Q1 Earnings - and the winner is...Google!

Yahoo announced Tuesday, 4/19.
Ebay announced Wednesday, 4/20
Google annoucned today, 4/21

Gross Revenues:
Google:$1.256 Billion
Yahoo: $1.174 Billion
Ebay: $1.032 Billion

How the hell did Google beat both? That is simply astounding. They have just one product-Ad Words-that makes them any real money.

Net Income
Google: $369 million or $1.29 per share
Ebay: $256.3 million, or $0.19 share.
Yahoo: $205 million or $0.14 per share

More commentary later

Cool stuff for Publishing

Frankly, I think Blogs are simply the new self-publishing craze, a la personal web pages in the first place. However, the cool factor is that so many companies are making it so easy and free. They are providing the average user (read: early adopter/influence) with incredibly powerful applications that are dead simple to use.
I set up my domain with Yahoo Domains (domains.yahoo.com). Pretty simple though something like $20/month.
Downloaded wsftp from CNET downloads (download.com) to be able to transfer files.
This was to create the web site.
To set up this blog, I went to Blogger.com. Literally, within 30 minutes, I had it set up. Amazing.
I noticed they were promoting Google's Ad Sense, where you place ads on your site and get a chance to take a rev share on the ads that Google serves on your site. I applied online and got my approval in a few hours. Then filled in the tax return info ONLINE and "signed" the document. That night, fiddled with the code they provide and templates for ads, and, again, in less than 30 minutes, copy and pasted ad calls on my site. Instantly I had some ads on the site--"house" ads talking about Tsunami charities. The next morning-ads were contextual-talking about Bikes. Very impressive. To date I've made about a buck :-)
Tonight I wanted to know how to syndicate the blog--allow other people to read by having my ramblings broadcast to their RSS reader (usually My! Yahoo). Blogger doesn't offer that for free, but they referred me to Feedburner.com.
Again, amazing. FOR FREE, in less than 30 minutes, I know have the ability to let others grab my "content" and read it as soon as I update it. Incredible.

April 18th: too much happening

What a strange day for change, April 18th, 2005.
Good news: Adobe finally buys Macromedia. Way back when, Adobe bought Aldus; they had competing graphic design products; Adobe Illustrator and Aldus Freehand; IMO, freehand was far superior. Oddly, I believe freehand was later sold off to Macromedia. In any case, this is a good pairing of niche software players pairing to become stronger.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/050418/tech_macromedia.html?.v=3

Tyler Hamilton.
Sadly, he is being suspended for 2 years for blood doping claims. I hope Tyler moves on with training and comes back to win the TDF. Poor guy is so focused on proving innocence, he may loose his love for the sport, and may end up too old to win.
http://www.tylerhamilton.com/home1.html

Lance Armstrong.
So he says he's going to retire after this year's Tour de France. I seriously doubt it. He'll stay on to try and break the one hour record, that's my bet.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050418/sp_nm/cycling_armstrong_dc_8

My boss quits.
My boss, director of production, called it quits today. Same day our new Senior Director of production started. Should be an interesting remainder of the year.

4/19/05-Yahoo will announce 1st Quarter earnings. Hope they blow the cover off and the innovations are called out. Ebay will likely disappoint and Google will be mediocre; they also announce this week. Expect yahoo to end the week unchanged, somewhere around $32.50.

Sears and K-Mart merger

Dang, it's confusing what happens to Sears stock with the merger approved.
I think you just get $50 for each Sears share.
That means 2005 wasn't so good for shareholders. Started the year at 50.31, essentially ended at 50.40.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050324/sears_kmart_merger_27.html
Let's assume these shares convert to 3/8 of $132.52 for 1 share of SHLD at that date and see how SHLD does for the rest of the year.