Home Wealth Project
Extensive Research On How To Build Wealth From The Comfort Of Your Own Home.
Heard on the Street: India’s Internet Promise
Oct 4th
| India’s demographics provide ample reason to get excited about the Internet market’s potential for stellar growth there. |
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Movie Review of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Sep 30th
1987’s Wall Street was an instant classic. Its even, flowing pace was peppered by clever dialogue, convincing characters, and clean, almost mythological themes. Charlie Sheen’s Bud Fox, a hot young broker faced with an ethical dilemma, boldly sacrificed his career to do what he felt was right. Michael Douglas’ indomitable Gordon Gekko acted both as the movie’s foundation and its main highlight, making the movie’s coverage of 1980′s Wall Street complete.
How can a sequel compete with that? In this case, it didn’t. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps swapped out its predecessor’s killer dialogue and near-perfect pacing for a choppy arc, disparate plots, and sentimental moments as draggy as sandbags on an unpaved road.
The movie starts with Gekko being released from prison in 2002. He walks out alone into a world he no longer recognizes. Six years pass. In that time, Gekko has made a name for himself as the author of the book “Is Greed Good?”, which examines systemic greed in the US economy. Gekko appears to be a lonely and perhaps reformed man.
Meanwhile, doe-eyed Winnie (Carey Mulligan), Gekko’s estranged daughter, is dating bright young Wall Street broker Jake Moore, played by an almost-believable Shia LaBeouf. Moore works for the Lehman Brothers-esque Keller Zabel, where he is mentored by disillusioned managing director Lewis Zabel (Frank Langella).
A late-night Treasury meeting reveals that Keller Zabel is on the verge of collapse. Lewis, whose firm was trading at $75/share a week earlier, wants a fair buyout, but nobody wants to help. Bretton James (Josh Brolin), who runs the rival bank Churchill Schwartz, insults Zabel with a $3/share offer. Zabel claims it was vengeance for letting James’ company go under eight years ago (not unlike the old Salomon Brothers beef that came up again in 2008). The next morning, Zabel throws himself under a subway.
This devastates Moore, Zabel’s protégé. Unbeknownst to Winnie, he initiates contact with Gekko, seeking wisdom. After a hint from Gekko, Moore finds out that James profited from Keller Zabel’s collapse. Moore, seeking vengeance, spreads rumors that make James’ company lose $100 million.
James, impressed by Moore’s aptitude, offers him a job, which he accepts. In another meeting with Gekko, Moore learns that James probably helped put Gekko in jail for eight years. Gekko shares information on an offshore fund James is running; in exchange, he demands Moore to help him finally reunite with his daughter.
(Read about the rest of the plot here. Spoiler alert!)
These trade-offs culminate in one character’s loss and another one’s gain, followed by a more humane resolution.
The movie’s plot was complex and layered, but it didn’t execute well. Themes of greed, the 2008 meltdown, the aspirations of youth, social commentary, family drama, and general emotional sap coagulated into a choppy, ill-paced final product. Michael Douglas’s Gekko, evil banker Josh Brolin, and the emotionally resonant Carey Mulligan stood out in the disparate kerfluffle. Supporting actors Eli Wallach, Frank Langella, and Susan Sarandon also carried their scenes. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto provided beautiful, sweeping views of New York.
The movie’s Wall Street culture was compelling and believable. I got a kick out of the real-life references in the movie. Churchill Schwartz shorted the mortgage market years before the crash, a la Goldman Sachs in 2006. Keller Zabel, a Lehman-Bear Stearns hybrid, came complete with a Jimmy Cayne-like managing director who chose to walk his dog in Central Park the day his firm was collapsing. The handsome Bretton James invoked the essences of Jamie Dimon; his company the excesses and cunning associated with Goldman Sachs.
Still, as a whole, the movie never gelled. I was hoping for another classic, but this Wall Street is like having an everything bagel without schmear. Lots of flavors on the outside, but bland inside and lacking lubricant.
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Beware: More Harvard MBAs find work on Wall Street – In the Markets | Crain’s New York Business
Sep 21st
| It’s a sign of a market top if so many of the world’s finest young minds choose to do such mind-numbing tasks as pricing credit… |
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Corrie Nation – ITV bases social networking game on Coronation Street
Sep 16th
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The game, which is being produced by ETV Media’s social gaming subsidiary Enteraction, is an attempt by ITV bosses to bolster… |
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Wall Street Journal: Media and Marketing How concerned are you about advertisers and companies tracking your behavior…
Jul 31st
| The Wall Street Journal conducted a comprehensive study that assesses and analyzes the… technology that companies are deploying on Internet users. |
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Overstock.com’s Main Street Revolution Initiative Aims to Help Small Businesses
Jul 29th
Will small business lift the economy out of recession? Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne hopes so, and he’s trying to help. Recently the online discount retailer announced the launch of its “Main Street Revolution Initiative,” an effort intended to increase the visibility of small, local businesses by giving them an avenue for exposure to national markets.
“This represents a grand opportunity for producers and consumers nationwide to participate and contribute to the national recovery effort,” Byrne said in a statement. “Main Street can be the engine that lifts us out of the recession that Wall Street created.”
