July 2008
40 posts
More thoughts on the auto industry
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
I was just looking at the automakers stocks, GM’s market cap is $6.74 billion. Crazy idea (I know this would never happen) have Microsoft buy GM. Why would they do this, for 2 reasons. The first is that one of the largest un-tapped markets for software is the car. Owning the largest manufacturer of cars globally gives you great distribution and leverage...
1 tag
Saw this coming...
Image via Wikipedia
On July 17th I did a post where I suspected that the next big announcement of losses from finance companies would be in car leases. Chrysler has just announced that Chrysler Financial will no longer be offering car leases as of August 1st. Additionally Ford announced this week that they had to take a write down of over $2 billion on leases. The New York Times did a great...
OliverSiminoff.com
I bought my about to be born son the only gift that really matters (at least to a tech entrepreneur father) hisname.com.
I also set him up his very own Tumblr blog. So anyone that is interested in following the baby stuff we will be posting everything, pictures, videos, stories, etc. at www.OliverSiminoff.com.
Article about PhoneTag in today's issue of Newsday →
Newsday is Long Island’s newspaper. They did a nice article today about voicemail to text, even nicer because they featured us:)
More great news on high gas prices
Image via Wikipedia
The benefits of expensive oil are continuing to come out. Ridership on Amtrack’s Portland to Boston “Downeaster” line is up 28%. This is the largest gain they have ever had in ridership.
Not only is the train more efficient transport but increased ridership takes cars off of the street, decreasing traffic and increasing overall efficiency of the transport...
Motorola Claims Executive Now With Apple Took... →
Sad that Motorola could not leverage their “secrets” as well as Apple did.
Richard Wolpert's Waverunner Adventure
A new friend in LA Richard Wolpert, who is an entrepreneur and venture advisor for Accel partners, just completed a solo long distance trip on his wave runner off the coast of Southern California, he did over 450 miles on the trip.
The open ocean can be dangerous in a boat I can not imagine what it would be like on a wave runner. You can see pictures and info about the trip at his blog here.
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More bank losses?
Image via Wikipedia
While everyone is focused on the Mortgage market that is currently hitting the banks I wonder about another big source of loans that the banks have out which is leased vehicles.
I am not sure of the numbers but a large percentage of the big SUV’s that Americans have been loading up on for the last few years are leased. Banks set lease price based on the cost of capital...
Angry users
Marco, who is one of the founders of Tumblr (the platform that this Blog is on) wrote the below post. It is about another really cool application that he developed called Instapaper.
Over the years of having customer facing businesses I have personally run into a lot of angry customers who have initially said things to me that would make Andrew Dice Clay (Sorry he is the first guy that came to...
And my response...
I thought I should post my response to the email that was sent to me in my last post, I tried to have a little fun with it, I hope that the person I sent it to understands my sense of humour:
Dear XYZ,
If we decide to use your services would you also include our name to our competitors in your marketing emails? While you might have felt that this “punches” up your email it quickly...
Selling 101
I grow more tired by the day of companies contacting me that work with my competitors and touting that fact. I have mentioned it before so sorry for the repetitiveness of this post but it really is a pet peeve of mine.
Adding competitors names is not a show of strength at all, it just shows that as soon as you get my account you will use that info to give to my next competitor.
Here is an email...
““The economy may or may not be in a recession, but it clearly sucks for...”
– Fred Wilson
Read the rest of Fred’s great post on his view of the state of the economy by clicking here.
The Dow is at 7,700 today, seriously
Image via Wikipedia
I did a post over the weekend about the Dow and where it is based on historic levels. My brother gave me an interesting twist on the post when I spoke to him about it.
So the first time the dow closed above 11,000 was in May of 1999. Right now (at 3pm) the Dow is at 11,042.
However that is not the whole story, when the Dow closed at 11,000 in May of 1999 the dollar was...
Oil Policies-Long term thinking
On CNBC right now there is a discussion about Bush’s decision to open up additional offshore drilling, which is a knee jerk reaction to high oil prices. Offshore drilling takes so long to actual produce oil that doing this is of little consequence.
If the US was a company it would have been bankrupt a long time ago. The best CEO’s look ahead at the macro issues and create policies...
WatchI just saw an ad for this on CNBC. T. Boone Pickens has made a billion dollar fortune in oil and now seems to be putting all of his energy and influence into getting the US off of our dependency from foreign oil. The video is very cool, I like this guy and hope that he succeeds in his plan. For more go to www.pickensplan.com
““The story goes on to state the the primary reason behind the acquisition...”
– Image via Wikipedia
Source-Thomas Howe
I have not confirmed myself if Ribbit has sold to BT but a few places like TechCrunch are reporting it. Thomas made a great point about why the acquisition took place (if it did) and like Thomas I strongly feel it had nothing to do with GrandCentral,...
Getting close to the IPO
My friend and possible relative (we think we are 2nd cousins) David Siminoff at Venrock calls having a baby, the IPO.
We are getting very close to the IPO. So close that I am supposed to go to the Bay Area for some meetings tomorrow but might have to rethink it.
I can’t wait to meet my son, what an exciting time.
Three Statistics That Lie →
This is another great post from Fred Wilson. It touches on a topic that has always frustrated me when hearing statistics about companies that have free products.
I can not tell you how many people have said to me, “We are growing at 5,000 users a day” or “We are over a million sign ups and growing at 10% a week”, yet their products are free so the amount of sign ups,...
July 5th- Annual Voicemail Independence Day
Image via Wikipedia
Well yesterday we celebrated America’s independence and today I feel that Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch declared Voicemail Independence today. His post, Think Before You Voicemail, was great. It really pointed out why voicemail sucks and it also pointed out (probably why I liked it so much) how Voicemail Transcription is the answer to it. So at least at...
An idea I had on my list to do...
When gas prices started to rise about 18 months ago my dad called me up with an idea, he told me that I should put together a website that allows consumers to lock in prices for gas by pre-paying for it at today’s prices. Between all of the things I have on my plate I never got around to getting this one out but thought it was a great idea. (just for the record my dad called almost every...
Zemanta
I downloaded a browser plugin called Zemanta yesterday. Zemanta is basically a blog assistant. It scans through the text of your post and pulls up images, links and articles that might be interesting to add to the post. The first post I did using Zemanta was the one about CNG cars yesterday, I probably went a little overboard with the links and pictures, but I always abuse stuff when it is...
CNG Cars
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
As many of you know I bought a Prius back in February. I have enjoyed the car as well as watching gas prices go up. When I bought the Prius I was able to negotiate a discount and pick it up that day. Now a Prius has a multiple month waiting list and sells over sticker.
Now I am looking to get an alternative fuel car, specifically CNG. When I used to spend...
Sign Up for PhoneTag →
Looks like the email I sent to all of our customers went out successfully. Thanks for posting it Ben.
And for anyone else that wants to sign up that is reading my blog, use Ben’s link, he deserves the free service for being the first to post this.
huge:
If any of you have been considering signing up for PhoneTag (formerly SimulScribe) to get your voicemail transcribed and sent to you as...
