louisgray.com: live

Picking on Yahoo! for its failings is as easy as it once was to pick on Microsoft for its monopoly tactics and shoddy software, or Apple for its scant market share. It's not as if the world needs yet more proof points that Google has won the online search and advertising race, and that Yahoo! has squandered more than one opportunity to get ahead. Yet an increasing amount of news shows that Google is taking more share in all categories at the expense of Yahoo! and Microsoft, despite already having the leader position.

Yesterday, Comscore released its December search rankings for search engines, showing Google with 47.3 percent. Yahoo! eked up to 28.5% and Microsoft fell to 10.5%, down from 11%. Tom Foremski wonders aloud if there is a place for niched, specialized search engines that don't try to do it all. While many are being funded, the truth is that outside of the top two engines, everybody else seems to be losing share, as consumers grow more comfortable and entrenched with Google especially.

The battle over search engine eyes and clicks, and the domination of Google, grows ever more astounding when one learns more about the history of Google and Yahoo!, particularly. Wired Magazine launched an extensive piece on how Yahoo! once had the opportunity to acquire the nascent challenger in the summer of 2002, but simply didn't offer enough dough. As the article points out, this stemmed from the timing of it all. In 2002, as the first Internet bubble had come crashing down, Yahoo! was left a shadow of its once high-flying self, and it just simply couldn't scare up billions to acquire Google. Instead, they settled for second best acquisitions of Inktomi and GoTo (now Overture), and couldn't mash the new products together well enough to take on what's become the far and away market leader.

As much fun as it is to see companies challenge the market front-runners and add more services beyond their core business model, I believe they also need the ability to recognize where they are failing and they need to make the hard decisions to focus on what they do well. I don't use Microsoft search and Yahoo! search because they simply aren't as good, and won't get me the answers I need. Advertisers know the intelligent consumers have made the choice, and that choice is Google.

Of late, I've found my attention span in the stock market is decreasing rapidly. I used to be of the standard "buy and hold" mentality, picking great companies with potentially great stocks. But the seeming inevitability of the buy and hold strategy was that eventually, the stock would go down - sometimes in a big way, thanks to a profit miss or product issue.

The result is that my investment strategy has morphed, first from holding stocks for the better part of a year to instead a few months, down to a month or two at longest, and most recently, it's been unusual for me to even hold a specific stock for even a week. Instead, I've been looking for momentum plays, with specific actions that would temporarily boost a stock or stem a drop. This change in strategy has made it easier to turn money over and better regulate the potential spikes.

By turning into more of a day trader, per se, I don't fall emotionally for stocks, but instead look at them as faceless entities with ticker symbols, whether it's AAPL, GOOG, TIVO, or others. In fact, I even prey on companies that have fallen on hard times to benefit from their eventual rebound. Even a 3 percent jump in a day or two might be enough for me to sell. As a result, I've made more in stock profits in January already than I did in December, and more in December than I did in all of 2006 prior.

I don't know if this is a recent stroke of luck or the result of good planning. But for now, we'll keep trading off CES and MacWorld, and earnings hit or misses. It's working.

Listening to ''Walk Down (KVA Club Mix)'', by Kyau & Albert (Play Count: 2)

I've been good. Even though Kristine and I watched the first four episodes of 24 more than a week ago, we didn't tell anybody what happened. Not only did 24 not officially debut on television until last night, but I am, for some reason, surrounded by coworkers and family members alike who haven't made their way through the previous season - either due to lax TiVo discipline, or an inability to find time to watch the show on DVD. Therefore, I have gone out of my way to be courteous and avoid slipping details of the newest adventures of Jack Bauer - for their safety and mine.

With that said, the cat is pretty much out of the bag now. 24 kicked off the season yesterday on Fox, and people are all talking about CTU's latest attempt to save the world from the evils of terrorism. Even the Drudge Report was abuzz about 24's possibly setting off a nuclear weapon on American soil. Drudge, in his typical flair, quoted one anonymous Fox executive as saying it was "Time to wake the country up!" and keep them riveted to the screen - hoping that once again, the good guys prevail.

Our early access to 24 paid dividends over the weekend. My parents had somehow made an alternative show hold a higher TiVo season pass, and 24's debut was nowhere to be found. We scrambled to push the new episodes to my mother's big screen Apple Cinema Display, where we then proceeded to watch all four shows until after 2 in the morning. Today, around breakfast, she said the improvised slumber party was well worth it. Had I not had the 24 episodes on the iPod, they would be forced to find somebody else with true TiVo expertise to get them their Jack Bauer fix.

