deal

Focus, focus, focus: Why Web retail is like a really cheesy mall

Years ago, for my wife's birthday, I bought her a terrarium for her orchids. You know where I got it? Terrariumsale.com. Because that's what showed up in Google. Now, Terrariumsale.com is not a business unto itself. It's one of several front-ends to a catalog of goods sold by FineWebStores. I was reminded of this today when I got a pitch for FreeShippingOn.com, a site that helps you find items available for sale online that you can get without paying shipping fees. I wrote back to the person who sent me the pitch: "You'… Read more

Real Deal podcast: Our favorite travel sites

This week on the Real Deal podcast, Tom and I tackle travel sites.

The challenge: There are dozens of good travel sites we know of, and probably hundreds we don't. So we broke down our discussion into sections (planning, booking, organizing, social, and air travel) and discussed our favorite sites and tips. We were working from a spreadsheet of sites created from Webware stories and from user-submitted tips. The sheet is a work in progress, but you can see it here.

Tom and I record the Real Deal each Tuesday at 3 p.m. Pacific Time, and we have … Read more

Justice Department to review Google-Yahoo deal

Updated at 7:40 a.m. PDT Wednesday with comments from a former Department of Justice antitrust attorney, and a Department of Justice spokeswoman.

The U.S. Department of Justice plans to gather information from third parties in a probe of the advertising deal struck last month between Google and Yahoo, according to sources familiar with these types of investigations.

Within the next week, the Justice Department is expected to issue civil investigative demands (CIDs) that seek documents from the third parties, said one source, noting the information requested could range from a general request on the competitive landscape to … Read more

Music industry woes not felt by Disney Records

LOS ANGELES--Only the mouse appears to thrive in a music sector pulverized by digital technology.

As the top four recording companies continue to see CD sales shrink and as they scurry to find profitable business models in the digital age, Walt Disney Records has grown 40 percent from last year according to Matt Fitz-Henry, the label's director of New Media.

Fitz-Henry, who spoke at a panel session at the iHollywood Conference on Monday, said that it's no secret how the company has found success in such a gloomy environment.

"What everybody in the music business is now … Read more

Exclusive cell phone deals called into question

Rural cell phone carriers want to put an end to exclusive deals between carriers and handset makers.

On Tuesday, the Rural Cellular Association, a group of more than 80 small and rural wireless providers, filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission to investigate and adopt rules that would prohibit exclusivity arrangements between wireless carriers and cell phone manufacturers. In its petition the group said that these arrangements were unfair and stifled customer choice. The group also believes these deals decrease competition and violate the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

The most prominent example of such a deal is the Apple iPhone. … Read more

What is cloud computing?

In this week's Real Deal podcast, Tom Merritt and I try to explain cloud computing in concrete terms. Starting with an utterly opaque description from Forrester Research, we get into the realities of using the "cloud" of Internet-connected resources for data storage and computing. Then we dive into personal clouds of data--like what Microsoft is trying to build with Live Mesh.

Reminder: We record the Real Deal each Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time, and we have a live video feed and chatroom running while we're doing so. You can tune in at www.watchbol.com. … Read more

MySQL closes $10 million deal

MySQL, the open-source database maker that Sun Microsystems bought earlier this year, recently closed a $10 million deal, according to Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz.

Schwartz noted the deal Saturday in a Twitter Q&A related to the Web 2.0 Expo.

A $10 million deal...that's big, even by Oracle standards. It's the sort of deal that big companies do with other big companies. Here's what Schwartz said:

...(T)he MySQL team just closed the single largest deal in the history of MySQL, a $10m deal to a global technology company. I'm pleased as punch … Read more

You think you know copyright?

Today on the Real Deal podcast, Tom and I interviewed Colette Vogele, attorney, Fellow at Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, and host of the Rules for the Revolution podcast. We started to cover the concept of copyright from the perspective of the content producer separately from that of the consumer, but found that the line between the two is increasingly fuzzy. We all consume content. But with digital technologies, almost every one of us also produces, copies, or otherwise mangles the content that we are consuming.

We talked with Vogele about this, and went over not just the … Read more

Anti-signal phone case is cheap, if unnecessary

I've never understood why a cell phone signal-blocking handset case is needed when all one has to do is simply switch off the darn phone. But if you really must have one, just to show your geek mates you've something they don't (for good reason), check out this $6.38 option. It's available at the irresistible DealExtreme--an online retailer that BoingBoing accurately sums up as a seller of "cheap Chinese crap you were never sure you needed"--with free worldwide shipping thrown in.

However, the "leather" in the casing looks dodgy at … Read more