ndmckinney|net » business

Just in Time Employment

Nick — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:50:50 +0000

There is a paradox in the American economic recovery. GDP is expanding at incredible rates, and yet the economy keeps shedding jobs. While the official unemployment figure stands around 10 percent, including worker who are underemployed pushes “the full measure of slack in the labor market closer to 20 percent“. While economists and policy analysts [...]

FCC Inquires About Google Voice App Rejection

Nick — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:19:44 +0000

TechCrunch is reporting that the FCC has sent letters of inquiry to Apple, AT&T and Google regarding the rejection of Google Voice related apps from Apple’s app store. In the letters, the FCC is asking both Apple and AT&T about their levels of decision making in approving/rejecting apps. AT&T has maintained that it has no [...]

Port of Rotterdam Suffers from Economic Downturn

Nick — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:44:29 +0000

NRC Handelsblad is reporting that container traffic in Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port, is down 15% and overall shipping traffic down 13.4%. The downturn is expected to continue through the remainder of the year. This is, or course, reflective of the overall downturn in shipping. The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of the cost of shipping [...]

FTC: Sears Violated Customer Privacy Through the Sin of Omission

Nick — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:32:07 +0000

The Federal Trade Commission today entered a consent order today finding that Sears Holdings Management Corporation (Sears and Kmart) by which Sears settled FTC charges of failing to disclose the scope of collection and usage of customer data and web activity. This, according to a statement by the FTC, constituted a deceptive practice. Affected customers [...]

European Commission Imposes €1.06 billion Fine on Intel

Nick — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:27:41 +0000

The European Commission (EC) today imposed a €1.06 billion fine on the Intel Corporation for “abuse of a dominant market position . . . by engaging in illegal anticompetitive practices to exclue competitors from the market for computer chips called x86 central processing units.” The Commission futher ordered Intel “to cease the anticompetitive practices to the extent [...]

Journalist or Blogger?

Nick — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:07:50 +0000

Newspapers are in trouble, so report the newspapers. So does network television, also facing new challenges from both cable television and the internet. This week, NPR’s On the Media posed the question on how to save newspapers. They played excerpts from a recent Senate commerce committee hearing on the future of journalism. After pointing fingers [...]

Filters and Links

Nick — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:47:22 +0000

Wired.com today published an article calling into question the legality of Facebook’s new policy of filtering links to the Pirate Bay. Citing EFF lawyers, the article claims that Facebook is violating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA, 18 U.S.C. § 2510 et seq.) by filtering these links. While there is little wisdom in doing so, [...]

Monetizing the Crowd

Nick — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:30:37 +0000

According to the company's website, while Twitter is exploring a number of business models, it is currently focused on providing the best user experience possible and growing its user base. ... While they will certainly be around for the short-term, their long term survival will depend, in part, on their ability to balance the desire of users to have access to the plethora of free services that the internet has to offer with the pragmatic need for operating capital.

The Fatal Shortcoming of Social Media

Nick — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:01:28 +0000

Twitter, for example, allows greater access to content that Facebook; my "tweets" are republished on this site without any hassle (as well as on my Facebook page, which recently has changed to look more like Twitter). ... Twitter seems to be better than most at opening up their systems to the outside world; they have a published, well-documented API that allows anyone to write applications to access their servers; the problem here is that you still must access their servers.

France: No exclusive iPhone deals

Nick — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:48:12 +0000

A French appellate court has upheld a decision prohibiting Apple and telco provider Orange from entering into a five-year exclusive deal. [From iPhone : la justice confirme la suspension d'exclusivité d'Orange - Economie - Le Monde.fr]

Why Trickle-Down Market Bailout (Rescue) Fails

Nick — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:36:08 +0000

The recent incarnation of the Federal bailout (or rescue, depending on your point of view) of the banking system is yet another representation of the failure of the economic policy of “trickle-down” economics to actually function and only highlights the incestuous nature of Federal regulators, banking executives, and the financial system as a whole. The [...]

Market Freefall

Nick — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:23:25 +0000

The Dow, as of this posting, is below 9000 points. I think it would be in everyone’s best interest if the markets took a day off. I know Columbus day is Monday, but a four-day weekend would do everyone wonders. On the plus side, there’s a three-day weekend coming. UPDATE: The Dow ended up losing [...]

Doomed to Failure

Nick — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:00:46 +0000

Much hoopla has been made over the launch of Washington DC’s new bike sharing program. Often compared to similar programs in Paris and Barcelona, the program is on a path to failure. In fact, I’m predicting that it has six months to live. Why such doom and gloom? Three simple reasons: 1. Poor distribution of [...]

Celebrex: “We’re no worse than the competition”

Nick — Thu, 08 May 2008 04:08:42 +0000

Celebrex, the NSAID pain reliever that was vilified in media years ago, is back with a new ad campaign. It’s been on the air for a while, but I’m finally irritated enough to comment on the ad. There are three major problems with this ad: The outlines of the drawings are made from disclaimers and [...]

Is Universal Healthcare Possible?

Nick — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:24:39 +0000

PBS’s FRONTLINE program, which always achieves an incredible level of journalism, recently ran a program on healthcare systems around the world. The premise of the program is whether the U.S. could learn anything from other modern, post-industrial, capitalist societies. The answer, of course, is “yes, the U.S. has a lot to learn.” [From FRONTLINE:sick around [...]

I AM Plagarism

Nick — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:14:36 +0000

Colonial Williamsburg has undertaken a new ad campaign to try and attract visitors. “I am Williamsburg.” It’s a very inspirational campaign, making an attempt to connect the visitor to the location. The problem is, it has been done before. The city of Amsterdam has already marketed this idea that “I am Amsterdam” for some time. [...]

Profiting from their own incompetence

Nick — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:00:13 +0000

Former Countrywide executives are forming a new company that will restructure sub-prime mortgage debt (at their discretion) by buying it from banks (at a discount) and profiting on the new loan. Why is no one else complaining that the executives who created this mess are not only allowed to profit both from the creation of [...]

Not “entirely dictated by market expectations’”?

Nick — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:00:02 +0000

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) cut the federal funds rate by 75 basis points today, on continuing concerns that the US economy is going down the tubes fast. With inflation on the rise, the dollar on the slide, and more and more jobs simply ceasing to exist, it’s hard to argue. According to the [...]

I (heart) Nellie Kroes

Nick — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:03:49 +0000

Microsoft has been fined (again) by the European Union. This time, the Commission brought down the hammer, fining Microsoft € 899 million ($1.35 billion) for failing to comply with a previous decision on patent licensing fees. While the fine may only be a fraction of the company’s revenue, the fine represents about 10% of the [...]

Transnational Securities Regulation

Nick — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:33:16 +0000

Between studying for the bar exam and sleeping, I find a few moments out of my day to read the newspapers. In particular, I like to read the French newspapers to help develop my language skills. Today, I encountered an article in Le Monde stating that the SEC is investigating possible securities fraud in connection [...]