new furniture and also started to provide for Wi-Fi Internet access. They’re very good at what they are doing and early signs are that they’ll be successful and take market share from the specialty coffee houses.
There’s however hope for Starbucks and others because there are other historic models that have resisted Microsoft’s tidal wave. Adobe Software (NASDAQ: ADBE) has maintained 90%+ market share in the graphics world with its suite of products and free World wide web PDF standard. They did this by getting a high quality product to market early, pricing it right, and having free offerings that became a standard. This has proven easier to maintain then $4 coffee will be, so I anticipate that Starbucks is going to take a huge hit to its profit margins, even if it can continue to be a successful growing enterprise.
Another example of success is Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), led by Steve Jobs. Apple has created many leading edge products and such a one-of-a-kind culture that it is growing market share and holding it’s margins in numerous areas. It has also grown dramatically over the past few years. Howard Shultz has returned to grab the reigns of Starbucks, but can he reinvigorate the company and hold off the competition a la Steve Jobs? That is a very big task indeed.
Starbucks needs to expand the strength of experience, offer more competitive products, and remain different enough to matter. They remain with some advantages in that they’re suitable to smaller outlets and more very special locations and there are fewer screaming children to interrupt one when doing homework, or meeting a date. Even though Starbucks is the biggest target for McDonalds and has been receiving the most ink, it is by no means the only one. There is room for more than one player in the market and it may be third and fourth tier chains that suffer much more and perhaps disappear.
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 SBUX.
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Filed under: Industry, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Comcast Cl’A’ (CMCSA), Verizon Communications (VZ), Time Warner Cable (TWC)
 The Wall Street Journal recommends that cable stocks, which have sold off sharply over the last three quarters, might now be a good investment. That’s probably wrong. The paper says that “while cable stocks lately have bounced from bottoms hit earlier this year, they still are trading at 10-year lows along several key metrics.”
But, cable has never had so much competition and that is apt to grow. Firms such as Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) are up against new fiber-to-the-home TV and broadband offerings from telecom companies, especially Verizon (NYSE:VZ). The phone firm’s FiOS product is picking up customers and it has not been rolled out in most of the 18 million homes where Verizon has customers.
The phone companies have a special advantage. They can bundle cellular, broadband, TV, and landline service to individual customers and give them “one-stop shopping.”
Cable is also up against new and improved products from satellite TV companies. Firms like DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) are adding a number of HD channels. Cable does not always have the bandwidth to put as many of these channels on its systems.
Cable stocks are down because competition is way up. Much of that has come recently and it is prone to get worse.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
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Filed under: Other issues, Bad news, Press releases, Products and services, Management, Industry, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Employees, Southwest Airlines (LUV)
 Two years after coming out of bankruptcy, ATA airlines has once again been forced to file for chapter 11. The airline canceled all flights, and has advised travelers to begin to look for alternative travel arrangements.
The airline operated roughly 50 flights a day, and had more than 2,200 employees working. On its website, ATA has issued a formal statement and blamed the final straw for its collapse on the loss of a key military contract. In 2006, the company had won a $335 million dollar contract from the U.S. Air Force for international airlift services.
In its statement, ATA has advised passengers to contact their credit card company, or travel agent to discuss the options to get refunded for their unused tickets.
When looking to rebook your travel plans, you can use this website that lists substitute airlines that fly to the destinations that ATA had been servicing. On the site you can find airline information, website addresses as well as phone numbers for reservation desks.
If you’ve ATA tickets that you purchased through Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV), then you need to contact Southwest directly at the following number: (800) 308-5037.
For the 2,200 employees of the company — they’ll be receiving official notices this day that their jobs have been eliminated. While it is never a good feeling, hopefully it will not be too much of a shock for the company’s workers. The writing has definitely been on the wall.
Last month the company announced that it would no longer be using Chicago’s Midway Airport (where it has had a hub since 1992), and then just two weeks ago the chief executive of ATA’s parent company resigned under pressure regarding ATA’s profitability.
I am sorry to see the company shut down, and only hope that the challenging environment that airliners are currently facing will not lead to more repeat stories like this one.
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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An anonymous reader writes “Engineers’ focus and attention to details, along with their perceived lack of social skills, make them best targets to be recruited as terrorists, according to EETimes. Planning skills make engineers good ‘field operatives’ was written up by Raphael Perl, who heads the Action against Terrorism Unit of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He offers that ‘Engineers ideally make excellent strategic planners, and they make excellent field operatives. They think differently from how other people think.’ That might sound like a stereotype, but Perl claims that ‘because of those traits, terrorist groups actively recruit engineers.’ He says that Al-Qaeda has widely acknowledged that a significant number of the group’s top leadership had engineering backgrounds.” This the second time in just a few months that engineers have been likened to terrorists.
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An anonymous reader writes “Engineers’ focus and attention to details, along with their perceived lack of social skills, make them ideal targets to be recruited as terrorists, according to EETimes. Planning skills make engineers good ‘field operatives’ was written up by Raphael Perl, who heads the Action against Terrorism Unit of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He offers that ‘Engineers ideally make excellent strategic planners, and they make excellent field operatives. They think differently from how other people think.’ That may sound like a stereotype, but Perl claims that ‘because of those traits, terrorist groups actively recruit engineers.’ He says that Al-Qaeda has widely acknowledged that a significant number of the group’s top leadership had engineering backgrounds.” This the second time in just a few months that engineers have been likened to terrorists.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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