Seth

Will Mail Order Game Rentals Push Blockbuster's Numbers Higher?

Correction: It's called "Total Access".... not "Total Choice"

robert - the pricing is variable depending on the number of movies out at a time, and whether the monthly total is unlimited or capped. The range is about $4 to $20 (3.99 to 19.99)

Live Nation / Ticketmaster Merger: Terms Announced

This article is a followup that confirmed details after the deal was officially announced.

The first article, which is was written and posted before deal-terms were announced, discusses some of the concerns including antitrust issues, and comments made following the fiasco surrounding Bruce Springsteen tickets. It also includes a broader fact list about the two companies.

That first article is here on S.A too, or available as originally posted on Metue.com here: metue.com/02-10-2009/l.../

Palm's Pre Goes a Step Further Than the iPhone

Ken - Editors occasionally adjust headlines as they deem necessary. The vast majority of the time they nail it. Sometimes, as with anyone's efforts, the mark can be missed a little in the effort.

Here, you're correct. No question. The original headline when published on Metue.com was "CES 2009: Palm Pre Gets the Spotlight." The reworked version on SA suggests the Pre is better, or will beat, the iPhone. As you noted, that's not the take of the article.

My take - to restate it in a sentence or two - The Pre and WebOS have some impressive, and well thought out, features. The phone is a slick device. first look, it impresses. Will it help Palm? probably. Will it be enough to grab "real" market share or take away from the iPhone or other devices out there (RIM, Apple, Nokia, etc)...that's much harder to say.

The products all have their strengths and weaknesses and will win raves or critisms depending on the needs of the reviewer.

Palm's facing a lot of challenges. They've made a nice device, and with it, now the company's story is sure to be a lot more interesting. iPhone killer? no. interesting competitor or addition to the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Nokia smartphone world - looks like it.

EA Sued Twice More over Use of DRM Technology

Craig, thanks for the added information and links.

Regarding sales rank -- Amazon publishes a number of different sales rankings...The article was referring to rankings in PC and Mac games categories as noted. There the game is #1 in simulation games (sub category), and holds top ten rankings in the PC and Mac categories. You're absolutely correct it's not in the top hundred overall when ranked across all platforms of video games. 109, is the latest I saw there.

Even so, the article should have read "a top seller" not "the top seller". Thank you for raising the point.

How Will the Market React to Apple's New Macbooks?

It'll be interesting to see how the market reacts to whatever is revealed. There's definitely a lot of concern about the holiday quarter and how corporate/consumer spending patterns will impact it.

Apple Reveals New Nanos, Touches in Fall Event

Correction: price of the smallest iPod Touch (8gb) is going to be $229, not $199.

Stalky- the graphic does show the vertical first and second generation Nano followed by the squat 3rd, and then the new, again tall, fourth edition that was just revealed. The scale for each picture is staggered to suggest 'evolution.' Maybe that scaling, or the dates, which correspond to the day each model was announced, confused?

Will EA Change the Gaming Industry's Revenue Model?

Update: Not long after this article was originally published, EA announced their FIFA 2009 game will feature a similar dynamic gaming service.

For those tracking related information, the original article on Metue has been updated to cover the FIFA offering as well. the article is available here: metue.com/08-19-2008/d.../

How Much Will the App Store Contribute to Apple’s Bottom Line?

To the second comment – if you apply the formula as you’re suggesting it effectively assumes that the revenue sharing distributions (iTunes and App Store) are incorporated into the 14% Net Margin, that is, it reflects Apple’s earnings after sharing revenue and trimming off expenses. We can argue that is flawed:

14% is a number derived from company-wide results and the bulk of Apple’s revenue is generated from product sales that don’t have a comparable rev-share component. It’s not like they’re sharing 60% of MacBook or iPod product revenue with partners.

I chose to apply the margin rate to just Apple’s share (30% of Net Sales) because it yields a more conservative result which takes the revenue sharing component explicitly into account. Is it right? Maybe, maybe not. It’s acknowledged in the article that “using a Net Margin percentage taken as an average from the entire business can’t possibly reflect the differences in the different divisions. 14% works for the sake of putting something together but it’s a guess that could be off in either direction.”

As for the value of including the iTunes calculations - the original title of the article on my own site was “Modeling iTunes AND App Store EPS potential.”

Strongest June Quarter in Apple History Doesn't Satisfy the Street

Andy - you're absolutely right. And so are the echos. Yesterday, the Associated Press' widespread earnings coverage talked about Steve's absence. As you point out though - that's normal. Instead of spotting the mistake, I made one of my own and gave it more air time.

Will the Internet Harm Media's Major Players?

