Filed under: Major movement, Forecasts, Good news, Products and services, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy

It’s been brewing ever so slowly, but AnnTaylor Stores Corp. (NYSE: ANN) has finally been able to show the results of its efforts. Shares of AnnTaylor soared about 13% this day after the women’s apparel chain raised its first-quarter earnings forecast.

The company stated that better-than-expected results at its LOFT stores as well as lower inventories and better expense management overall contributed to the results. Yes, surprising investors is always good, but it’s also always good to remain a tiny cautious with such news. The company itself warned about the rest of the year, leaving its full-year forecast unchanged.

Of course, the question is what’s ahead for AnnTaylor. One answer already came this day from the company when it stated it would shelve a new store concept targeting baby boomers. But following the success of LOFT, the retailer is aggressively launching an outlet version of the brand. Is it smart? It certainly seems that in the current economic climate increasing lower-priced offerings would grant AnnTaylor to keep cash-strapped customers while offering them budget clothes in a familiar brand.

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Filed under: Deals, World wide web, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), Politics

The BBC reported on Saturday that demands are being made for careful government scrutiny of any potential alliances between World wide web giants Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG).

According to the BBC report, a coalition of activist groups including the Black Leadership Forum, the League of Rural Voters, the National Black Chamber of Commerce, and the American Agriculture Movement, is concerned that allowing any kind of unregulated working relationship between Yahoo and Google could put World wide web neutrality in serious jeopardy. Gary Flowers, representing the Black Leadership Forum, is quoted by BBC as stating, “We all suffer in such mega mergers.” He further said that the nature of such a partnership could “condense competition, increase prices and limit new business opportunity on the Internet.”

The BBC indicates that the Justice Department is already in the process of reviewing joint operation trials that the two companies have engaged in. However, the department seems to be down playing the citizen coalition’s demands, citing that the two companies have no working agreements to address. At a recently held Google shareholders meeting the matter was addressed by Chairman Eric Schmidt who said, “If there were a deal [with Yahoo], we would anticipate structuring the deal to address the antitrust concerns that have been widely discussed.”

I would tend to echo the valid concerns of Gary Flowers: too much control over Internet communications by any one particular entity or alliance would inevitably be bad for all of us. I think the matter needs to be taken to a broader base of examination than the justice department alone can provide.

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coondoggie writes to tell us that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will be taking a look at contactless payment systems and the consumer protection issue surrounding them. “RFID technology provides obvious benefits, the FTC stated. For example, the ability of producers using RFID to track exactly where in the supply chain their products are and by which retailer they were ultimately sold to a consumer has the potential to make product recalls more effective. However, there also might be costs regarding consumers’ individual privacy rights associated with it.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Techdirt is reporting that Canada may be considering a “three strikes” policy which could see users internet access privileges revoked for file sharing violations. “Given how secretive the industry and the government have been about new copyright laws, perhaps this isn’t too surprising. We do know that the industry was pushing for greater ISP liability as part of copyright law changes a few months back, so it wouldn’t be surprising if ISPs were negotiating a “three strikes” type rule to avoid the liability issues. Of course, they probably want to keep it secret, as publicity (and resulting anger) about these types of laws in Europe has at least some politicians moving away from them. However, as the entertainment industry does keep succeeding in getting these types of laws to move forward, how long will it be before similar laws are proposed in the US, with “everyone else is doing it” as part of the reasoning?”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Procera Networks is launching a new weapon on the deep packet inspection (DPI) front. At $800,000 these 80 Gbps tanks aren’t going to be sitting in everyone’s closet, but it could mean that more traffic shaping is on the way. “The PL10000 can handle up to 5 million subscribers and can track 48 million real-time data flows. That’s certainly a potent piece of hardware, but larger ISPs will need more. That’s why Procera designed the new machines with full support for synchronizing traffic flows where return traffic might be routed to a different PacketLogic machine. The machine receiving the return traffic can make the machine monitoring the outbound traffic aware that it sees the other half of a TCP/IP conversation, for example, giving the devices more accuracy than those which might only have access to one side.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The New York Times is reporting that a school district in Texas is trying a new angle in combating truancy. Instead of punishing students with detention they are tagging them with electronic monitoring devices. “But the future of the Dallas program is uncertain. Mr. Pottinger’s company, the Center for Criminal Justice Solutions, is seeking $365,000 from the county to expand the program beyond Bryan Adams. But the effort has met with political opposition after a state senator complained that ankle cuffs used in an earlier version were reminiscent of slave chains. Dave Leis, a spokesman for NovaTracker, which makes the system used in Dallas, stated electronic monitoring did not have to be punitive. ‘You can paint this thing as either Large Brother, or this is a device that connects you to a buddy who wants to keep you safe and help you graduate.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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alphadogg writes “An interview with James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, who has experienced “The Great Firewall of China” firsthand, an experience people from around the world will share this summer when the Olympics comes to that country. Based in Beijing, Fallows has researched the underlying technology that the Chinese use for Internet censorship. One good thing to know: With VPNs and proxies, you can get around it pretty easily.” Will these Olympics lead to a more free China, or is it just corporate pandering?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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

