Scott Fish

What does nano-film deposition technology have to do with Business?

My brother, Kevin Fish, whom just finished up his MBA at Oregon State University could tell you that answer!
Kevin competed in several MBA and entrepreneurship competitions over the last year, touting his nano-film deposition technology concept to the eyeglass industry for improved application of anti-reflective coatings.

If you want to get to know what Kevin can bring to YOUR business, here’s his LinkedIn Profile!

I just saw Ben Lloyd’s tweet about Danny Sullivan being the Keynote Speaker for Search Fest in 2009.  SEMpdx has held Search Fest in 2007 and in 2008 and it has grown exponentially each year.  It looks like it’s confirmed that the 2009 SearchFest Keynote Speaker will be Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand.com and 3rd Door Media. (more…)

A strong earthquake shook Southern California on Tuesday, and the jolt was felt from Los Angeles to San Diego, and slightly in Las Vegas.

Preliminary information from the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the quake at magnitude 5.8, centered 29 miles east-southeast of downtown Los Angeles near Chino Hills in San Bernardino County.   Follow the news on Twitter Trends. (more…)

An Oklahoma City media outlet, KOCO-TV, has reported the city’s relocated NBA team will be named the Oklahoma City Thunder for the 2008-09 season.

The “Thunder,” formerly the Seattle SuperSonics, are in the middle of a full-scale move from the Northwest to Oklahoma. According to KOCO.com, the NBA’s Internet division — through CSC Corporate Domains — secured the domain names of “okcthunderbasketball.com” and “okcthunderbasketball.net” on July 10.

The “Thunder” were officially granted permission to leave Seattle last month, the result of an out-of-court settlement between Sonics majority owner Clay Bennett and the city of Seattle. In return, Seattle gets to retain the “Sonics” name, logo and team colors (green and gold) and could receive up to $45 million in the next several years, as penalty for Bennett breaking the lease agreement with KeyArena, the Sonics’ home for nearly two decades.

The city of Seattle originally wanted to keep the Sonics at KeyArena for two more years. The Sonics’ season-ticket holding base even filed a class-action lawsuit against Bennett and the other team owners at one point.

Microsoft thinks that they have the answer to PageRank, by releasing a new concept called BrowseRank.  From the researcher’s paper about BrowseRank…

We propose computing page importance by using a ’user browsing graph’ created from user behavior data. In this graph, vertices represent pages and directed edges represent transitions between pages in the users’ web browsing history. Furthermore, the lengths of staying time spent on the pages by users are also included. The user browsing graph is more reliable than the link graph for inferring page importance.

“… The more visits of the page made by the users and the longer time periods spent by the users on the page, the more likely the page is important.”

- I would think that google doesnt need to shore up this piece, they give Google Analytics away for free and they already have these metrics.

Everyone’s Buzzing about it…

Microsoft’s BrowseRank Aims for Better Results than PageRank
Microsoft Goes After Google’s PageRank With BrowseRank

BrowseRank is worse than PageRank

Can BrowseRank best PageRank?
Microsoft tries to one-up Google PageRank
Microsoft dreams up a new kind of search with BrowseRank

(more…)

Think about this for a second…

Google has the ability to display text ads on millions of websites that have a reach of millions of vistiors every day.  These sites include well known media outlets, blog networks, and niche communities.  With Google’s content network you have the ability to tap into these sites with targeted and relevant ads.

So why wouldn’t you want to?

Historically Google’s Content network has really had a hard time driving conversions, rather they would drive a lot of clicks, but all of that traffic had a hard time converting.  In the middle of 2007 that all changed, Google started cleaning up the content network and advertisers have been flocking to re-try the advertising medium.  One of the big changes that Google made was allowing you to see which URLs your ads are showing on.

Ok, So How do I Optimize for the Google Content Network?

Daniela Araujo is an expert at optimizing for the Google Content Network and she has some excellent tips on how to drive up conversions within the network.

Here are some tips from Daniela:

* Include in an ad group, not only very specific keywords, but also generic keywords that describe the specific industry or field for each product or service; (more…)

A community in Canada has an unusual form of solar power that can provide over 90% of the annual heating and hot water needs for the homes, despite being situated in a cold Alberta location where winter temperatures can reach -33 degrees C (-27 F).

The Drake Landing Solar Community collects solar energy in a heat storage fluid through an array of solar panels on the roof of each home and covering all of the garages at the back of each home. The heated fluid is transferred to a neighborhood energy center, and then into the ground beneath an insulated layer, where the heat is stored in the earth.

Combined together, the 52 home community is able to collect and store enough energy from the sun during the summer that the ground storage temperatures reach 80 degrees C (176 F). This heat is sufficiently insulated beneath the ground that it can be drawn from throughout the winter to provide heat and hot water.

