Microsoft is the center of time

For that matter Google is too. Microsoft is offering a developers webcast and posted the time in PST. For years television has used ET. For those of us not in ET this familiarity has made it easy to convert it in our heads. Other information such as stocks also uses Eastern Time. For those of us not in Eastern Time we would all like to see our time be the time. England claimed that distinction over a century ago with GMT. It is a globally recognized time that pilots and trains use so that as they cross over time zones their schedules are not confused. So how many hours behind is the West Coast from the East Coast. Are all companies going to start doing this? What time zones is China in?

Another HTML bug in IE

I have been impressed that bugs that I find in Yahoo are generally fixed in a few weeks. Bugs in Microsoft products can remain for years unless they become a major security threat. In fact some developers depend on bugs not being fixed in implementing strange code fixes. I wonder if we can expect an end to fixes if Yahoo merges with Microsoft? I was going to describe the HTML bug here, but after giving it some thought I realized it possibly is a major security threat. I also think it may be on purpose to stop a different security threat. There is a major memory leak, which has me removing this HTML tag from all my code. So I should be busy today.

What is going on with IE Favorites?

I like to use favorites to mark the addresses to web sites I regularly view. A week ago a strange thing started. The favorites in the folders are arranging themselves alphabetically. At first I thought I had accidentally pressed some short cut. Now it is happening in other folders. Did Microsoft have an update recently? (yes) Since I have been using these links for years they are like phone numbers you can dial but not recite out loud. Now I can not find anything. I would put the lists back in order, but how long before Microsoft reset my hard work? I looked it up and there is a sort when you right click using the file menu. I don’t use the file menu to open favorites so I have never seen this option. I put my favorites in folders and put the ones I use the most at the top. Now every time I add a favorite it is like getting a new phone number for every number I call.

To send or not send

The FBI has issued a warning for an email virus disguised as a valentine ecard. Yahoo apparently did not get the warning. There banner today is Send a Valentine's Day eCard, Whoops.

News before the News

Esther Dyson offered an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal answering my question of who the start-ups and outsourcing companies may be turning to for online ads. I doubt she read my blog and she is a much better writer. But I think she still fails to find the companies I was referring to. These companies, mostly in India and China, were veracious users of online ads in 2005 for products under $500. Perhaps the ability to reach users at a reasonable cost for small niche players was just a temporary fluke.

Wal-Mart did sell the Dr. Pepper to me at the sale price, but not the twelve packs. I feel the fact the product was no longer in the system at any price was the main reason. I do not feel resolved or satisfied. It has made me think about my own business strategy. Maybe the small things can mean more than the big things. Price was not the concern. I was concerned that someone would go take the signs down, for the benefit of the other customers and I received a yes, we are sorry.

Wal-Mart forgets to rollup prices

I went shopping at Wal-Mart Marketplace for cleaning supplies this week. I noticed that sodas were on sale and grabbed a 12 pack and a two liter bottle. When I tried self check out the 12 pack rang up at twice the price listed and the two liters Dr. Pepper said item not found. Since the sodas were from a display next to checkout I looked over and indeed they were a rollback. So I move over to a checker, since nobody was manning the self checkout. The sale had ended the previous day and all the sale items in the store were no longer on sale. I suggested that they send someone around to pull the signs. The checker said someone was working on that. I suggested that maybe they were a little understaffed. She said, “no, we can only do one thing at a time.” So I guess at 5pm it is normal to still have the rollback prices from a sale that ended the previous day. I wonder if the new sale items rang at the new price. The inability for the computer to find Dr. Pepper makes me wonder. I worked at a grocery store as a teenager. I thought back to who made sure the signs were pulled and new ones put up. That would be the manager. I looked around and the two checkers seemed to be on their own, even when they had problems, which both did. It was fairly busy and self check was the only way the store was dealing with it. So unless you have time, you pay whatever they want.

Who is the next Google?

Microsoft announced today it is buying Yahoo. Both of these companies are Google’s biggest ad competitors. But neither has challenged Google’s price increase and this buy out indicates we will not see it in the future. In 2005 many start-ups and out sourcing firms in India used Google ads as their primary source of customers. The average cost that I determined from researching 100 companies in 2005 was $25-50 a customer. All those ads are now gone. I assumed it was Google’s new method of not showing an ad every time. Buying some online ads revealed the real cause. The cost of running the same ad as in 2005 and getting the same response rate is now $1500 per customer.

Google explained why they dumped these customers. The profit margin is low. They can make more profit with less effort by only supporting the top customers. Google was right. They have continued to grow their profit and companies that could have stepped in and paid the higher prices. Companies like Wal-Mart have shown that a market exists in selling volume at a lower profit margin. Who is the company that is going to offer a competitively priced advertising at a lower profit margin? It may not even be the same service. Does anyone know who is becoming the Wal-Mart of advertising?