The US Debt Clock which was installed on the face of a Manhattan building made headlines months ago because this second generation version of the original US debt clock had run out of capacity: it only had room for 13 digits (not including cents!). Since the US national debt surpassed $10 trillion, there are plans to replace it with a new version. There is an online version of the US debt clock which keeps track of the debt on a real time basis and also features a whole slew of metrics such as the debt per person, the amount of debt...
MoreThe focus of the paid search world, if you measure it by tweets, blog posts and conference sessions, has turned squarely to Google’s AdWords Quality Score over the past few months. Google first introduced Quality Score years ago, but changes they rolled out in August of 2008 recently increased visibility of the score in the AdWords interface and via their API, and a great new video by Google Chief Economist Hal Varian has pushed the discussion to a fever pitch. Part of the appeal clearly is the fact that it’s a numeric value judgement Google is making about our keywords and account...
MoreI was all set to write about the Tea Party Tax Protest that will be occurring today, and after a while, I thought, "Will it really matter?" Right now, we are spending future generations into the poorhouse, and we really don't care as long as we have the cash to keep the cable on, pay for text messages, or purchase $600 shower curtains. President Obama said something yesterday about us no longer being able to spend, spend, spend in government, but I guess that does not include the healthcare reform Obama wants, the stimulus package we "need" or else the Earth will...
MoreUpdate to our post last night about Google/Twitter talks: New sources say that Google is interested in acquiring Twitter, and has had talks with the company about a deal. Google’s internal valuation, however, would value the company at a token premium above Twitter’s last round of financing valuation, around $250 million. Some Twitter insiders want the deal, but our sources say CEO Evan Williams wouldn’t sell even for $1 billion. “He may blink, but he wouldn’t do it,” said one source. Google may also be concerned with antitrust issues around any major search-related acquisition, we’ve heard (and others have noted). Clearly there’s...
MoreResponding to what it says is the swarm of conjecture about its financial situation — and perhaps positioning itself for an initial public offering — Facebook released some information about its financial status on Tuesday. It also announced that it had dismissed its chief financial officer, Gideon Yu. A Facebook spokesman, Larry Yu, would not provide details but said the company would look for a replacement who had experience running a public company. It is worth noting that Gideon Yu had that experience as the treasurer of Yahoo, before he went to YouTube and helped sell it to Google. Regarding its financial...
More