The homes in the community are moderately sized, ranging from 1,492 to 1,664 square feet, and are insulated to a level 30% higher than the average home in Canada in order to keep the energy needs low enough to work with the system. The homes are also closely located to one another. This provides a more walkable neighborhood, as well as reducing the lengths that the fluid for the solar heating system needs to travel.

Entire Neighborhood Has Shared Solar Heating

The system works in part due to the scale of the project utilizing the combined capacity of the entire community. A similar system scaled down to a single family home version would not work as efficiently simply because too much heat would be lost. But the scale of a system for 52 households makes this a feasible project.

While the technology is similar to a ground source heat pump, which relies on a relatively stable, constant temperature of the ground, the Drake Landing Community is actually storing heat throughout the summer and then relying on that banked heat during the winter.

Solar heating is a more exciting prospect than solar generation of electricity because heating is a much larger percentage of a home’s total energy use (60% for space heating, 20% for water heating, and 20% for appliances, lights, and other electrical loads).

Propeller.com, Aol’s 2nd try at social media, after netscape.com was thrown into the dupster, relaunched today with a new look and feel.

Miserably Failure isn’t only being used to describe the old-school “google bomb” any more.

Here’s the home page of Propeller.com right now:

So what are others saying?

Top Story on New Propeller Says it All - There aren’t a whole lot of things that you can say.  While there seems to be some pretty nifty features available now, this just isn’t what everyone was waiting for.  Some people we’ve spoken to about it are downright angry.

Propeller Takes on Digg and Other Social News Portal - By all means, Propeller has the making of great social news portal.However, it is not free of spammers and users who will try to make the site as undesirable as they can with their nasty and objectionable comments. Hence, to prevent these people from polluting the site, Propeller is a fully moderated site by its editorial team as well as some help from the Propeller community members as well.

Propeller 2.0 Launches: Ditching The Vote Count, Adding A Mascot - Propeller, AOL’s Digg-like news site, launches version 2.0 later this morning. The site sports a new design and logo and now has a mascot - described as “part professor, part citizen journalist” (see image below).

But the biggest feature change is the removal of a pure Digg-like vote count. In its place is an algorithm based popularity ranking of 1-10, which takes into account “many more aspects of participation” when determining popularity. Voting on a story is now called the more nebulous “prop it.” The service has also cut down the number of news categories. Those remaining include Arts & Entertainment, Business & Finance, Family, Humor, News, Science & Technology, Sports and Style.

Moniker has released their list of domains that will be listed for sale at the Affiliate Summit in Boston August 10 through Thursday, August 21.  As always, you can check out the full inventory here.

Clients.com
AffiliateForum.com
CreditCheck.us
FindALender.com
MortgageBanking.com
PriceComparison.us (more…)

Google is reportedly in talks with Digg (again) to acquire the social news site.  Google would be adding a very nice addition to their Google News property that was recently touted as being worth nearly $100 million by Google’s VP, Marissa Mayer.  Currently Google news shows no ads, will that change with a digg integration? Maybe, and that would be a big blog to Microsoft, whom has an advertising deal with digg.

One of Google’s philosophies is to build properties that tie into the larger model of selling advertising on their site.  If you give away enough products, people will come back over and over, and at some point there is an opportunity to display ads or sell through your channel.  Digg would be a good fit for Google’s model right now.

Ive been staring at these headlines all day and these just don’t add up…
Washington Mutual reports 2Q loss of $3.3 billion

Congratulations Washington Mutual you lost $3.3 billion dollars in just 3 months.  They also announced that they are setting aside $8 billion to cover future losses. The losses for Q2 equate to $6.58 per share, and the current stock price is at $5.84 - meaning that they lost more money per share than 1 share of their company is worth!  Good job guys…

Mortgage giant rescue could cost $25b

Congratulations Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac - the US government - ie. me, my wife, my family and my neighbors is going to bail you out for $25 billion dollars.  Thats just the beginning, the Treasury is suggesting that the full losses could be as high as $100 billion dollars.  These 2 companies back or are related to companies that back nearly 50% of all US household mortgages and you want me to pay more in taxes to bail you out?  Good job guys…

Wachovia loses $8.9B, cuts 6,350 workers, dividend

Wachovia, you’ve been doing really well growing for the last few years, little did we know that it was because you were making bad loans and spending $25 b to buy companies called Golden West Financial that offers “pick-a-payment” loans.  $122 billion of your pick-a-payment portfolio that you bought is deteriorating quickly isnt it?  Wachovia said it is setting aside $10.96 billion for credit losses, up from $6.77 billion in the first quarter and $3.55 billion a year earlier.  Profits in consumer and business banking, Wachovia’s largest unit, fell 23 percent to $1.12 billion, hurt by rising credit costs, mainly for mortgages.   The corporate and investment banking unit had a $209 million profit, down 73 percent, reflecting write-downs tied to subprime mortgages, commercial mortgages, non-subprime debt and consumer mortgages.  Capital management profit fell 5 percent to $297 million, hurt by the liquidation of an Evergreen Investments fund, while wealth management profit rose 9 percent to $98 million.  Wachovia, you should have stuck to your main line of business, but you didn’t….. Good job guys…

Apple Stock Down in After Hours Trading

Macintosh and iPod sales helped boost Apple Inc.’s fiscal third-quarter earnings 31 percent, beating Wall Street’s expectations, but investors pummeled the stock after Apple said profit margins contracted and the company issued soft guidance for the current quarter.

Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple said Monday it earned $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per share, 11 cents ahead of Wall Street’s expectations, according to a Thomson Financial survey of analysts.

Revenue jumped 38 percent to $7.46 billion, ahead of analysts’ average view for $7.37 billion in sales.

Apple said it shipped more Macs in the quarter than ever before 2.5 million, up 41 percent from a year ago, with desktop shipments growing faster than laptops. Apple also said iPod shipments jumped 12 percent.

During a conference call, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said sales from U.S. stores rose faster than revenue overall, despite economic turmoil wrought by the domestic mortgage and credit crises.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, did not join the conference call with analysts as he commonly does. Apple did not return calls seeking an explanation.

Oppenheimer said in an interview that “The quarter was a home run,” but at first glance, investors disagreed. Shares sank $11.39, or 6.8 percent, to $155.10 in after-hours trading, after gaining $1.14 to close at $166.29.

Apple’s gross margin fell to 34.8 percent from 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter.

As it often does, Apple issued a conservative outlook for the current fourth quarter, predicting $1 per share on $7.8 billion in sales, well short of Wall Street’s expectations. Analysts had predicted Apple’s fourth-quarter earnings to reach $1.24 per share on $8.32 billion in sales.

Utilities and independent developers are poised to more than triple the amount of wind power in the Northwest, a huge increase that underscores the region’s push for renewable energy.

“It’s phenomenal,” said Elliot Mainzer, a transmission manager with the federal Bonneville Power Administration. “It’s more than we expected.”

Evidence of the wind rush shows up in a recent BPA assessment aimed at finding out how much more electricity will fit on transmission lines now in place for delivery to customers in urban centers like Portland and Seattle.
(more…)

Seriously… what would you buy with $100 Billion?

Well, you could buy a Lexus or put a down payment on a house, the $USD equivalent is about $50,000 Grand.

Zimbabwe will introduce a $100-billion bank note as the nation continues to struggle with the world’s highest inflation rate.

The latest addition to the country’s currency will begin circulating Monday, less than a week after Zimbabwe’s bank chief announced the country’s inflation rate had skyrocketed to 2.2 million percent.  The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe released six other high-value notes earlier this year, including a $50-billion note in May.

Zimbabwe’s economy is in a free-fall with 80 percent unemployment.

The country, which is in the middle of a political crisis, is also suffering from chronic shortages of food, fuel, and other basic goods.  Critics blame the troubles on the policies of President Robert Mugabe, especially the seizure of white-owned commercial farms. Mr. Mugabe blames interference by outsiders, led by former colonial power Britain.

This evening I completed the purchase of NobHill.info for a whole $4 bucks.

I’m not a huge .info fan but when I saw that this geo-neighborhood domain was in a list for $4 domains, I had to grab it.

Nob Hill is a district in San Francisco, but it’s also home to some of the richest and “old money” residents of San Fran.  Commonly, it’s referred to as “snob hill”.

Portland also has it’s own “nob hill,” I actually live at the foothills of the PDX Nob Hill, so I’m familiar with the area.  The Portland Nob Hill Business Association lists over 50 businesses, whom I frequent often.  Maybe just one of them will want to advertise once I build out the site.

Search volume for the term, according to Google’s Keyword tool shows 74,000 searches per month, with another 40,000 searches for the next top 10 long-tail keywords.

This Geo/Neighborhood domain is a great buy considering the neighborhoods that it refers to and the potential traffic that can be driven with the name and a little SEO.  As they say…”one man’s trash is another man’s treasure…”

Lost in yesterday’s excitement was news that Canpotex [remember - that is an alliance of Potash (POT), Mosaic (MOS), and Agrium (AGU)] has raised spot prices for some Asian buyers to $1000/tonne. The Russians have joined as well.

Notice a trend I hope?
[Mar 27: Canpotex Potash Contracts Secured with India @ $625]
[Apr 2: Potash Makers Already Talking $750, up from $625]
[Apr 16: Chinese Agree to $576 Price Point for Potash]
[Apr 23: Potash Hits $1000 on Spot Market]

• Canpotex, the export marketing consortium for Canadian potash miners, has raised its spot price for some Asian buyers to $1,000 per tonne, an analyst at J.P. Morgan said on Wednesday. (more…)

Comscore just said that Americans watched 12 billion videos in May, up 45 percent over last year. Say that again: 12 billion. It’s a mass medium, still: the mass of niches comes to life.