If you haven't yet made 24 a must see in your TV watching itinerary, it's time. This season looks to be better than ever.

Listening to ''floatation'', by Ulrich Schnauss (Play Count: 1)

Though I'm an avid Sacramento Kings fan, I haven't had the opportunity to see the team play in person at Arco Arena for the better part of four to five years. With our planned visit to Sacramento to see my parents this weekend, we quickly scrambled to see if we could gain tickets for the Kings game against the Houston Rockets Saturday night. The game was, of course, sold out, but we were able to find a high-priced alternative on StubHub, which gained us four box seat tickets on the first level, unimpeded by other fans. As a result, the four of us, consisting of Kristine, my parents, and me, saw the Kings put on one of the better shows in recent memory, as they battled a superior Rockets team for four quarters, before fading in overtime, on the way to their fifth straight loss.

Despite the game's outcome, we had a fantastic time, as you could likely tell by the game recap I posted to Sactown Royalty near midnight Saturday.

The game was close for almost the entire contest. Two of the Kings players went for more than 30, and though the team was down by five with seconds left in regulation, Ron Artest somehow banked in a last gasp three-pointer to tie it up and send it to an additional period, making all the fans in Arco who were on their way to the parking lot turn right back around and hope for the improbable. But it wasn't to be. The Rockets proved to be too much for the Kings, who have let us down time and again this season, on their way to mediocrity.

I had hoped that by our making the investment in the team and bringing the family, that our support would be rewarded. While the game was a delight with high-paced shooting with an upbeat tempo, offering an entertaining experience, the final score had us wanting more. My hope is that the next time I go to Arco, I spend less money and we can walk away with a win.

Listening to ''staub'', by Ulrich Schnauss (Play Count: 1)

It is mind-boggling to think how different this nation and world would be had a few hundred votes for Pat Buchanan or Ralph Nader down in Florida have gone Al Gore's way in 2000. While it's a little like crying over spilled milk, his political star continues to rise, even as Bush and his administration are finding new ways to embarrass the United States and the Republican Party. Now, following the Democrats' pummeling of the GOP in the mid-term elections last November, all eyes have moved forward to the next big election, for president, and candidates are already lining up on both sides.

Unfortunately, it looks as if Al Gore really, truly, won't put his hat in the ring again. Content to fight his own campaign against global warming on a worldwide basis, he told reporters again today that he is out, officially. This leaves the already crowded Democrat party field with one less star, and potentially, a little less infighting before the general election.

Given how the last 6-plus years have lowered our expectations for what the US presidency represents, every candidate seems better than what we have now. While I think Barack Obama lacks experience, this may be to his benefit, as he's not beholden to a raft of questionable past votes. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are very interesting candidates with strong principles and momentum. But this race could have been Al Gore's to take. While they fight it out in the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire, he will remain above the fray. (More: Daily Kos)

Listening to ''a lie for breakfast'', by Ulrich Schnauss (Play Count: 2)

What - you thought I joined the long list of blogs that are abandoned every day? You wish.

We took Monday off from work, making this an unofficial three day weekend, blog free. Kristine and I visited my family in Sacramento, seeing a Sacramento Kings game, visiting the state capitol, seeing where my parents work at their relatively new jobs, and playing lots of cards, with them, my aunts and Nana. I'm happy to report that I won most of the card games, and less pleased to report that the Kings lost their game on Saturday, with us in attendance. More soon.

Listening to ''a million miles away'', by Ulrich Schnauss (Play Count: 1)

Today, the steady trickle of Google Reader went off like a flash flood. Starting Sunday, with the beginning of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (CES) and culminating in today's big Apple news at MacWorld, with the debut of the AppleTV and the potentially revolutionary iPhone, all the tech news sites and blogs you could shake a feed at were publishing in overdrive.


Google Reader activity: January 9, 2007
Today's activity set a new record - with more than 740 items being generated from the 80 or so feeds I've automatically selected to watch. Seemingly half of them were dedicated to tracking Steve Jobs' every move. Not that I can complain. When I get the chance, I'll finally sit down with my PowerBook, plug in the iPod earphones and watch the 2-hour keynote myself. It's practically a tradition. But reading an RSS item every minute for 12 hours? I'm hoping it's a one-time spike, not something I need to get used to.

As usual, don't forget to see what I've shared on My Link Blog.

Listening to ''Come To Me (Club Mix)'', by Sasha (Play Count: 3)

There's nothing more assured from a MacWorld Expo keynote than AAPL stock volatility. We took the bet last week that the rumors around Apple were true - that Steve Jobs could surprise us all and set the stock higher. We also bet that ahead of CES, TiVo, still undervalued, would pull of some tricks to elicit interest in their stock. So we overweighted the portfolio in a big way.

