Koo’s Corner

Today we’re going to try something different. Lots of blogs vent, mock, and throw stones at whatever topic comes into their sights that warrant the mean spirited energy to blast. I try to avoid that….but not today.

Its Wednesday night, and the only day of the year that has no professional sporting games. This irks me greatly in combination with a lot of other thigns, so for this one day I am going to break from tradition and just be a complainiing, whining asshole. Below are some things that really grind my gears.

The now resoloved writer’s strike:

Yeah its over, but its affects are being felt this summer. When the strike started in late fall, production shut down on the majority of television shows. Other shows that were scheduled to start shooting, were delayed months as the strike dragged on. Since the culmination of the NHL and NBA playoffs, its been pretty rough with my favorite shows on hiatus or recently retired. The novelty of Ice Road Truckers is wearing off, Penn and Teller’s Bullshit is only weekly (just discovered and love it), and I find myself watching nostalgic looks at history like the drug years and I love the Seventies on VH1.

Gone for now are the likes of Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Flight of the Conchords, The Office, Lost, The Hills (shutup), and South Park.

Gone for good are personal favorites Sopranos, Rob and Big, and The Wire.

Maybe its that my new apartment does not have an on screen guide, but the combined affect of all of the above shows being out of season or wrapped for good is making me lose my mind.

Yahoo email

Lately, I have been getting a lot of error messages when trying to open various emails in my account. Emails that are spam get into my inbox at a high rate. Even emails with the word “spam” in the title seem to not trigger any flags for the spam filter. What’s even worse though is that reply emails, emails from long time acquaintances, and mailings that I have opted in for go to the spam folder at a high frequency. Every day I have to go “fishing” for lost emails, and I only noticed the need in the last couple of months and fret over what emails I never saw because of the schottiness of Yahoo email. Gmail is much much better and Yahoo deciding to give @ymail email addresses is not going to be of any help.

Etrade.

Not sure if its Etrade of the SEC, but I just opened an account with them and wanted to buy some stock in Jet Blue last Friday. I have had accounts with Etrade in the past and currently have a checking account with them and wanted to take advantage of the really low price dip in Jet Blue. Unfortunately I got the error message below even though the money in the account was started with Etrade checking money.

I have had to sit on the sidelines watching Jet Blue’s stock go up around 20% in the last 3 days. What kind of BS rule is this?

Although I usually refrain from blogging much on the weekends, there was a significant amount of news involving what I consider the three most influential Silicon Valley companies. Below is a recap

Yahoo- Yahoo rejected a radically new proposal from Microsoft. Yahoo was given 24 hours to accept the deal, which was not for the entire company but rather just the search component of Yahoo. The offer also asked for the current Board of Directors and executive team to be replaced by new teams led by investor Carl Ichan.

The real news is in Yahoo’s rejection. Yahoo implied that a could deal be reached for the entire company. While this does sound like foreplay for a potential merger, the rejection also included some jabs at Microsoft.

“adding that the requirement to replace the board and executive team is absurd and irresponsible given the complexity of the deal.” per tech crunch.

2008 has had a lot of interesting squareoffs with Obama vs Clinton, Microsoft vs Yahoo, Rodriguez vs West Virgina and Favre vs the Packers now looming. At this point with all the ill will between the two companies, I think this has become a pissing match that Microsoft has the will and resources to win. Its a war of attrition between two tech giants and its sad to see them looking so feeble in full view of the public. I think in the end, investor pressure from Icahn and other key investors will broker a deal sometime in the next month or so.

Apple- Apple, known for their execution of product launches, ran into a snag releasing the new 3G iphone. Unlike last year, new Iphones, needs to be activated within the store. Phones were unable to be activated with issues with the Itunes server causing the first several waves of Apple fanboys to come away empty handed. Just imagine you waiting in line for 1-3 days only to come away empty handed. Luckily though, the product is going over well and Apple is continued to meet demand through the weekend at most locations. Below is a video of a line for the phone in Mission Viejo.

Google- Last year, a popular rumor was that Google would release their own mobile phone. Speculation died down as Google announced their Android mobile phone operating system. However there is now a new wave of speculation around the tech blogosphere that Google may indeed looking to release a mobile phone within the next year. While reports are conflicting, its something to keep an eye out as Google has yet to to take their superior web know how and engenierring excellence and apply it to a hardware device.