Thanks Scott. Appreciate the feedback.

I completely agree with you on point two. The ala carte ability to buy single songs instead of being forced to a full album is a major distinction I didn't include and should have... next time around, I guess.

On the nit over bypassing encryption, I partly agree there too. It's true, for those who choose to do it, it's not that hard to bypass the DRM on videos. And you're right it only has to happen once before it’s out there. On the other hand, the size of feature length video files requires anybody copying/moving/recodin... them from DVD work through issues of compression, bandwidth and computing power. That’s especially true if they want to re-encode to a DVD they can use with their television. It’ll take software and time. Are those challenges much of a blockade? Probably not. But viewing it in the context of what can be done on "main street" versus by the "tech savvy" leads me to think that added difficulty has some value to the broader debate. How much value though? Not sure.

iPhone 3G Plans Around the Globe

RE CANADA: The news about Canada is still unfolding. It now appears to be confirmed that Apple won't sell the phone at their own stores there. They may also be diverting some shipments previously meant for Rogers to Europe (unconfirmed).

I've updated my original article on Metue to cover these changes and will continue to report on it as it unfolds. The update can be found here: metue.com/07-07-2008/i.../

Inside the iPhone: Who's Making What

Absolutely true, gskiii. To have been completely accurate, I should have said "storage capacity" instead of "hard drive"....

Inside the iPhone: Who's Making What

UPDATE: In addition to the above Apple rumors, a little more has hit the airwaves since this was original written. Notably, perspective on Apple's profit margin. We've got that info updated in the article at Metue.com (Link: metue.com/06-19-2008/a.../)

For the quick summary here: there are reports Apple's cost structure for hardware may be as low as $100. There are also reports of exactly what AT&T will pay to Apple. Combined, if accurate, the iPhone 3G could be among the most profitable, per product, in Apple's portfolio. More in the link.

Time Warner Invests in Comedy Website: No Easy Laughs to the Bank

Rob and Warren,
I can appreciate your looking out for how your company is characterized and am glad you took the opportunity to speak up. It's not everyday two executives take the time to participate in conversation on their company.

To this article: this was primarily about Funny or Die and their new partnership. Since the references to the competitive landscape, which include MyDamnChannel, were intended to provide just a survey of the broad video marketplace, a detailed traffic analysis and discussion of other sites (yours included) was left out. That notwithstanding, the article should have referenced (and has been corrected on Metue.com (and will be adjusted on SA) to refer) to traffic growth for MyDamnChannel.com “in the early days” rather than as it appeared. For that edit that didn’t make the jump from my hand written notes to the final copy, I’ll deservedly take the shot.

As to the data, the linked article, of course, references numbers from its publishing date. With the editorial correction, that should be clearer and stall any confusion.

I also want to point out that the linked prior article noted two other things: 1. It was still too early to judge your traffic fairly, and 2. It said: Along with YouTube, “Adding a second outlet through MySpaceTV, and leveraging the strength of MySpace’s brand should significantly increase [My Damn Channel’s] audience reach and name recognition.”

The intent, then and now, was to revisit MyDamnChannel in a different posting to look in on that; to write an article that takes into account different measurements that are more appropriate to the business model you’ve adopted.

As I’m sure you’d be quick to point out, using Quantcast data, Alexa, ComScore or other page view numbers for your site (as was the original measurement) is potentially misleading. To note Funny or Die is getting 2.7m global unique visitors, or College Humor’s 1.3m, or your own 347k (via Quantcast) doesn’t give a complete picture. Since MyDamnChannel programming draws a sizable amount of views from syndication agreements with YouTube, MySpace etc, better measurement would be to count things like total video clip views and cross-site subscriber numbers.

Besides that, as a further caveat on unique visitors, Quantcast’s own disclosures point out that unique visitor metrics are actually “cookie counts,” a tabulation of total visitors based on the number of unique cookies placed or received by visitors to a site. Since many browsers and security programs routinely delete these cookie files, the actual number of unique visitors for a site can be thrown off due to repetition. The ‘overcount, ’ Quantcast says, can sometimes be a factor of two or three times greater than the actual number.

I’d be glad to touch base and hear your take for an appropriate follow up that focuses on MyDamnChannel, including the business model and audience acceptance.

In the interim, thanks for the messages.

iPhone “By the Numbers”: Apple’s Sweeping Tide Across the Globe

Yep, so much for the rumors Ultradodgy. Unfortunately, that news broke a couple days after the original article. The version on my own site, Metue.com, has been updated to account for it.

Softbank has only about 18.8m subscribers (14.5m on 3G) to DoCoMo's 50+ million so its a smaller land grab. Apple was probably able to negotiate better terms.