Thank goodness we were right. We're not wealthy by any means, but we cleared about $2k from 5 days of trades in the two, and that was more than enough to treat ourselves to the new $299 AppleTV and new Airport Extreme wireless base station, sporting 802.11n connectivity. The AppleTV will be a welcome addition to our new setup, including new DVD players and plasma screen, as we catch up with Silicon Valley expectations. The new Airport should get our wireless a bit more regular, faster and reach further. And as far as I'm concerned, they were free, and we have more than $1,500 in profits left over, to point somewhere else.

Listening to ''It's My Turn'', by Pete Tong (Play Count: 3)

Today should have been an historic day in baseball, with the elections of Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn to the storied halls of Cooperstown, after both set marks for consistent greatness through the 1980s and 1990s. Yet, issues with steroid allegations against other players, and general snobbishness of untalented sports writer hacks combined to snub a myriad of other elite players who may never make the Hall of Fame.

While most of the pre-vote hype was around whether or not disgraced former Oakland A and St. Louis Cardinal first baseman Mark McGwire would be elected, somewhat forgotten were the stories of decades gone by - the dominant closing from Rich "Goose" Gossage, the batting heroics of Dale Murphy and Jim Rice, and top-notch career of Bert Blyleven, to name a few. Where anywhere from 5-10 players on the ballot warranted election, instead, we got two. Where we should have unanimity, we instead got holdouts who embarrassed the sport by, for who knows what reason, leaving Gwynn and Ripken off the ballot.

I'm not calling for a more democratic fan-based voting system. It's bad enough they have input into the All-Star game itself. But the idea that to gain Hall of Fame entry is anything approaching heroics is gone. Instead, we know that its a crapshoot set off by a myriad of ink-stained, yellowed wretches who couldn't run to first without clutching their left side and pulling up lame.

Were I to have voted, and turned in a ballot, I would have been much more liberal, not just issuing a vote for Ripken and Gwynn, but also Gossage, Rice, Blyleven, McGwire, Murphy, Dave Parker and Lee Smith.

As more storied players approach future ballots, I hope baseball writers come to their senses and recognize elite dominance of a sport. Unanimity should be a certainty with stolen base champ Rickey Henderson, and hurlers Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux, to name a few. But my belief in the system is badly shaken.

Listening to ''Jakata'', by Andrew K. presents Junk Science (Play Count: 4)

There was once a time where the advent of Steve Jobs walking on the stage for Apple would be enough to surpass anything else I had going on that day. I'd come in to work late, or watch the event, via QuickTime, on top of other windows during the workday. While I remain very curious, it's less of an obsession (some might disagree), and more of an obligation. I'm more hopeful that whatever is announced tomorrow does more for Apple's stock than anything else. We're long AAPL again, and any hint of "buy on the rumors, sell on the news" would knock our portfolio down a few pegs.

Everybody and their dog has predictions for MacWorld. Some will be right, and others... not so much. Theories have ranged from a new cellular phone to a TiVo and Netflix killer, wide-screen HDTVs for the living room, new iMac designs, faster Mac Pros, upgraded MacBook Pros, a new wide-screen iPod, next generation Airport wireless, the introduction of OS X 10.5 (a.k.a. Leopard), new revisions of the iLife and iWork software suites, improved .Mac features, and integrated virtualization. Did I miss anything? Even with that long list, probably.

Regardless of what Steve Jobs announces tomorrow, you'll have one part of the population ecstatic over the smallest things, and in contrast, another extreme, deathly frustrated they didn't get exactly what they wanted. Some updates will be a surprise, others, boringly repetitive. But it's all in good fun, and all in good business. Every good marketer who gets the opportunity to speak in public should watch Jobs perform. He's excellent on stage, and he might not be up there for too much longer, as eventually, someone else will have to lead Apple. But until then, he's firmly in charge, and tomorrow, we'll hopefully be watching.

Apple hates me. They want to bankrupt me and my family. That's all I can figure after finding I've been targeted with their latest digital box set featuring Depeche Mode, the band I grew up listening to in the 1990s, the band I've seen in concert twice, and the band which currently occupies the #1 position in my iTunes history, both on Last.fm and MusicMobs.

Due to the fact I've purchased Depeche Mode songs from the iTunes Music Store over the last three years on more than one occasion, I received a special e-mail inviting me to know about their exclusive digital box set, The Complete Depeche Mode.

