Before venturing into the HipMojo show, I hesitated to do a weekly (or even daily) show because I still believe that pumping out articles (or nowadays, tweets) is much more logical for the breakneck, fast-paced world of news. But, a lot of people said “hey, you write all of these business articles and run a video site, why not do a weekly show on business?” continue reading...

A few years ago, we published a list of companies who ruled the Internet each year, from 1994-2007. Then, we forgot to update it for 2008-2010. On this week’s HipMojo show, we run down the list and picked a company for 2008, 2009, and 2010… and then open it up for you to suggest companies for 2011. Vote for the company of the Year below in the Comments, feel free to vote for the company you work for, but explain WHY, what was the one thing or many things that made the company stand out from the noise? continue reading...

What are the 10 consumer web companies that are best positioned for the 2010s? continue reading...

From Forrester via Paid Content:

1. E Ink will lose its claim to near-100% market share for e-reader displays. continue reading...

Amazon is building a new HQ, reports KIRO TV (via Business Insider) and is targeting LEED-Silver green-building certification.  What, on earth, is LEED certification?  I had no clue, and couldn’t help but not fall asleep reading the Wikipedia entry, so I did a search in trying to find a video, and lo and behold, as is usually the case, I stumbled across one of our own videos on LEED, which was part of a three-part series on the whole green theme: continue reading...

MySpace is certainly this generation’s MTV.  So it was pretty fitting that Sumner Redstone would seek to acquire MySpace, of course, as history would have it, Mr. Redstone’s foe Rupert Murdoch stepped in, outbid Viacom, and lo and behold, MySpace fell in News Corp.’s domain.

MySpace has gone on to become the largest music community, no doubt, and now they will have to give both Amazon and Apple’s iTunes a run for its money.  Amazon is in the running to be powering the “Buy Music” function of the ad-supported site, by the way. continue reading...

Twitter accepted some money from Spark Capital and Jeff Bezos.  The latter is interested because long ago I wrote that Twitter was far more of an e-commerce play than an ad play… but given the $150B US / $500B global advertising market, everyone and their cousin wants to have an advertising-based business model… which explains why most companies tend to rewrite their business plans of late (in other words: they have no business having an ad model, but I digress).

Anyway, I think this is the first step towards Amazon.com buying Twitter… it just makes more sense to use something like Twitter in a commercial capacity than a communications capacity, which is odd because Twitter now bills itself as a “communications utility”.  Whatever floats their boat… continue reading...

I was reading SI on the NFL Draft and how random it is: which players become successful vs. which ones flop.

Business is the same, here is a good post on Tech Crunch about Amazon and Jeff Bezos.   Mind you, it helps to have a maniacal leader in Jeff Bezos who will win at all costs. continue reading...

Amazon.com is taking on Ze French by trying to offer consumers free shipping.  On the surface, you wonder, why is the French government upset?  But looking at the nuances in the matter, I agree with the French.
Booksellers have complained about Amazon.com’s decision to waive S&H, the matter has gone to court and Amazon has lost.  It has been forced to pay a $1,000 fine every day for 30 days, after which point the Courts could lower or raise the fine. Amazon is trying to reverse the rule:

Cédric Manara, a law professor and e-commerce specialist at Edhec, a French business school in Nice, said he would not be surprised if the court raised the penalty, and that Amazon “had no chance” with its appeal. continue reading...

2007 will go down as the year of the book.  All right, that’s a blatantly false statement, but it does make for a good headline, no?

Maybe 2008 will earn that title.  After all, what gathers steam and momentum in one year can always trace its roots to the previous year, no? continue reading...