This has got to be in Dave Letterman's top ten worst food moves

http://www.jonessodastore.com/files/tg-101.html

Love or Hate


My brother and I came back from driving my dad to the airport.

I suggested that we go to Starbucks. come to think of it, I don't know of any decent coffee shop in Hayward.

You either love Starbucks or you hate them. Even if you hate them, sometimes you can't help and go there.

Imagine, though, that at $3.50 - $3.75 you are buying a big cup of coffee.

Starbucks just changed the way you look at coffee. they sell you an image.
You want to pay $3+ for a cup of joe..

think of the profit margins in this business.... how much is it for some roast beans and water.

I guess people want to congregate a nice comfortable place. look at every Starbucks that you visit. there are nice comfy couches and chairs and tables.
they sell "clean" and "groovy"

I feel bad for the Burbs, because there isn't a place like Cafe Roma or Cafe Trieste ...

people in the burbs don't have much choices....

today I went to Stoneridge mall.. and I was thinking to myself...
..Look at all these people,... wearing the same clothes, shopping at the same stores..

Hell I'm surburban.

Interesting article here about CNEt's acquisition of mp3.com
The Register

I am a lucky guy.

Not only do I have a good woman who is pretty, intelligent and strong, but I am fortunate to be working at cool technology company that makes $$$.

My previously employer, CNET, announced on Friday that it has acquired MP3.com. The interesting thing is that it won't be keeping any of the MP3s generated by it's members, nor will it keep any artists membership pages.

CNET just gets the name MP3.com,

that's too bad.


one aspect is that CNET just disbanded a community of artists.


CNET desperate to make some strategic moves... saw the interactive music area as the next place.

I don't know if buying just the URL will be the saviour for CNET.

It's hope is that MP3.com will become GameSpot.com.
GameSpot.com makes money on its memberships to access game " hints"and mostly from advertising.

Unfortunately, I don't think that biz model applies here.

I envision that the new MP3.com version will be like news.com or even computers.com.

reviews of mp3 players and other downloadable music types and the associated products and services.

it's too bad, that CNET doesn't apply the MP3 service as it runs it download.com business. Publishers pay to display their work. In this way, artists w/o labels could publish and share music with a membership.

But perhaps that kind of business is not working. Why else would Vivendi sell off this unit. ... it's probably bleeding.

anyways.. this is big news for my friends at CNEt. unfortunately, the business world didn't think it was such a big deal

it never made the front page of news.google.com nor CNN financial.

actually it still YET to make press coverages on main page on CNN financial even at the technology section.


This just confirms either how minor of a move it is, or it just signals that CNET is just settled in as a online publisher... no different from Nytimes.com or sfgate.com.

As the blogger of rexworld.com has pointed that CNET is become a mini media conglomerate
.. but it's media conglomerate that is still losing money...


I emailed a former CNETer at Yahoo! about the deal.. he replied back with
"zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" LOL. that pretty much sums it up.

As much of my friends want to think of CNET as a technology company, the reality is that it's media company. They don't sell technology that makes them any money...

media companies have their place.... and CNET is finding it's place.

Once, a Fortune magazine cover story, CNET use to claim a top 8 website. .. but now it's probably in the mid 30s in the US. I recently it's ranked 22nd for english reading surfers for com.com.
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=lang&lang=en


CNET has lost it's glitter from it's heydays when it produced TV shows on the USA network.

Now you can probably categorize CNEt in the same breath as Marimba... with the exception that Marimba was a techology company.


CNET to the core is about editorials... hopefully unbiased.


CNET buying other sites most of the time hasn't panned out.

shopper.com : thumbs up
killerapp.com : are you kidding me?
mysimon.com: great idea... a technology company.. but killed it off because CNET ran it like media property
techrepublic: the worst buy... still trying to figure out why someone would want this company... apparently there are lots of readers of technology in Kentucky...

zdnet.com: good move.. netted gamespot.com

sumo.com
auctiongate.com
coffee.com: sold off to peets.com , nice move
search.com: nice name, ... former savvysearch.com.. but Google kicks it ass... it's too slow.
store.com: non existent
com.com: ahhhh..... yeah... someone with a IVY league MBA came up with this idea to buy this domain... it was good..
you know.. if the publishing infrastructure was awesome.. it might have worked. .. an publishing ASP model.





oh well.

I wish them well.

this mp3.com purchase gives them hope for a better tomorrow.

the company was relatively quiet... the only major accomplishment it did lately was catching the internal "food thief"
... which BTW,.... was only one of many food thieves.. that's pretty sorry if you ask me.. if the only exciting thing a company can muster .. is catching the food thief. you tell that to investors. i guess it's a morale changer.

if they cannot be profitable in 2004, look for CNET to sell it's assets for less than the $700 million purchase of mysimon back Jan 2000 to someone who would buy them..

.. definitely not Yahoo, nor AOL, nor MSN.

they see CNET as content provider, just like washingtonpost.com, reuters, PC World.

the portals are content aggregators; I don't think they want to be in the business of hiring editorial staff to wrote about stuff.


Perhaps if they were really serious about technology.... CNET should buy OSDN, the parent company of Slashdot.org
or heck even buying sourceforge... to be truly considered as the main place for technology information.

If you ask any tech geek, name 3 sites they visit everyday,
they would probably say

1. Google
2. Slashdot
3. email provider.


CNET might be in the top 10.

it's possible that if CNEt keeps losing money , that OSDN might buy CNET Networks.

too bad.


Ask yourself the question, does Warren Buffet or George Soros own stock of this company? ... probably not

ok..

here are some pics from the Art After Hours