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Tomorrow the New York Stock Exchange will have a new listed company; Pandora. It will price its shares at $16 per share which values them at a whopping $2.6 billion. They hope to raise $235 million in by offering about 6 mln common shares. Current stockholders will offer about 8.6 million shares in the IPO.

What’s interesting is that Pandora will start trading under the ticker symbol “P”, joining a select club of companies with a single letter ticker.

Pandora’s IPO is probably quite anticipated in investment circles, but people in the know are doubting the future profitability of the company. Kevin Simms’ comment on the Techcrunch article concerning Pandora quite easily summarizes the doubt:

If $2.6 billion for a company that loses money and is in the *music* business doesn’t scream bubble, I’m going to have to log on to Pandora to have them recommend a synonym for me.

The music industry in my opinion is still failing to adequately adapt to the changes in the market and I agree with the critics that this will not be a solid investment in the long run.

With just short of 22.000 games available on its App Store, the position of the iPod Touch as a gaming device is really taking off. With the two major competitors only having 3680 (Nintendo DS) and 607 (Sony’s PSP) Apple is taking the lead as one of the biggest mobile gaming platforms. The recent iPod Touch price cut only reinforces Apple’s position by allowing for more people to own their entry-level device. (more…)

The gaming market promises to be even more of a major market than it already is. Consider this;

- To start gaming, someone only needs a computer in his house, something that’s seen as a requirement to function in this society
- The availability of games is only growing (iPhone, wireless internet, etc.)
- A greater variety of games is released every year
-  Game interface is ever changing; who could’ve imagined the Wii a few years back? or the Natal?
- Integration of gaming in our daily lives; friends meeting on WoW or for a game of FIFA is not strange or uncommon anymore

(more…)

The National Music Publishers Association has filed copyright infringement lawsuits against two companies, LiveUniverse and Motive Force, for allegedly operating Web sites and applications that offer users free lyrics. Reports MediaPost Publications.

While it was to be expected for this to happen sooner or later, the stated reasons are laugable and are very quikly taken apart; (more…)

Stunning article on one of the most out-of-sync websites of the net. And one of the biggest!

Read the entire Craigslist article on Wired.com!

And I think the word that leads to both is responsibility.

You are behaving responsible if the social profit of your business exceeds its cost.

You are behaving responsible if you minimize the footprint your business leaves behind.

Why is this something that people feel should be discussed? Because the laws and regulations were made before we had any awareness of the fact that pollution has a very long-term effect? It seems that way, and only when public opinion threatens to affect the bottom-line companies feel obliged to take action. The current green movement is just as much a marketing trend as the next thing but at least we are neutralizing our carbon footprint. It’s just too bad that there are all these other possible footprints that are not in the public eye.

For example, the electric company trying to sell me green power, but I still have a choice, when they’re convinced that is the best way, why leave us a choice at all? Or why doesn’t the government use the huge percentage of tax on our energy usage to make it ‘green’?

Same goes for social profitability; a business that can only thrive by exacting a cost on its social surroundings is not thriving at all; its costs are bigger than its  profits. The gambling industry comes to mind for example.

I do understand that it’s very hard to determine what the social profits and costs of doing business are, at least in some cases. The Salvation Army for example, probably has a bigger social profit than cost, while a gambling club does not gain anyone but the owners anything. For all the businesses in between things can be more grey, but it being grey is no excuse for exacting it anyway.

While we are in the process of rewriting the Revol7 business plan, we are reevaluating every part of the plan according to the conventional p’s. The one that troubles me most is place.

Basically, place would translate for us to some piece of real estate we would rent in order to start Revol7 there. But in our search for maximum distinguishing capacity we have failed to think of anything that would add to it when it comes to the place of business. Perhaps we are looking at it the wrong way. (more…)