Can’t decide whether to upload a file to Rapidshare, MegaUpload, Badongo, or another service? Each site basically offers the same service. You can upload files and share the link with friends or strangers over emal, IM, web sites, or user forums. But some of the services might be blocked by various ISPs, or the people you’re trying to share the files with might have registered accounts with one site, but not the others.

Uploadjockey solves these admittedly small problems by making it easy to upload your files to multiple sites. Just grab any file under 100MB from your desktop, and Uploadjockey will send it to six different file sharing sites and provide you with download links.

Beware, the Uploadjockey interface is choc full of obtrusive ads and pop-ups. But if you’re willing to brave the advertising, we can’t think of a simpler way to upload you big files to multiple sites.

[via GHacks]

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Filed under: Web services

Fuelfrog is a web service for tracking your gas mileage and cost-per-gallon trends which can provide insight into your empty wallet. By adding simple information each time you fill up your vehicle, Fuelfrog will chart that data to provide a gas history.

Fuelfrog accepts updates via its website, but it also can accept data via Twitter direct message. Simply add your Twitter account to your Fuelfrog profile and Twitter the miles since your last fill up, price per gallon, and number of gallons bought to @fuelfrog.

Someday you’ll be able to log in to Fuelfrog and tell your children, “See, back in my day I only paid $4.00 for a gallon of gas!”

[Via del.icio.us]

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Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google, Browser Tips, web 2.0

Last year two services launched, giving bloggers easy access to threaded comments, spam control, avatars, and other advanced features. Disqus and Intense Debate also let you create a single profile which you can use to leave comments on any participating blog or web site. No need to register for each individual blog.

And since last year, thousands of web sites have adopted these two commenting systems. Considering there are millions of blogs out there, that’s just a drop in the bucket. But each filled bucket starts with a single drop. Or something like that. Anyway, if any of the blogs you follow use Disqus, gReader Comments is a pretty nifty Firefox plugin that will let you see comments in Google Reader without clicking through to the blog.

Once you install gReader Comments, you should notice a new box in your Google Reader post windows that states Comments. Click on this box and a Disqus window will pop up showing you the comments left on the post and offering you the chance to leave your own comments.

The plugin still needs some work. We tested it with Firefox 2.0.0.14 and Firefox 3 beta 5, and in both browsers gReader Comments failed to accurately show how many comments each post had. At first it would show no comments, and then when you click the box on a post that actually has, state 3 comments, all the boxes may say 3 comments whether here are actually comments or not. But with a tiny more work, this could be an extraordinarily useful plugin for anyone who spends most of their time on the web in Google Reader.

[via A VC]

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