Some more video stats: Google has a 35 percent market share. Fox is a very distant second with 6.4 percent. Hulu debuts at 10th place with 0.7 percent, but I’ll bet it will rise quickly.

(more…)

Texas is already the national leader in wind power, and supporters say the latest move will bring more wind energy projects, create jobs, reduce energy costs and reduce pollution.  The Texas Utility group has approved $4.97 billion dollars for development of transmission lines and other infrastructure in the Wind industry.

The Public Utility Commission, however, didn’t commit to as big of a project as some environmental and consumer groups had wanted. The chosen plan would transmit a little more than half the energy those groups wanted.

Environmental groups estimate Texas electric customers will see a bump of about $4 on their monthly bills to pay for construction over the next six or seven years.Texas already accounts for almost a third of the country’s wind power but a new transmission system under consideration could quadruple wind power development and make the state an even better model for development elsewhere in the country.

Critical regulatory approval has been approved for billions of dollars in new transmission lines will effectively green-light tens of billions more in wind development investment, perhaps as much as an additional 24,000 megawatts.

Texas’s basic challenge – bringing power from where the wind blows hardest to where it is needed most - is the same faced by the rest of the country, making the Lone Star State something of a test case model.

Texas utility officials have given preliminary approval to building billions of dollars worth of transmission lines to bring wind energy from gusty West Texas to urban areas.

The following list ranks the largest acquisitions of U.S. companies by international firms, according to Thomson Reuters.

InBev NV’s  $52 billion agreement to buy Anheuser-Busch Cos Inc , which would create the world’s largest beer maker, ranks as the second-largest, behind the 1999 purchase of AirTouch Communications Inc by Vodafone Group Plc.
BUYER                          TARGET                    PRICE (excludes debt)
1. Vodafone Group Plc         AirTouch Communications   $60.3 billion
2. InBev NV                    Anheuser-Busch Cos        $52.2 billion
3. British Petroleum Co        Amoco Corp                $48.2 billion
4. Daimler-Benz AG             Chrysler Corp             $40.5 billion
5. Novartis AG                 Alcon Inc                 $27.7 billion
6. BP Amoco Plc                Atlantic Richfield        $27.2 billion
7. Deutsche Telekom AG         VoiceStream Wireless      $24.4 billion
8. Unilever Plc                Best Foods                $21.1 billion
9. HSBC Holdings               Household International   $15.3 billion
10. AstraZeneca Plc            MedImmune Inc             $14.6 billion

One of my favorite tools for firefox has been a plugin called snap links.  Since the Firefox 3 update, the plugin hasn’t been working and I’ve been looking for one that works on firefox 3.  I have found the perfect update for the snaplinks plugin: you can download it here.

(more…)

When Richard Rosenblatt sold MySpace, he was onto something big, and he knew it.  So he sold off MySpace and moved onto his next big project, Demand Media.  Today Demand Media is rumored to be under Yahoo’s microscope as a possible purchase target.

Demand Media is banking about $250 Million per year, which would create a valuation of between $1.5-2 Billion, according to tech crunch.

So what do you get with Demand Media?
ENOM – domain registrar
Ehow.com
Trails.com
Run.com
Cracked.com
+ a very well connected group of people.
Demand media also bought Pluck last year for a rumored $75 million.

One of my friends tipped me off to the fact that Blackberry maker, Research In Motion, is using RIM.jobs to forward to their career page.   Annnddd.. I think we’ll just leave this blog post at that…

Starbucks Corp announced today it plans to close 600 underperforming stores and eliminate as many as 12,000 full- and part-time positions.

Howard Schultz, the coffee chain’s founder and chief executive, retook the helm in January and quickly announced plans to shutter 100 underperforming outlets. With U.S. sales growth slowing, he slashed plans for store openings and shifted the company’s most ambitious expansion efforts to international markets.

Starbucks said the closures are spread across all major U.S. markets and that 70 percent of the targeted stores have been open since the beginning of fiscal 2006. The accompanying job losses would represent about 7 percent of the company’s global work force. (more…)

Google just announced that they’re going to changing the DoubleClick Perfomics network into the Google Affiliate Network.

So Why is GoogleAffiliateNetwork.com registered to gperformics@yahoo.com & domain.tech@yahoo-inc.com?

JetskiRentalsCalifornia.com is for sale - this name makes enough to pay for it’s self many times over during the summer time.  Please get in touch with me if you’re interested if owning this great category+geo domain!

(that’s not me, by the way )