Posted on June 19th, 2008
Billionaire corporate curmudgeon Carl Icahn has started his very own blog called The Icahn Report. Icahn is best known for his money making strategy of buying up shares of a struggling company, forcing his way onto the board, and then demanding changes that suit him before he dumps his shares at a premium. Most recently he has been trying to salvage the Microsoft/Yahoo! implosion by threatening Yahoo! with all kinds of holy hell if they don’t sell.
His blog is certainly full of some good rants. Alternatively, if you’re interested in Carl in some of his funnier moments, Silicon Alley Insider has some videos of him telling humorous stories from his past days. They’re kind of long, but not bad for 72-year-old-corporate-raider-humor.
On the other hand, if you’re interested in Carl at his most terrifying, you can read here about how he made enormous sums of money by shredding TWA into tiny bits and then toying with the floundering remnants of the airline for nearly another decade.
Posted on March 9th, 2008
While it’s on my sidebar, I really want to point out the Silicon Alley Insider; a blog run by one time securities analyst now banned from Wall Street for life Henry Blodget. He made some bad calls during the dot-com era, but Wall Street’s government mandated loss is our gain - SAI is an outstanding wealth of technology business analysis. Blodget’s post titled Hulu: Great Product, Still Screwed is a perfect example that captures the unsettling economic problems facing NBC and News Corp’s soon to be released online video service. (Disclosure: I posted a comment on the Hulu post).
While Blodget’s thoughts are well reasoned, I should also add some positive perspective. I have a beta membership to Hulu and I have to say the service is outstanding. The video quality is great, the ads aren’t terribly intrusive, and the interface is decent. My biggest complaint is that searching for videos is more challenging than I would prefer, especially for shows like Saturday Night Live where there are literally hundreds of clips available. Still, as far as legal online video goes, Hulu is the best thing going right now and leaves iTunes in the dust by virtue of being 100% free.
Which leads me to my next question about why I would even want to own a TV. With so much quality media online, does the traditional TV even matter anymore? I, for one, am not planning on buying an HDTV any time soon, and might even take the opportunity to just throw away my old TV when the digital switch happens next year. What are your TV plans (there’s a poll here if you don’t see it in your RSS reader):
Your TV plans for the next year?
- I already own an HDTV (33%, 2 Votes)
- I'm planning to buy an HDTV (0%, 0 Votes)
- I'm planning to buy a converter (or have one already) (0%, 0 Votes)
- I'm throwing away my regular TV and switching to the Internet (33%, 2 Votes)
- No TV for me, either online or offline (33%, 2 Votes)
- HD what now? (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 6
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