This is no ordinary box set. Apple says it has 644 tracks, including "over 60 remixes, live recordings, and other rarities you can't get anywhere else"... all for the low, low price of $169.99. How could I resist, when it's so easy to hit the magic button that says "Buy Album"? Just one click, and my little hard drive is sure to fill up with gigabyte after gigabyte of old Depeche Mode songs that I no doubt already have - or had on cassette tapes before they were mercifully antiquated.

It's like offering heroin to an addict who's just left the rehab clinic. They know they shouldn't, they know they don't need it, but wouldn't it sure feel good? So far, we're not buying. But I haven't yet deleted the e-mail, and maybe I'll find a good reason to hit "Buy Now". After all, how can I be happy with the mere 148 songs and 13.5 hours of Depeche Mode I already have in my iTunes when I could quintuple it immediately?

Darn Apple. Why didn't they offer me the Bee Gees or something?

When we last saw Jack Bauer, he was headed into custody of the Chinese government, sure to undergo all sorts of unspeakable torture, as the Communist regime had made him the fall guy for the killing of their ambassador at the nation's embassy on US soil. While the rest of the world awaits the series' debut in a week to see what's happened to Bauer and the rest of the 24 crew, some early birds already know, and just might spoil the fun if you want to be surprised, thanks to an early leak of the season's first four episodes as BitTorrent files - downloadable from anywhere in the world.

As TorrentFreak wrote on their blog yesterday, it's unknown who the source of the leak is. Some think it's a ploy by Fox or the series' creators to drum up interest in the franchise. Alternatively, it could be an aggressive fan. Regardless, the cat's out of the bag, and any tech-savvy 24 fan could take the time to download more than 1.2 gigabytes of non-stop 24 action to catch the first four episodes before anybody else. It just takes intelligent Web searching and smart software to hear Jack order people to holster their weapons for the first time in months.

Though we've been a contributor to Sactown Royalty all season long, it's rare for us to get the opportunity to see the Kings on TV, let alone get out to Arco Arena to see them live. This weekend, my wife and I will be heading out to see my parents, who live in the capital city, and catching the Kings game against the visiting Houston Rockets, with or without 7' 6" superhuman Yao Ming.

Living in the Bay Area, my yearning for the Kings derives mostly from my misspent youth, where many an evening was wasted, wishing for the moribund team to break through and win a freakin' game.

Now, with the team's recent struggles, the same, idealistic, hope just may be all we can hold on to. All you need to know is that the Kings are playing well under expectations now, and they've even devolved to the point their losing to bad teams at home - never a good sign. That's part of why my recent posts to the site have taken on an occasional bitter or sarcastic tone. Yet, once the game's on, we're rooting for them. That's my role. Should be a very fun Saturday evening.

This weekend's Sactown Royalty posts:

• 
  
• Ron Artest: ESPN Magazine Cover Boy
  
• New Rumor: Heat Interested in Artest, Bibby
  
• Stats Corner: Suckitude Doesn't Compute
  
• Write In Kenny Thomas, NBA All-Star!
  

Our home entertainment has taken a serious turn for the better. On Thursday, our long-awaited 42-inch Sylvania plasma television arrived, daring us to more fully adopt our role as a human couch ornament. Having never lived in a home with anything better than a 27 inch CRT monitor, we thought this adjustment would be daunting, but after a few days of wiring and rewiring, we're making do.

The box arrived early, of all things, by a few hours, which gave me time to lift the behemoth the 4 vertical feet needed to rest it atop my bedroom dresser (for now). I hooked it up to our new DVD/VCR combo, and hoped for the best, but found that my technical knowledge only went so far. For some reason, the Sylvania lacked a coaxial cable port, making it nearly impossible to project real cable TV on it. Sure, it played DVDs great, but ... um... no TV. No matter how much bigger the picture, it wasn't good.

Thursday evening, after hassling with getting my wife's car towed (a different story), I ran to Radio Shack to find a magical device that converted Coaxial cable to S-Video. No such luck. They said to try Fry's. Fry's was more helpful, but anything they had was out of stock. I was told to go back to Radio Shack and ask for something else. I instead went to Best Buy, and dealt with pimply earring-wearing teen boys who didn't exactly get the situation. I walked out with a little TV Tuner doohickey that did nothing, but only cost about $20.

