Texting volume triples
Local AT&T spokesman Andy Morgan tells me that over the past year, the number of text messages moving over AT&T’s wireless network more than tripled — from 18 billion in the third quarter of 2007 to 55 billion in the third quarter this year. A recent Nielsen study suggests that some U.S. consumers now use their cell phones for text messaging more than they do for talking.
I know one of those consumers.
I recently asked my wife if our teen-age son ever used his telephone to make a call. I know he sends and receives hundreds of messages a week. Perhaps what he needs is a device that does nothing but send and receive text messages. If it’s cheaper, I might buy one.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Google gets personal
Google, the greatest company on Earth, is allowing you to call some of the search shots.
Revealed this week was SearchWiki, Google’s attempt to allow you to improve the searches you make the most. The function is enabled when you are logged into your Google account (and if you don’t have a Google account, please stop churning butter and tell your Amish brethren you need a few moments to fire up ye olde computer).
With SearchWiki, you can move something that fits your search really well up the list of results or something that is a square peg can be removed entirely.
You can also leave comments on the results that come up.
None of these actions effect the results that regular users will see (which the company makes sure to point out again and again in an introduction video).
This is another move by Google to allow all of your information needs – in this case bookmarks and favorites and other Digg-ish type items – to reside in the cloud of the web rather than on your desktop or hard drive.
Mike Koehler
Multimedia Editor
Booting up on the clock
Some employees have sued their employers because they aren’t getting paid for the time it takes them to boot up and shut down their work computers. Some of the lawsuits claim that it takes up to 30 minutes to get the machines going, according to an article in the National Law Journal.
Is it even possible for a machine to take that long to get going? Maybe these people are working on some kind of mechanical Babbage engines and need to coax the cogs into meshing every morning. We doubt it. If their computers are really that far gone, we can think of just one thing — they’ve been visiting some very dodgy sites during work hours and gotten infected with all kinds of malware. Which, in turn, means that they have been surfing porn on work time, and should shut up about a few nickels.
I’ll admit there is little that is more frustrating than waiting 15 minutes for Windows updates as my computer shuts down when I’m trying to get out of the office. But I’ve never been tempted to file a lawsuit.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Shopping cart snafu
The shopping cart may have been invented in Oklahoma City (in fact, there is a tiny working model of one that sits near my desk in homage to that achievement). It’s not a perfect creation. However, I think it’s clear to anyone who has ever operated on that the wheels on the bottom allow the cart to move freely.
Clean up on aisle seven!
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Bond ratings: locking up a horse-free barn
Now, long after their honest counsel could have been of great value, ratings service Fitch Ratings has begun to mark down values in earnest.
Fitch Ratings-New York-19 November 2008: The credit crisis and softening economy pushed up the par value of U.S. corporate bonds affected by downgrades to $296.7 billion in the third quarter, a level topping the worst quarters of the 2001 / 2002 downturn. Overall, downgrades affected 7.8% of U.S. bond market volume while upgrades affected 1.7%. At the investment grade level, the effects of negative and positive rating changes were 8.5% and 1.7%, respectively, of high grade volume while downgrades and upgrades affected 4.4% and 1.7%, respectively, of speculative grade volume.
The bulk of third-quarter downgrades occurred in the financial sector, which accounted for $258.5 billion, or 87%, of the total downgrades. Industrial downgrades, at $38.2 billion, were split $12.6 billion investment grade / $25.6 billion speculative grade.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Another tough day on Wall Street
Wednesday was another one of those ugly market days we seem to be having with great frequency. Here are how some Oklahoma companies fared.
SandRidge Energy lost 16.5 percent to close at $8.58.
Hiland Holdings GP LP lost 16 percent to close at $4.49.
Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group lost 15.7 percent to close at 97 cents.
Sonic Corp. lost 13 percent to close at $6.81.
Williams Cos. Inc. lost 13 percent to close at $14.53.
Most of these companies are trading at or near 52-week, or in some cases, all-time lows. And no one knows what going to happen today.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Fake Steve Jobs blogger shuts down blog — again
The wonderful Secret Diary of Steve Jobs had a brief, but delightful run before business journalist Dan Lyons was unmasked as the perpetrator. Then Lyons launched his own blog and later took a job at technology columnist with Newsweek. After Newsweek pulled some of his pithier posts, Lyons shut down that blog as well.
