Barry Ritholtz has a (3 part) 25-minute documentary by the Wall Street Journal that's worth watching. Note that it is all Wall Street Journal reporters who are interviewed, but it's still worth a viewing.
As a New Yorker, born and raised, my one hope in this recession is that New York City becomes a more heterogeneous city. Wall Street's influence on New York City was too large since the 1990s and into the 2000s. I love New York City but it is not a city I wish to live in at the moment. If New York City can emerge from the recession as a more honest city, a better place for more people to live, not just rich people, I'd like to live there again one day.
Nothing new here except that this looks to be the critical moment for Howard. If he can really make deep cuts, literally shed 20-35% of the business that is not profitable, then he has a chance of keeping Sony relevant. If Stringer can't make cuts that deep, he'll be replaced within a 1-2 year time frame with some lame Japanese executive who'd never make those cuts. This is the moment for Sony to seize the fact that Howard is NOT JAPANESE, and Sony is NO LONGER PROFITABLE, and to make the necessary cuts. As a shareholder myself, I demand no less.
Koya Tabata, a Credit Suisse analyst, recently warned investors that the restructuring of Sony is perilously overdue and must be radical. Sony management needs to make a rapid shift in its business model to one driven by earnings in the content business, he said.
The focus of research and development must be on software, he said, adding: “The most important thing is that, to improve organisational strength in the areas of development, purchasing and marketing, it will be necessary to further concentrate power in the hands of [Sir Howard] and unless this is achieved we believe [Sony] will be unable to close the gap with competitors such as Apple and Nintendo.”
Sony on brink of upheaval as analysts back British chief - Times Online
If you need the most recent update to Silkypix Developer Studio, Ver.3.0.27.2, and you can't download it from Shortcut Software because of the malware they are hosting on their site, you can download it from Ichikawa Soft Laboratory, the Japanese developer of the software:
Windows:
http://www2.isl.co.jp/SILKYPIX/english/download/file/SilkypixE30272.EXE
Macintosh:
http://www2.isl.co.jp/SILKYPIX/english/download/file/SILKYPIX_DS3E_3.0.27.2.dmg
Happy new year everyone.
I plan to attend the 2009 Tokyo Bloggers New Years Meetup on Jan. 17th here in Tokyo. If you'd like to attend, please contact TPR over at Trans-Pacific Radio.
Esther Dyson on Google (vs. Yandex) and her preference of market forces for regulation of information on the Internet: Big Brother Google?
As it happens, I have a complex relationship with Google. I have fed at its trough many times – as a personal guest; as an advisory board member of Stop Badware, an NGO it sponsors; and as a speaker at its events. I also sit on the board of 23andMe, co-founded by the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
But I also sit on the boards of Yandex in Russia, one of a small number of companies around the world who beat Google in their local markets, and of WPP, a worldwide advertising/marketing company famous for its rivalry with Google. Finally, I’m suspicious of concentrations of power of any kind.
So I welcomed the chance to clarify my thinking. I took the con side of the debate: Google does not violate its motto. However, I do think there is a danger that someday it could.
...
A Google that is accountable to its users – searchers, advertisers, investors, and governments – is likely to be a better outfit that does more good in today’s relatively open market. In short, there is no regulatory system that I trust more than the current messy world of conflicting interests. Whatever short-term temptations it faces – to manipulate its search results, use private information, or throw its weight around – Google, it is clear, could lose a lot by succumbing to them in a world where its every move is watched.
If you read only one article on Japanese politics this year, make it Tobias Harris' overview of 2008 at Néojaponisme 2008: Change and Politics
One way or another, Japan needs political change. The latest economic downturn will only exacerbate the problems already facing Japan. It will make it all the more difficult for the government to provide pensions and other social services. It will delay the government’s efforts to pay down Japan’s national debt to more sustainable levels. It will swell the already swollen ranks of Japan’s temporary workers, who now constitute nearly a third of the labor force. And it will do little to encourage younger Japanese to marry and start families.
Japan's second largest SNS, Gree, has IPOed, at 4800 yen for a total market cap of $1.2 billion with a b dollars (on annual profits of $10 million?!?!)
I have a gree account, have had one for a while. I'm an AU user too (AU's mobile SNS is gree.) Maybe I'm blind but I just don't see the $1 billion in value here.
Barry Ritholtz is awesome.
How to Save Detroit | The Big Picture
UPDATE: Google says that the WSJ doesn't know what it is writing about and that this is about content caching, not network neutrality: Google Public Policy Blog: Net neutrality and the benefits of caching. If that's the case, this is either really shoddy reporting or there's something about "content caching" that is too similar to a real benefit in network access. If you're an entity like Google, and you're willing to pay ISPs around the world to put google content on cache servers all over the Internet, that amounts to a benefit that others without such pockets or agreements cannot get.
What say you?
***
WSJ: Google Wants Its Own Fast Track on the Web
Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers.
Quite different from what Vint Cerf said in late 2008:
Or in 2006: U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Hearing on "Network Neutrality" February 7, 2006
Or in 2005 to Joe Barton & John Dingell: Vint Cerf speaks out on net neutrality