Friday, I explained the situation to a friend and colleague, and he said I could connect the new plasma with the S-Video cable on our TiVo. I just had to yank the TiVo and cable box out of our living room and move them to the bedroom to do it. So, Friday evening, we tried just that. After a few trial and errors, all was working. DVD/VCR on one input, and cable TV on the other input. Now, our room is like a little theater, where we don't even have to get out of bed to watch ESPNNEWS or check out the latest TiVo recording from our Season Pass. Gluttony and sloth just got that much easier! And the picture is awesome, so long as we don't beg for HD.

The next step? Somehow figure out just why in the world channels 35 to 55 don't come in on that room but do in the other room. If you think I'm going to sit idly by as everything from TNT to ESPN, ESPN2 and CNN are unavailable, you're wrong. 42 inches of yummy flat-screen goodness is just aching for it.

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Google Reader - the search engine's online RSS aggregator and feed service. I've grown so accustomed to navigating my river of news feeds this way that I've even found myself hitting the "magic keys" of J and K to navigate up and down Web sites that aren't thusly enabled. Today, I was excited to find that Google Reader has been spying on me - in a good way. The service debuted graphical trends that show my last 30 days' worth of activity, highlighted the most frequently updated news feeds I read each day, and those which I most frequently post to my Link Blog (updated multiple times daily).

I've shared a number of the images with you.

1. In summary, I'm subscribed to 84 news feeds. Over the last 30 days, I've read 8,077 items, 323 of which made it to my link blog, a ratio of just under 4 percent.



2.  Over the last month, the number of read feeds per day ranges typically between 250 and 400. Note that even in the lightest days I got to about 50 or so feeds. This stat shows those I read, not how many items were placed in the feeds.



3. The stats show I'm reading everything, and not deleting or skipping. ESPN.com averages about 24 items per day, or one per hour, all month long. Of these top 10 items, 3 are Technology oriented, 2 are Sports, 4 are Political and 1 is Work related.



4. Expanding on the above you can see which are the most frequently updated feeds. The converse is also available, reminding me that some feeds just don't update for months, even. They can be deleted.



5. Not all feeds are created equal. TechMeme, TUAW and Robert Scoble are among those blogs I've most frequently shared on the Link Blog. Note a tendency towards narcissism as well with my own blog and Sactown Royalty. The more venues these sites are available, the better, in my opinion.



RSS makes the new world go 'round. Google Reader makes it go 'round better and faster. This is a great new enhancement to an already strong service. Go Google Go.

1. ANtics Episode 2.32: Milton Bradley, Mr. Intensity (600)
2. Web 2.0 Companies Play With Error Messages (400)
3. Site Endorsement: Guy Kawasaki's Blog (400)
4. Apple's iPod, iTunes Competitors Stumbling (350)
5. Topix Launches One Year News Search (330)
6. Will Second Half of '06 Be Huge for Apple? (330)
7. Google Buys YouTube for $1.65 Billion (325)
8. A's Get Pummeled 14-0 As We Watch, Helpless (285)
9. Mac OS X 10.5 Remains a Mystery (230)
10. ANtics Episode 2.23: Intensity for the Long Haul (220)

1. Athletics Nation
2. MySpace (various user pages)
3. Feedburner RSS Feed
4. Google Images
5. Web Robin 
6. BlogLines
7. Sactown Royalty
8. Mercury News: Microsoft's Plans For Handheld Game Player and "iPod Killer"
9. Google Images (Venezuela)
10. The Apple Blog

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1. Episode 2.11: A Tale of Two Zitos (5,250)
2. Episode 2.5: Scutaro Skills (2,900)
3. Episode 2.2: A's Offense, New and Improved (2,200)
4. Episode 2.7: Crosby Wellness Clinic 101 (2,200)
5. Episode 2.4: Spring Training Pins and Needles (2,150)
6. Episode 2.8: Swish vs. the Sophomore Slump (2,000)
7. Episode 2.1: 2006: The ANtics Take On the Off-Season (1,950)
8. Episode 2.13: 3 Games of Shadows (1,900)
9. Episode 2.6: 2006 Player Predictions (1,850)
10. Episode 2.19: Eric Byrnes' Curse Continues (1,825)

1. louisgray.com RSS feed (28,000+)
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3. louisgray.com/music (17,700+)
4. ANtics Comics Archive (3,800+)
5. March 2006 Archive (1,400+)
6. Sections: Technology (1,000)
7. ANtics Comics 2006 Archive (950)
8. Sections: Ramblings (900)
9. ANtics Comics 2005 Archive (700)
10. Sections: Sports (700)

With Zito having walked away from the green and gold to throw for a minor league squad across the bay, we check in with the rest of the team to see how they resolve to make 2007 a success...


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Also: Take the Poll: What do you as a fan resolve to do?

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