Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Evan will be filling in as The Water Cooler contributor while Bryan continues his plot to take over the world, for the next few weeks, across the pond in London .

Before I start on today’s topic I want to call everyone’s attention to my favorite non Gadgetell blog on the internet, written by a great technology mind, Mark Cuban the man behind HDNet, the former Broadcast.com, and is currently the owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks as well as other tech/video ventures.  In the past few weeks he has written some great entries on blogging, MySpace and the pure stupidity of shareholders: all are a must read. Check them out at Blogmaverick.

One of Cuban’s recent posts deal with the new partnership between BitTorrent and Warner Brothers. These two seem like more of an odd couple than Kobe and Shaq; you have to wonder what possessed these two sworn enemies to unite.  Pretty much BitTorrent will provide a similar platform as iTunes. Whereas iTunes currently offers television shows, WB will offer Movies and shows. The puzzling thing here is, iTunes only has legal products on its catalogs and has total control, whereas no matter what the WB want to believe, there will still be copies of illegal content on the servers. Cuban found MI-3 and Scary Movie 4 with relative ease according to his blog.

Maybe there is something I don’t know but I trust Cuban in his research and if the legal files are going to be right alongside the illegal ones, what’s going to stop Joe Downloader from taking a peak at the newest movie rather than shelling out the $9. Just imagine the excuses you can give if you were to get questioned by the authorities, “how am I supposed to know whats legal and whats not if it’s all showing up on the same search that WB has”. So good luck to the WB and their parent company TimeWarner because we all know you are the smartest of businessmen…after that AOL debacle of a few years ago - maybe you’ll prove me wrong, but I think you’re making a big mistake here.

• Apple launches browser based iTunes Preview for iTunes links
• Konami selling its iPhone, iPod Touch games for 99 cents each
• Shields Up!: EU Cracks Down on Ringtone Scams

Evan will be filling in as The Water Cooler contributor while Bryan continues his plot to take over the world, for the next few weeks, across the pond in London .

Nobody understands the commercials for VoIP juggernaut Vonage. Why is there a man in a lobster suit trying to get through a revolving door, or a middle aged tool of a husband doing his best “robot” dance? But that’s for another article.  The market share leader in North American VoIP technology is getting closer and closer to its initial public offering, supposedly set at $16-$18 per share, in efforts to raise upwards of $250 million.  The deal should happen sometime before the end of the year led by underwriters Citigroup, but what does this mean? Hopefully, to you nothing, but if you have an uncle you don’t like tell him to invest and laugh later.

I don’t see a future for this company as its own entity; it would have been better off going to Skype route and selling to another company to deal with.  Many liken Vonage’s situation to TiVo’s a few years ago, it provides a service to be used on a much larger company’s infrastructure. Vonage uses the cable lines of Comcast, TimeWarner, Insight or whatever cable company is in your area, just as TiVo does.  What happened after TiVo went public? (P.S. TiVo is currently trading at about a 75% loss from it’s IPO, but they’ve come back a little, I still like them at their current price)...

All the cable companies began to provide similar services bundled into their services for much cheaper and they are beginning to do it again with VoIP services. Why deal with two companies when you can get one bill? These cable giants are offering bundles which may or may not save you money, but the average American is too stupid to figure that out and would rather one bill and one tech support number.  So Vonage will continue its trend of lost market share before we get into regulatory concerns.  If you think for a second the cable giants won’t work on technology or even, worse legislation that stops Vonage and other VoIP companies from using their infrastructure to take money from them, I’ve got a nice bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

To be honest at home I used Vonage and besides the fact its cheaper, there is nothing special about it. It goes out often and there’s no legitimate technical support. Why this company is going to IPO is beyond me. They would’ve been better off selling to Google who conveniently plans to roll out similar services later this year, taken their cash and ran. Five years from now I’m going to bet that stupid red lobster suit will be hanging out with the sock puppet from Pets.com in IPO hell, but follow closely who knows what happens with IPOs, Google was too high at $80 per share according to my stock broker.

• Apple launches browser based iTunes Preview for iTunes links
• Konami selling its iPhone, iPod Touch games for 99 cents each
• Shields Up!: EU Cracks Down on Ringtone Scams

Evan will be filling in as The Water Cooler contributor while Bryan continues his plot to take over the world, for the next few weeks, across the pond in London .

There’s good news for losers like me who look forward to the end of the day when they come home and all five episodes of Law & Order: Petty Theft are on their TiVo. TiVo’s future is a bit more secure now that the company announced the extension of its current deal with DirecTV.  The deal which was set to expire in 2007 will now go through 2010.

The deal helps, mainly because the company is strapped for cash as it is tied up in lawsuits. TiVo has been actively seeking licensing fees from companies that have similar DVR technology in their set top boxes like Dish Network and Motorola. Just this past week the courts rules in favor of TiVo over Dish Network, which should result in a huge influx of cash for the previously struggling company.

Now the company can invest in research to make the system full of more obnoxious noises every time you touch a button.  TiVo never ceases to amaze with the great technologies they come out with, my life changed the day you could control it from Yahoo!, so watch for more great things to come. And if you don’t have it, get it, you’ll be a better human being.

Also look for the boxes in more retail stores like Wal-Mart and Target in the future. If you have an interest in the stock market, follow TiVo and its aptly named ticker symbol: TIVO as the legal developments may create a great opportunity to invest. (Stock was up over 20% after defeating Dish Network).

• Apple launches browser based iTunes Preview for iTunes links
• Konami selling its iPhone, iPod Touch games for 99 cents each
• Shields Up!: EU Cracks Down on Ringtone Scams

Evan will be filling in as The Water Cooler contributor while Bryan continues his plot to take over the world, for the next few weeks, across the pond in London .

After the positive results of Google’s initial public offering to this point, some technology companies are looking to take advantage of the IPO market for money to grow their companies, but is this the right choice? My infinite wisdom says no.

Once in a generation there is a Google or a Microsoft that will be successful but they are not the typical technology firm that might look to go public. I think the major problem with technology firms going public, is a conflict of minds on one side you have the technology brain trust that has great ideas, but for most companies to be successful long term, the financing needs to be there.

The sensitivity of newly public company doesn’t offer the stability of cash for companies to be successful, even though the idea itself is genius. It’s a shame but as we know money controls most every thing and many great ideas will take longer to come out if not managed correctly.  Pretty much technology firms need to be guaranteed to be the best in their market for an IPO to even be considered, the idea needs to be so great, money wont be an issue and that happens about as often as the Mets winning the World Series (its been a tough 20 years for me).

So what do I think the best idea for a great new technology firm is to harvest its company if going public is only a great idea if the company will be the market leader? Sell to the big kahunas, the Googles, the Oracles and Microsofts of the world. Well I’m not some visionary thinker because the best companies have been doing it for a while. These companies are known for the freedom they allow their employees and have been purchasing smaller companies for years to allow them to benefit from their cash and technology expertise. These companies have turned into incubators much like the venture capital firms who provide early stage funds for these companies. This set up allows for the leaders of small companies with new ideas to focus on the technology and use the larger company’s resources for the boring stuff like accounting, marketing etc. In other words I don’t think you’ll see another IPO that is as successful initially as Google any time soon, you are more likely to see Google or Microsoft buy the next company and brand it under their name.

• Apple launches browser based iTunes Preview for iTunes links
• Konami selling its iPhone, iPod Touch games for 99 cents each
• Shields Up!: EU Cracks Down on Ringtone Scams