The Toshiba HD-A2 sub-$200 HD DVD player

I have a 50-inch 1080p set, and I'm debating whether or not to pick up the new Toshiba HD DVD player, the HD-A2. The price is finally right, but the problem is that it only produces up to 1080i. My further thinking is that this may not be a problem at all--that at my viewing distance of 8 feet, whether it's 720p, 1080i, or 1080p, my eye will see the same high definition picture. It's not much of challenge to get a hold of HD-DVDs, thanks to my Blockbuster Online subscription. In fact, Netflix and Blockbuster are about the only good thing the HD format war has got going for it, they've been the grease in the squeaky wheel. I remember how hard it used to be to get a hold of DVDs during the transition from VHS.

Link: Ars Technica article on the Toshiba HD-DVD player.

Soulja Boy on How to Do the Souja Boy Dance

Soulja Boy - Crank That

A Few Good Creative Men

Dvorak: There's Still Potential for Microsoft

When a company like Apple is hitting on all cylinders, investment money can be shifted from a company like Microsoft over to Apple. And why not? Growth seems like a given for Apple, and growth is what drives a stock price up and up.

But I have to agree with John Dvorak in his article "Rethinking Microsoft," there is also potential for Microsoft to grow its revenues. Its biggest potential comes from its Xbox division. As an owner of an 50-inch HDTV and a Nintendo Wii, I can tell you that the future of gaming isn't the Nintendo Wii, at least not in its current iteration. Let me be clear, the Wii is the present. The Wii will be the best-selling console this Christmas , but it will not be next Christmas. In the long run, the more HD content that is produced for the Xbox 360, the more its sales will increase . The amount of HDTVs in homes around the world is about to explode. People like me will be experiencing HD for the first time and will want to have a game console that justifies having a large HDTV. The desire for HD content is very strong.

There is still a small competitive risk from the Playstation 3. However, the only thing keeping the PS3's hope alive is the inclusion of a Blu-ray player. It is this same Blu-ray player that has been the PS3's albatross, making the console too expensive for most of the gaming market. There is no reason why, sometime next year, Microsoft couldn't package their HD-DVD peripheral with the 360 and still beat the PS3's price. And by next Christmas, the Xbox will have a larger number of compelling games than the PS3. It's the Xbox and Wii's early sales lead that has a lot third-party gamer designers focusing on those two consoles and not the PS3 for the future.

The biggest threat to Microsoft's revenue stability is Apple stealing away the average computer user at home. Microsoft will continue to dominate in the business world, as it is an industry that Microsoft does anything to cater to, especially sacrifice ease of use for its OS. In the digital age, what the business world wants is directly in opposition to what the consumer wants. Apple understands this is changing their computers to cater to the consumer, not business.

In the end, revenue from the 360 will make up for any decline in the OS market that Microsoft might experience.

Is Google's Growth Rate In Trouble?

The New York Times' Steve Lohr has an article on the risks Google faces in continuing its growth. The author's main concerns are employee bloat, search technology competition, and government intervention.

While each of those is indeed worrisome for Google stockholders, the real threat is competition to its Adsense technology. Google makes a big chunk of its revenue from supplying ads to other websites. Lohr mentions the threat.

"Google’s ad revenue comes mainly from two sources: text ads from its own search results and ads it places on the Web sites of other companies. On the latter, it pays 80 cents or so of each dollar to the Web site and keeps the rest. Increased competition in ad networks, especially from Microsoft, will drive the payouts higher, nibbling away at Google’s profits.

This ad-supply market is quickly becoming crowded with competition. Glancing at any search engine optimization blog reveals tales of making good, in some cases better, money from Google's competitors. One recent example is Digg.com inking a lucrative deal with Microsoft to use its ad-supply tech. Digg had been using Adsense. There also have been complaints about the relevancy of Google's Adsense ads. What good is it if you have a blog about flowers and the ad engine is not supplying relevant advertising? However, webmasters can complain until they're blue in the face, ultimately, it's the advertiser's, not the webmaster's, opinion which matters. The money starts with the advertiser, and they are the ones who see the click rates and their effect on sales. If advertisers feel they get better click-through at cheaper rates from someone else, they will move. Google's advantage is that they can offer their dominant search engine in combination with possible Adsense results as well, something that no other competition can offer. This, in turn, encourages webmasters to use Adsense. If you have a blog about some weird fetish but no advertiser is buying the keywords for your fetish from your ad supplier, you're not making any money from blogging. But, Google might have advertisers for those keywords via their search engine, where else you gonna find links to your obscure fetish? Thus, Google has the snowball rolling down the hill effect--more users, more searches, more keywords, more advertisers.

Another advantage Google has for the future is the size of the market (not market share, but simply the market) is growing. We hear a lot about Google's market share versus its competitors, but we hear little about whether the number of actual searches is growing. It's very likely that every year, more and more people type keywords into Google's search engine. More and more people rely on technology to supplement their memory. More and more are turning to the computer for entertainment, communication, and all around information. And they turn to Google to find it. Financial people know about increase in same-store sales, but they don't know about increase in same-person search.

Radiohead's In Rainbows

Radiohead will release their newest album In Rainbows [review] on a major label after all. What's interesting is that it appears Radiohead has created a new business model: 1. self-release with limited marketing power, get 100% of revenues. 2. seek out more powerful marketing to reach other potential listeners, get small percentage of revenue.

It's the best of both worlds, and it should be the new formula for veteran acts released of record contracts. The success of new acts is still tied to record company marketing power, though, with a few recent exceptions.