Friday, August 31, 2001

>>>> Reuters. Greenspan starting to analyze the wealth effect on consumer spending. About time. "The sheer size of such gains suggests that capital gains on equities have been a more potent factor in determining spending than gains on homes,' the Fed chief told attendees at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's annual economic symposium." More signs of economic life: consumer savings were up in July 2.5% Could July be the bottom of the downturn? 1:05:50 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

>>>> Reuters. Signs of economic life. Factory orders edge up in July. 11:06:32 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

>>>> I have set this picture from Scripting News as my desktop's Wall paper -- as a reminder of where this industry is headed. Microsoft .TRUNK 8:51:31 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

>>>> What would you pay for a desktop photo album that automatically sent the photos you posted to similar desktop photo albums on the computers of friends and family? More than that you could add annotations to the photos sent using a WYSIWYG browser-based editor. My wife Marie says she would pay $2.50 a month easily. I am sure she would be able to get the rest of my family hooked (5 desktops) in short order. The keys to this application: desktop Website (Radio), P2P connectivity with XML-RPC transport (Jabber or others), and a DSL connection. Just leave it on all the time and you get an alert when new photos turn up. Why doesn't Kodak get on this track right now? 8:09:11 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

>>>> CNet. Interview with the founder and CEO of Nvidia. "Most people believe GPUs will threaten the CPU in terms of importance. But what you'll find is that where Nvidia has the most success with GeForce 3's--the highest end of processors--you'll also simultaneously find those are the competing platforms that have the highest performance CPUs. So there's evidence, when we raise the baseline computing capability and therefore content creators can target a much more powerful computer, they will build better content. The better content will have more demands on artificial intelligence, more demands on physics, more demands on the way light is affected in the room. More demands on collision detection. So (there will be) a lot more demands on the CPU as a result of richer gfx. So my sense is that companion relationship, that synergistic relationship between CPUs and GPUs will continue." Correct. Nvidia has an opportunity to become the next Intel. Why? The potential that we will see multiple displays leverage the same CPU. We see this now in publishing. Additionally, CPU power is taking off with 10 GHz expected in 2005 (the storage industy, which has long kept pace with Moore's law, accelerated to a 2x Moore's law rate in 1998, can Intel do the same?). How can we use this extra power? Here is one way: Multiple users on the same machine using different access points for different purposes. In this scenario, it is very likely the GPU will be incorporated into the display device. If multiple display devices are used (living room, kitchen, home-office, etc.), Nvidia has the chance to sell a processor in each location -- for example: four $200 GPUs per single $500 CPU. That's a huge business opportunity. Sony is already shipping a portable screen device called Airboard that may set the stage for multiple screens attached to a single home PC server. This is yet another justification for home Websites leveraging the power of a desktop database, content mangement system, and http server (Radio). Check back in five years to see if this plays out. 7:44:11 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

>>>> WSJ: Comscore tracks online sales data in real-time. "ComScore says it can do this because it has recruited a panel of 1.5 million Internet users who have agreed to let the firm monitor their online behavior, much the way ACNielsen or Information Resources for years independently have tracked sales of snack foods, soap and other consumer packaged goods sold in bricks-and-mortar stores." "The closely held, two-year-old ComScore, whose founders hail from Information Resources, isn't the only firm tracking sales. But the size of the audience it tracks sets it apart. Rival Netratings asks 35,000 Web shoppers every month to recall their online purchases for an e-commerce survey, while it monitors traffic using a panel of 225,000 Internet users. Jupiter Media Metrix says it can track sales on specific sites using its panel of 120,000 Internet users. But Netratings and Jupiter Media Metrix are best known for estimates of Web traffic, which ComScore also tracks." Spyware. Here is the skinny. Ever see those ads for "download accelerators"? Didn't you think it was funny to not find any information about "the company" that produced the software (examples: 1 and 2)? Well, it was most likely Comscore. That's how they got a panel of 1.5 m people. Media Metrix and Netratings (who are in a legal battle right now) opted to recruit panelists and pay them for tracking their movements around the net (that's why their panels are smaller). 6:50:09 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

>>>> NYT: New study, median incomes declined in NY and CA during the 90s. "Comparing those two sets of numbers, he found that median family income in New York State declined to an estimated $52,313, down $2,876; in California, to $53,037, off $3,288; in Connecticut, to $64,502, down $3,821; and in Washington, D.C., to $45,943, down $4,406. Median family income measures the income of relatives living together." What went wrong? The early 90's were bad. The elder Bush put us through a war and a period economic stagnation. The second half of the nineties saw home values rocket in both regions. This had the effect of forcing middle class wage earners to leave both states. Finally, to replace these middle income workers, we saw a large influx of immigrants that started much lower on the pay scale -- particularly in service jobs that cater to the rapidly growing group of wealthy people in each state (the percentage of wealthy people is the fastest growing income segment of the US population). This in last fact in particular has an impact on the calculation of a "median" income -- the income where half the population is above and below. If immigrantion grew in these states by by 50% in the 90's the median income number would be under huge pressure to show gains. The only way to check this theory is to look at the country as a whole. 6:25:19 AM    Comment_ Trackback []