The thing about corporate turnarounds is that they’re supposed to turn a company around — as in 180 degrees — not stop halfway and let the company drift sideways. But something like that is happening to eBay: Its long, slow turnaround is, well, turning flat. Read More »
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Kevin Kelleher
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App stores are so successful that some are arguing that native apps are the way we will experience the web on mobile devices. As more and more companies offer services on the mobile web, I believe the mobile browser will play a bigger role. Read More »
Amazon’s success as an online retailer is the stuff that entrepreneurial dreams are made of. In 15 years, Amazon has defined and continued to shape how we shop online – especially for media like books, movies and music. But something unexpected is happening as more media … Read More »
Facebook is facing an unprecedented crisis as the company’s efforts to weave its social network technology throughout the web’s entire fabric has gone wrong, erupting into a privacy nightmare. But Facebook has an opportunity to emerge from the privacy brouhaha it started even stronger than before. Read More »
Whether you think Apple’s efforts to control the iPhone OS environment are helping or hurting, the question is when its ability to control things will break down. I think it already has. Read More »
Three years ago, a survey found Google to be the world’s best known brand, topping Microsoft, GE and others. It did so with very little advertising. So why has Google spent nearly $2 billion over the past year to strengthen its brand? Read More »
If marketing companies are excited about using emerging technologies to play new games with consumers, they should think twice. The rewards may be greater, but the task will be much trickier. Read More »
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It’s so tempting to get drawn into the ego battles between Steve Jobs and the Google Triumverate, while placing bets on who will win, that we can forget a deeper truth about this rivalry: Google and Apple need each other. Read More »
When companies are dying, it’s rarely a quick and painless process. Even so, the demise of Blockbuster has felt like an especially drawn-out and painful one. The latest development came late Tuesday when the company submitted an SEC filing warning that it may file for … Read More »
The web has evolved to a point where mergers are starting to make strategic sense. Its division into two parts — an information web and a conversation web — is becoming more and more of an acute reality to big web companies. Read More »
The social web has given rise to all sorts of new behaviors and personalities, not least of them: the web introvert. And in time, they are going to present a problem to the growth of sites like Facebook and Twitter. Read More »
Of all the books I’ve read in my life, a shockingly small percentage have been read in the past several years. The big threat to Amazon’s Kindle isn’t people reading e-books on the iPad or the Nook. It’s that books are becoming fringe media. Read More »
First Solar posted stronger than expected revenue and profit in the final quarter of 2010, defying some of the bearishness that had hounded the stock in recent months and suggesting that the company is managing its way through a time of rising competition from more efficient … Read More »
Google’s obsessive desire to organize information and our access to it is turning the company into a 21st century conglomerate. And whether you consider that a good thing or a bad thing for web users, it’s going to be a big problem for Google. Read More »
Seven months isn’t a long time for most companies, but it’s practically an era in itself on the hyperkinetic mobile web. One thing that hasn’t changed in the last seven month is PayPal’s visibility on smartphones — it’s there, but it’s hard to find. Read More »
EnerNoc is back to posting losses, but the company says it’s not for long. Although the demand-response company saw its first ever net profit in the third quarter of 2009, it returned to red ink in the final quarter of the year. The Boston-based company said … Read More »
When it comes to media, one important idea is starting to become clear: Content isn’t a product anymore, it’s a service. Because for consumers, content is less and less a thing they buy and more a thing they experience. Read More »
Microsoft is many things, but it’s not a successful web company. For 15 years, Microsoft has tried time and again to become a major player online. Yet despite having the most popular browser, it’s never really monetized the web in a significant way. Read More »
As analysts scratch their heads try to explain why Amazon’s stock defies gravity, they’re coming up with theories that are of interest even to non-investors. A Cowen & Co. analyst argues that Amazon “can eventually achieve a Wal-Mart-like share of the U.S. retail market.” Read More »
In Hollywood, the opposite of a blockbuster is a flop. This week, it’s starting to look like Blockbuster, the video-rental chain that once dominated the industry, might have to change its name. A more accurate one might be Mega-Flop. That, at least, is the consensus after … Read More »
What happens when your turnaround takes an about-face? Although eBay CEO John Donahoe has implemented changes to drive new business in the company’s core marketplace division, it’s looking like he needs to come up with some additional new ways to bring consumers back to the site. Read More »
Everyone, it seemed, had a strong reaction to Google’s decision this week to stop censoring its search results on Google.cn. But my first thought was -– hmm, Google has turned civil disobedience into a business strategy. Read More »
For a while there, it looked like 2010 might be the first banner year for solar stocks since 2007. It still could be, although this week is showing that, if solar does make a comeback this year, it’s not going to happen with out some sudden … Read More »
