a4ism

Murdoch: Without eTablets, 'Newspapers Will Go Out of Business'

The video seems to be a different one than the conversation that is transcribed. I thought I'd watch it because the ALL CAPS is hard to read.

Not to be negative -- I am interested in this discussion and I can see how the news companies need a new business paradigm because the old one is, simply put, dead. Many of our industries (movie industry, the broadcast TV industry, and the broadcast radio industry) are going through significant changes because their old models no longer work. This is a good thing, unless you happen to own the obsolete technologies. So it's a great and natural thing for them to work as hard as they can to adapt to the new environment.

I am wondering how far MSFT/Bing will go, in order to stick it to GOOG, and what sort of ideas Rupert Murdoch has to try to make use of that rivalry. This is the 21st Century I have been waiting for!

Some Really Cheap Stocks

Three weeks ago...you nailed it! TTIL up 1.25-->1.85 after earnings report today, when EVERYthing else went down!

Will Mobile App Pricing Fall to Zero?

Your idea of Freemium, as explained in Chris Anderson's book, is mis-applied in this case.
www.amazon.com/Free-Fu...

Yes, some of the free apps are 'adware' or 'crippleware'. But TJ Gordon's point was not addressing the items marked as "free". He was stating (inaccurately) that the Free Market doesn't work in this venue for setting prices.

There are Apps in the AppStore that cost $2 or $3. People are buying these apps. This is true for the iPhone, and this is true for the Droid. I know for a fact that there are active user communities of both, because I know many users who develop for both sides, and I know many users who buy the apps as well.

There is a general belief, within the scientific community, that it doesn't matter how low the price goes under $10. It does matter, but nobody has ever done a research paper on whether people are willing to pay $2 or $4 or $12 for an app. Some people will pay $2, but not $4. The AppStore proves this out, and cash flows are proving that those $2 apps can generate enough revenue to pay the developers' salaries.

Let's get to the root of this article:
>> Web pricing is good if you’re a consumer and bad if you’re a software developer.
and
>> Disclosure: The author has recently published an App on the iTunes store and is dealing with the vicissitudes of iTunes pricing and customer expectations around App pricing. The author is long VZ, T and MSFT.

I think these two statements really sums it up. The author of this article is unhappy that his app isn't selling well enough, and is therefore saying that the system doesn't work. I disagree with this premise, the reasoning, and the conclusion, but you are all entitled to your own opinions. Meanwhile, I will be downloading apps for the Droid and the iPhone -- but not necessarily yours...


On Nov 13 01:45 PM Apple Diner wrote:

> The model this week: "Freemium". This means that the basic app is
> free, with premium content available at a price. It makes sense and
> Apple has adjusted their App Store to include this model. As far
> as Droid goes... don't expect much. They'll end up owning about as
> much market share as Palm.

Cramer's Stop Trading! Motorola's in the Doldrums (11/9/09)

If we can believe that this contributor's name is Miriam Metzinger, I think you mean "*she* should..."

Though I don't necessarily agree with you that an apology/retraction is required, I do think a clarification is in order.

Generally speaking, AAPL has never had a disappointing quarter:

Q1 08 $1.62 consensus, $1.76 beats
Q2 08 $1.08 consensus, $1.16 beats
Q3 08 $1.08 consensus, $1.19 beats
Q4 08 $1.12 consensus, $1.26 beats
Q1 09 $1.40 consensus, $1.78 beats
Q2 09 $1.10 consensus, $1.33 beats
Q3 09 $1.17 consensus, $1.35 beats
Q4 09 $1.44 consensus, $1.82 beats

What is disappointing about that?

Q1 10 $2.05 consensus, $???

Is Apple's Stock Headed for a Reversal?

At this moment in time, AAPL is trading for 188.76. So your patience seems to have been rewarded!


On Oct 30 12:09 PM Mac Daddy wrote:

> Technical analysts believer that "all gaps must be filled" in order
> for a stock to move permanently higher. Sometimes it takes years
> for these gaps to be filled, sometimes hours. Apple gapped up from
> 190 on the earnings announcement and the recent selling in the stock
> seems to be targeting 190 on the downside. I believe that the stock
> would see strong buying interest at the 190 level and I am planning
> my strategy accordingly.

