For those in the industry, this graph has been making the rounds today.
You can find Pubmatic’s own view of it here:http://www.pubmatic.com/adpriceindex/index.html

Everyone has their opinions of this; some say this is bad sign for Pubmatic, others say its a sign of the economic times.

So what is my opinion? I think the data just isn’t clear enough. You cannot convince me that the cratering of cpms from .38 to .18 in single month is actually a real drop. Do you really think that the large sites with the dedicated work force could not sell half of what they had been able to sell only the previous month? This just says to me there is something wrong with the data. My suspicion would be some new large users who are low performance sites. A single large publisher with low cpms using the system can easily cause this drop without adverse affects on others in the column.

The interesting piece is the 1.29 number. How is this coming about? Why is it so much higher than large sites? I don’t buy the idea that its because advertisers are buying niche. Quite frankly, 1) advertisers are still quite weary of small sites and more importantly 2) there is just not the capability for an advertiser to target niche sites they are looking for.

So, before people read into this graph too much. Remember, while 3,000 seems like a large number, it is a tiny fraction of the internet. To make anything other than broad judgments on this data is overreacting.

As those who I talk to regularly know, my current obsession is to buy myself a tablet PC. I keep telling myself that if I bought a tablet pc I will start drawing comics again, but even my heart knows the truth of the matter is that I wouldn’t be able to keep it up.

Quite frankly, tablet PC is just a gadget buy for me. The same as when I bought my first PDA (Toshiba) and my second pda (Dell Axim).

Still, since it is what i have gotten the most hits on, I thought I would put things into perspective for anyone else in my boat with a summary of the research I have done (most popular term to find my website seems to be tx2000).

The bottom of the barrel is the tx2000 from HP. This tablet can cost less than $1000 and if you are looking for something cheap and brand new, this seems to get decent reviews.

The middle of the road in my thoughts is the Toshiba M700. This table is in the $1500-1700 range. Its improvements over the HP is an intel processor (faster than the AMD in the HP) and its LED backlit screen (nicer looking and easier on the battery, doesn’t mean the laptop lasts longer, just LED backlight is easier on batter).

The top of the line is the Dell Latitude XT. Pinnacle of tablet pc’s right now and has a price to match at $2500+. For this money, you are getting a one of a kind LCD screen. The capacitive touch screen means it works more like the iphone than like your touchpad. It is also significantly smaller than other models using the small form processor. From all reviews, this thing can command such a price.

There are plenty of others I have not mentioned that are popular, Fujitsu, Lenovo, and Gateway in particular, but I didn’t really research much into those.

If I was going to choose one to buy right now, I would go with the M700, but I have decided to wait on it. Wacom press released a new capacitive touch screen as well, and I am going to wait to see what products come out using their new tablet interface. The expectation is that you will get the awesomeness that is found on the XT had a significantly reduced price.

http://deadspin.com/389337/osu-lacrosse-goalie-makes-sport-watchable-if-briefly

And for those who know lacross, this is sick.
The most amazing part is the score was still 0-0.

When I first read about Comcast’s plans to do a 250 GB cap, I was
upset. After all, I believe that a lot of the success that has come
from the internet has come from these unlimited plans. AOL back in the
day with unlimited dial-up, eventually broadband services also being
flat fee. These are all things which allowed the internet to grow at
the rate it has.

That being said, 250GB/ month is a LOT of
bandwidth. Right now, at home I average probably around 1 GB /day and
at MOST have hit 5 GB on any particular day. You can see perspective
from SAI here.

This
means the type of person to be affected isn’t me. In fact, at 250GB a
month, that’s practically business users (and i would not be surprised
by business’s which use less than that).

Some fears:

1. It works too well and they drop the cap.
2. This limits future developments of the internet.

Still, the number seems quite fair. They should just have a higher dollar amount cost for unlimited. I prefer this significantly more than the Time Warner Cable version where they start charging by usage from beginning.

Many of you will probably know him as the author of Ender’s Game. One of the most popular science fiction books. To me, it was a pretty good book, I enjoyed it every step of the way, but it wasn’t overly memorable.

Today though, after reading this, I suddenly have a new respect for the man. Now, I haven’t finished reading all the Harry Potter books (i think the last one I read was 4th or so), but this still struck a chord with me.