While the economy’s longer-term health remains as uncertain as ever, the outlook for tech is – for the next several months, at least – getting brighter. Companies feel more comfortable spending on new technology as well as online ads. And consumers are spending more. Read More »
Emerging technologies are not for investors with faint hearts. Bulls with great expectations for innovations that can transform markets are often socked with unpleasant reality checks, while bears can be caught off guard when they start to make money. As A123Systems has shown since its … Read More »
With so much discussion about how the Internet is changing journalism and media, there’s surprisingly little said about how writing itself has changed. But as more people have spent more time writing on the Internet this past decade, the way we write has changed significantly. Read More »
Every year, dazzled by Google’s massive presence on the web, someone offers a wildly bullish prediction for its stock in the coming year. To which I say: We’ll see. So rather than another set of stock predictions, here’s a to-do list for Google in 2010. Read More »
Updated: Alternative-energy companies not only compete with each other, they also compete in a sense with oil firms. While it’s easy to overstate the inverse relationship that oil prices have with the demand for and investment in green companies, it’s also helpful to keep an eye … Read More »
Like an old sports injury, the rumor of Amazon buying Netflix seems to flare up once every few months. The recurring rumors have always proven false. But this time, it would be smart of Amazon to take them seriously. Read More »
Palm is the Jack Bauer of the mobile industry. It lurches from one crisis to another, saving itself from the jaws of despair only to face some new and more daunting threat. And yet we’ve learned never to write it off as finished. Read More »
Companies usually offer investors guidance to help sharpen their outlook over the coming months. But a day after First Solar, a leading thin-film solar module maker, spent nearly two hours talking with investors and analysts about its prospects in 2010, the future seemed to be … Read More »
First Solar, the thin-film module manufacturer that has seen increasing price pressure from polysilicon makers, remains confident about its prospects for next year, according to a conference call with investors Wednesday. First Solar expects revenue in 2010 to come in between $2.7 billion and $2.9 billion, … Read More »
Is the solar industry heading into a recovery in 2010? Or will the oversupply of solar modules that helped make 2009 such a challenging year for most solar companies drag on another year? As the new year approaches, the outlook seems as unclear as ever. On Monday, … Read More »
Now that AOL has been spun off from Time-Warner, it can write a new chapter for itself. If AOL does several key things right, it has a chance of being successful again. We look at some opportunities, along with the risks each one entails. Read More »
UPDATED What’s not to like about Trony Solar? The Shenzhen, China-based solar startup brought in $79 million in revenue last year and a net profit of $24 million. In the three months through Sept. 30, Trony’s revenue was $37 million – or 47 percent of … Read More »
Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece this week, set out to argue what has been said a million times before: The Internet isn’t killing news. But while he was stating the obvious, some of his points didn’t exactly help Google’s case. Read More »
It’s becoming clear what eBay wants to find inside its corporate stocking this holiday season: affluent shoppers. Hence its brick-and-mortar retail shop on the corner of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and its new site offering luxury goods. Read More »
The holiday shopping season has shifted into full gear. But while online retailers are sure to see stronger sales than their offline rivals, the desperate discounts happening across the board threaten to erode any profits they may have once hoped for this season. Read More »
The brutal economic downturn that’s being called “The Great Recession” is, at least in a technical sense, over. Online advertising and IT spending are inching back up, and many tech companies have seen their stock prices more than double from the lows reached in March. Even … Read More »
Of all the dot-com superstars that appeared in the ’90s, shone brightly and then disappeared from sight, few have been granted a second act. One exception is Priceline, which 11 years after it was founded — and 10 years after its stock price collapsed — is … Read More »
One year ago, two key trends dominated the solar industry: economic uncertainty and scarce credit. If solar companies were to survive, they needed to scramble to adapt their strategies to both. Today, the economy is more stable and credit is freer, and so the industry … Read More »
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was in fine form this week, telling the crowd assembled for the company’s analyst day that after only 14 years, Yahoo had “somehow got boring,” declaring its 6 percent operating margin as “pathetic” and announcing the start of “good times” … Read More »
Its looking like the solar industry may be heading back into a not-so-sunny period, at least as far as corporate earnings are concerned. First, SunPower indicated last week that its 2009 revenue would be weaker than many investors had expected, sparking a selloff that has since … Read More »
Updated: PayPal opening up its payment processing API to developers, hoping to unleash new apps that use its electronic payment service, sounds somewhat anti-climactic. After all, most of the other brand-name web companies that emerged in the late 90s — including PayPal’s parent, … Read More »
Google said this week it might buy a big company “every year or two,” targeting “some accelerant that it would provide for revenue, some major, major user base that we did not currently have access to.” What’s surprising isn’t that Google is thinking this way, … Read More »
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