Targeting small and minority-owned businesses, Main Street Revolution is a partnership with Overstock.com that enables producers of consumer products to sell their products on Overstock.com and O.biz (Overstock.com’s B2B website).
“The point of this program is to sell products we’ve sourced from entrepreneurs around the country,” Byrne said. “By joining our network, small-business owners can reduce their supply chain costs and expand the awareness of their products among a much bigger audience.”
Overstock.com is working with local chambers of commerce to find small-business owners to participate in the program. In addition to helping “homegrown” businesses reach a national audience, the program helps consumers support small businesses they otherwise might never have heard of.
Overstock.com’s site highlights some successful examples of Main Street participants, including a Minnesota gift-basket entrepreneur who sold more than $200,000 in gift baskets in December alone after joining the program; a chocolate manufacturer whose business has grown so much she’s been able to buy new equipment and add new product lines; and a homebased entrepreneur who designs and sells urban-themed T-shirts.
At first, Main Street products will be listed within their appropriate shopping categories on Overstock.com, Byrne explained. As soon as a critical mass of partners is reached, however, their products will be consolidated into a “Main Street” store on the company’s website.
Overstock.com hopes the Main Street Revolution initiative will be as successful as the Worldstock program, which it launched in 2001. As of April, the Worldstock program—which gives global artisans from places like Bali, Columbia, Ghana, Nepal and Thailand the chance to sell their products on Overstock.com—had surpassed $50 million in total payments. It’s also a top tab on the Overstock.com home page.
For more information about participating in Overstock’s Main Street Revolution, go to the Overstock website to view a video. If you’d like to participate or find out additional details, contact mainstreet@overstock.com.
Overstock.com’s Main Street Revolution Initiative Aims to Help Small Businesses
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Google to Resume Street View Driving in Four Markets (Update1)
Jul 9th
| Google Inc., the world’s largest Web- search provider, is poised to resume dispatching cars in four markets to collect imagery for its Street View… |
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States Probe Google Street View
Jun 22nd
About 30 US states may investigate Google for illegally collecting private information from unsecured wireless networks when taking pictures for its Street View program. The LA Times has more:
(When driving past homes to take pictures for Street View) Google did not disclose to users…that its cars were also fitted with radio receivers meant to gather information about home and business Wi-Fi networks in the areas where the cars were traveling. Because Wi-Fi networks tend to be static — like street names and ZIP Codes — they are useful for Google applications that need to triangulate the current location of mobile phones — as when Google Maps is helping a user determine driving directions.
However, along with the names of the Wi-Fi networks, Google was also collecting private information that was traveling across those networks — much of it from people who had failed to password-protect their personal networks. In the three years that its fleet of cars has been roving the streets, Google says it has collected 600 gigabytes of unsecured data.
The company has apologized for collecting the private data, saying it failed to realize that its software was sniffing the data out of the air. Google maintains it has not used or analyzed the data for any of its products and has begun destroying the data in several countries where it was requested to do so.
“It was a mistake for us to include code in our software that collected payload data, but we believe we did nothing illegal. We’re working with the relevant authorities to answer their questions and concerns,” a Google representative said in a statement.
Google was collecting MAC (media access control) addresses, SSIDs (service set identifiers), and unencrypted Wi-Fi network content, according to privacy expert Alexander Hanff. Such content could include email addresses and Web browsing information. Collecting network content is criminal in some places, writes Hanff, which is probably why Google apologized right away. He also says that
the data is incredibly rich as it contains the IP address of the user, the IP addresses of the services they are using, the content of those communications such as web pages or emails and more importantly it was tagged with GPS data.
Google already stores and retains IP addresses and search data and over time builds up a profile of individuals based on their online behaviours, which it argues allows it to deliver more relevant advertising. But one thing Google has not been able to do until now is accurately predict where you live (unless you tell them), as IP addresses are not generally registered to a real person – they are usually registered to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) which in turn allocates an IP address to you.
Whereas there is limited geographical information on an IP address – usually to the country level though sometimes more granular – by correlating this Wi-Fi data with existing IP data Google would then be in a position to determine your geographical location to literally within a few meters. There is a real value in this for location-based advertising, which attracts a premium compared to generic advertising as it is more focused.
He goes on to explain why Google should be held legally accountable here.
French authorities are also in the process of deciding whether to prosecute Google for the same issue.
How much responsibility Google has for obtaining information that was publicly visible anyway is up for debate (as herds of lawyers seem to be proving). To me, what makes this case creepy is the same thing that makes any Google data collection creepy. That is, Google may collect and organize data for its own commercial purposes, but governments, in turn, could request that data for different, potentially more sinister purposes. For example, Google has handed over its Street View user data to the governments of Germany, France, and Spain. I doubt the governments can do much with this particular data, but the point is that Google can collect information and hand it over to governments, who may then use it for anything from criminal investigations to censorship.
Interestingly enough, Google itself has a new tool that tracks government requests for its data. Brazil is leading the pack, but the US is close behind. I’d love to see the tool record statistics on what that data is being used for.
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Does the Internet Make You Smarter? (Clay Shirky/Wall Street Journal)
Jun 5th
| Intellectual honesty and html5 OK, this is the post that contains everything that everyone on the inside of the browser market knows, but… |
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