Google's Android vs. Apple: History Repeats Itself

Ah, well then I stand corrected. In fact, I guess I should have done my homework:
www.apple.com/iphone/b.../

If this is the case, then AAPL is set to sell out its inventory and then some!

I have seen the Droid release videos and -- while the device is pretty feature-rich and technically very capable -- it just doesn't have that "plus alpha" factor that the iPhone has, yet. I have no doubt that it will sell well, but comparing Droid to iPhone is like comparing a Toyota Camry to an Audi TT.

In any case, as far as traders go, I am sure that there are no wrong calls in the mobile device market. Just remember that, once you have sold the device, AAPL will continue to gain revenues through App Store and iTunes -- a big long-term advantage (I am always in favor of passive income).

Full disclosure: Long AAPL DITM LEAPS and calls, since October 2007. No AAPL devices until last week, but am very impressed with the iPhone 3GS.


On Oct 29 12:58 PM jack dee wrote:

>Yes you, can, indeed a lot easier than you can a Blackberry -- it integrates directly with your corporate exchange server. And the corporate world is being taken over by the iPhone, one employee at a time. My Wall St. financial industry office has more iPhones than Blackberries at this point. The jig is up.

Google's Android vs. Apple: History Repeats Itself

I think any analysis will be flawed unless you can separate the "user base" discussion from the hardware/software discussion.

User Base: iPhone has been popular amongst Universities (see iPhone Universities such as Abilene, www.acu.edu/), and personal use (see iPhone Mom, www.theiphonemom.com/). There is no evidence that iPhone will see widespread use in any corporate deployment, and I have never heard anyone say "the business case for Apple is this..." In the corporate world, it has always been about RIMM. Can you even integrate iPhone with your back-end mail server, without paying for MobileMe?

I think the hard/soft discussion has been done to death elsewhere, so I'll leave it for people who are smarter than I. Having said that, the small market share that iPhone has established is fanatically loyal, and each purchase generates monthly recurring revenues in iTunes, AppStore, and (currently) AT&T usage. It sounds obvious, but please don't make the mistake that AAPL is a phone maker alongside RIMM and Nokia. AAPL's larger-than-IBM market cap is about a lot more than the sum of its parts.

Biggest Money Makers and Losers Since 3/9/09

Your figures could use quite a bit of massaging.

1000 x $290.89 = $290,890 capital outlay GOOG
1000 x $83.11 = $83,110 capital outlay AAPL

So if you had $300,000, then you could have bought 1000 shares of GOOD, or over 3000 shares of AAPL, which would have returned $107,140 x 3 = $321,420. This is much more than GOOG's return.

You can not simply say "if you had 1000 shares of". Otherwise, I would simply take 1000 shares of BRK.A, thankyouverymuch...

G20's Dominant Theme: Hypocrisy

aussiereader,

Peter Schiff has been consistent in his proposals throughout the years, as have been Ron Paul and others. If you are unclear on his position and his proposals, you can read any of his books (Crash Proof 2.0, written in 2006 with a 2009 update), and you can see many of his statements on YouTube by typing "peter schiff mortgage brokers" or "peter schiff was right".

Ron Paul was recently (September 29, 2009) interviewed on Jon Stewart's Daily Show and you can see it on Hulu.com as well. His current book is End the Fed and deals with some of the principles that won Friedrich von Hayek a Nobel Prize in 1974.

Why Americans prefer to watch propaganda-style TV news coverage is beyond me. This was a sore point in another book I am reading, Thomas Sowell's The Housing Boom and Bust, where the media consistently report stilted and inaccurate misinterpretations of demographic studies, presumably in order to get minority groups fired up -- but who knows why they really do it? The cases he reports are not just distortion, but pretty nearly fabrication.


On Sep 29 07:36 AM aussiereader4 wrote:

> Peter,
>
> while you continue to attack the flawed policies of the US leadership,
> you will get no votes.
>
> You need to offer a positive alternative. It is easy to attack, it
> is difficult to create.
>
> What is your alternative?