The long and short of it, we have a very popular author speaking his mind and denouncing the action of another one (Rowling). Now, some of the points aren’t great (while Stouffer did have a lawsuit, it seems it got dismissed and also failed on appeal which is not mentioned), it does show that not every author is like Rowlings. It is possible to both be successful and allow others to be just as successful.

You would think, if Rowlings herself used the site, she would be the first to add her own quote to the usefulness of the Lexicon.

http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2008/05/03/airport_securit.html

I had always maintained that 9/11 couldn’t possibly happen again. If another group of terrorists were to take a plane now (especially without guns), i can almost guarantee that plane would not be held hostage.

Instead, the true cost of 9/11 is the fear, and worse, the cost involved in trying to stop being afraid.

Curiosity piqued, I wanted to go and compare what happened in the Oracle BEA case versus Microsoft and Yahoo.

Oracle offered 25% premium over market price at $17 per share, it was considered low by BEA.
After some public fighting.
The final buyout price was 19.375. Which made the total over premium about 40%.

On the other hand, Microsoft offered $31 per share at a 62% premium. At the $33 they were willing to pay, it would be about 73% premium, at the 37 asked it would be 94% premium. In other words, if they ended up aroudn 34-35, it would be a similar increase in premium price (~15%).

So, in the end, is the problem just that Microsoft’s initial bid was too high?

In alternate reality land,
Microsoft offers at a $29 price for 52% premium. Eventually leading to a $33 deal.

50% is a high premium (see EA’s bid on Take Two), and I don’t think anyone would have blinked an eye at such a number.

Here’s my take:
Balmer wanted to close the deal fast. He figured, instead of going through a protracted and lengthy buyout discussion, he’d just circumvent it by offering essentially what the final price would be. Surprising to Balmer, not surprising to everyone else, Yahoo didn’t want to take the first offer.

From here, you can see why everything played out the way it did. Balmer thinks his offer makes perfect sense and refuses to outbid himself. Yahoo thinks if Microsoft is willing to pay this much, clearly they must be worth even more than that.

So where does that leave things? The big winner is GOOG. YHOO and MSFT are doing enough by themselves to sabotage their chances of winning without GOOG needing to jump in.

YHOO may do well, supposedly Panama is on its way up. The display product (AMP!) isn’t half bad (though not half good either), and hopefully will become a base for all display across the internet (though at the rate they are bleeding talent, I wouldn’t hold out hope here).

MSFT is exactly where it always has been. If they take my advice, they’d just start hiring all that talent that Yahoo is bleeding. Live, Hotmail, MSN aren’t bad brands. They aren’t winning, but they aren’t unknown to the average user. Internet Explorer is still the dominant web browser. If they were buying YHOO for the talent, and the talent is leaving in droves, they could just buy up the talent. Start with one or two good guys and let the good ole networking effect take over from there.

So, at this moment, Yahoo is at 24.08.

It looks like the stock hasn’t plummeted as far as people feared it would. Looks like there is still hope out there for an Oracle-BEA situation.

So, my thoughts as an ex-yahooer.

I feel bad for a lot of my former coworkers. There was a lot of uncertainty recently, and now they won’t even be getting their double-triggers. I am hoping for their sake it is the Oracle-BEA situation.

On the plus side, they no longer have to fear their project (AMP!) is going to get scrapped.

I would love to hear from existing yahoo-ers about their thoughts on all this.

http://kotaku.com/386431/matt-damons-so-not-interested-in-gaming

I can’t decide what to think of this tidbit of information.

On the professional side, I think its a total mistake for Matt Damon to have it public he doens’t like video games. If you look at hte movies that he has done (Bournes, Dogma, Rounders, etc), the target audience for his movies has been that young male audience. The very same ones who play a ton of video games. Doesn’t this alienate him a little to the audience that loves him? (I only say this because it definitely changes my opinion of the guy).

On the flip side, knowing that this would hurt his image, but going forward with proclaiming how he feels (and not pretending to be something he isn’t) makes me feel like he deserves props.

Final Verdict?
I’ve way over-thought this one. I bet these thoughts didn’t cross anyones mind (except maybe his agents).

http://www.wanderingpandacomics.com/mrgoh/comic.php?comic=135

Tvu pointed me to this friend of hers. I can only wish I had the skill to do hilarity like this.