Below are some random things on my mind tonight.

- Yesterday I commented on Tesla Motor’s big announcement to produce cars in California over New Mexico. Today another big rumor is floating around that Tesla has reached a deal to sell batteries to Mercedez in their efforts to sell electic cars by 2010. With other big name auto companies believed interested in similar deals, one wonders if Tesla’s future may one day be mainly as a battery maker and secondarily a car manufacturer.

Tesla Battery Below

- Yahoo email freaking blows compared to Gmail. Most of the emails in my inbox are spam and a good 25% of non spam emails end up in the spam folder.

Emails I have had to dig out of my spam folder include 2 job offers, a reply email from a friend, a response from an Ohio State professor about a speaking engagement, and notification that I won an African lottery ….kidding.

Gmail on the other hand is pretty much balls on accurate. Yahoo is a crap shoot, and I am thinking of phasing out the account.

- I gave into the temptation to join Twitter tonight. I’ll recap my thoughts in it in a couple of weeks. Feel free to “follow” me at http://twitter.com/bkoo

- Finally wanted to give a look at how sweet Yardbarker is. There are a lot of cool fuctions and things we are doing, but what continues to amaze me is how easy it is for fans to interact with athletes. Below are some schreenshots of some exchanges between me and Chiefs WR Dwayne Bowe and Angels Pitcher John Lackey

This is not new content but rather something I wrote about a month ago…. I wrote it for message board and my post was later quoted in an article about the acquisition. If you are not familiar with rivals.com, its a network of team specific fan websites. Scout.com is their only real competition and they were purchased by Fox in the days after Fox’s myspace acquisition. Scout.com has some serious financial and legal issues right now. The below was my analysis+reaction that this was yahoo’s attempt to get back at google.

“Yahoo and Google are two big movers and shakers in the valley but they are competing less and less.

Google stole the internet search engine market from yahoo and has branched off many different business units successfully. They are looking to get more into software, applications, and online tools. Yahoo is still in their sights, but they are gravitating more towards competing with Microsoft. Google doesn’t create a lot of its own content but just shrewdly makes money off its uncanny efficiency to organize information.

Yahoo on the other hand is redefining itself as the leading online media and services company. In the sports world they have been breaking a lot of stories (Reggy Bush house story for example).

Yahoo offers more robust services that are considered web 2.0 like fantasy sports, a music store, flickr (photo sharing), finance, and real estate.

I use a lot yahoo resources but google has the better and more defined business model.

As for the acquisition, I think it will mix it up a lot. I believe a decent amount of Rivals content was being syndicated on yahoo sports so yahoo does know what they are buying. Yahoo sports is continuing to grow and are doing some pretty solid work, but is anyone noticing and are they making money?

By buying Rivals yahoo will be able to absorb multiple passionate fan bases, to its growing sports reporting network. Fox hasn’t really done much with Scout, and the fact the big ten network and college football news is under the Fox umbrella makes you think what their move will be if Scout continues to implode.

Yahoo has been pretty shrewd with its acquisitions and synergy between business segments so I could see the rivals purchase helping out in a couple of areas (fantasy sports, search engine market share, yahoo travel, maps) and maybe putting more umph to rivals breaking into television.

Another thing to be aware of is the rumor that Fox might sell /trade myspace to yahoo for 25% stake in yahoo. Wowsers.

While Scout and Rivals never were able to make $$ or reach a sustainable level for IPO, both were able to do enough to attract big name buyers who clamored at the idea of owning a network of passionate fan bases who need their team’s coverage like a drug.

I look for Fox owned Scout to continue to bleed death as the actual websites are god awful. I am not talking about content but the actual look and design and message board usability is a pretty big turnoff. I mean just go to scout.com compared to rivals.com…HUGE difference. Its like scout doesnt even employ a web designer.

Yahoo and rivals should be interesting. Keep in mind this is yahoos new ceo’s first move although this was in the works for awhile. Knowing this is now kind of attached to his name, he might be keeping a closer eye on this then you would imagine.