Things happen quickly in the blogosphere.
Don Mecoy
Business News
GM urging customers to lobby for federal funds
A colleague recently received an email from Troy Clarke, president of General Motors North America, seeking help with efforts to land federal dollars for the troubled automaker. It’s an interesting way to make your case, through customers. Clarke earlier urged GM employees to help out.
U.S. automakers need all the help they can get. Here’s the email:
You made the right choice when you put your confidence in General Motors, and we appreciate your past support. I want to assure you that we are making our best vehicles ever, and we have exciting plans for the future. But we need your help now. Simply put, we need you to join us to let Congress know that a bridge loan to help U.S. automakers also helps strengthen the U.S. economy and preserve millions of American jobs.
Despite what you may be hearing, we are not asking Congress for a bailout but rather a loan that will be repaid.
The U.S. economy is at a crossroads due to the worldwide credit crisis, and all Americans are feeling the effects of the worst economic downturn in 75 years. Despite our successful efforts to restructure, reduce costs and enhance liquidity, U.S. auto sales rely on access to credit, which is all but frozen through traditional channels.
The consequences of the domestic auto industry collapsing would far exceed the $25 billion loan needed to bridge the current crisis. According to a recent study by the Center for Automotive Research:
• One in 10 American jobs depends on U.S. automakers • Nearly 3 million jobs are at immediate risk • U.S. personal income could be reduced by $150 billion • The tax revenue lost over 3 years would be more than $156 billionDiscussions are now underway in Washington, D.C., concerning loans to support U.S. carmakers. I am asking for your support in this vital effort by contacting your state representatives.Please take a few minutes to go to www.gmfactsandfiction.com, where we have made it easy for you to contact your U.S. senators and representatives. Just click on the “I’m a Concerned American” link under the “Mobilize Now” section, and enter your name and ZIP code to send a personalized e-mail stating your support for the U.S. automotive industry.
Let me assure you that General Motors has made dramatic improvements over the last 10 years. In fact, we are leading the industry with award-winning vehicles like the Chevrolet Malibu, Cadillac CTS, Buick Enclave, Pontiac G8, GMC Acadia, Chevy Tahoe Hybrid, Saturn AURA and more. We offer 18 models with an EPA estimated 30 MPG highway or better — more than Toyota or Honda. GM has 6 hybrids in market and 3 more by mid-2009. GM has closed the quality gap with the imports, and today we are putting our best quality vehicles on the road.
Please share this information with friends and family using the link on the site.
Thank you for helping keep our economy viable.
Sincerely,
Troy Clarke
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
A slice of Life
University of Oklahoma Coach Bud Wilkinson develops new plays using toy players in this 1954 Life magazine photo.
Google and Life magazine have teamed up to make available a huge collection of photographs dating back for decades. It’s an amazing resource well worth exploring. I’ve included a couple of historic photos I found by merely typing the word “Oklahoma” into the Google search.
Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate Gomer Smith talks to small gathering on a Wagoner street from the bed of a feed truck in Wagoner in this 1942 photo taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
SEC accuses Mark Cuban of insider trading
Mark Cuban, one of our most flamboyant billionaires and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, has been accused of insider trading by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Commission’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, alleges that in June 2004, Mamma.com Inc. invited Cuban to participate in the stock offering after he agreed to keep the information confidential. The complaint further alleges that Cuban knew that the offering would be conducted at a discount to the prevailing market price and that it would be dilutive to existing shareholders.
Within hours of receiving this information, according to the complaint, Cuban called his broker and instructed him to sell Cuban’s entire position in the company. When the offering was publicly announced, Mamma.com’s stock price opened at $11.89, down $1.215 or 9.3 percent from the prior day’s closing price of $13.105. According to the complaint, Cuban avoided losses in excess of $750,000 by selling his stock prior to the public announcement of the offering.
You can read the entire SEC complaint here (.pdf file). Ironically, Cuban’s latest blog post is titled “I hate to lose,” which is focused strictly on his basketball team’s rocky start — not his stock trading activities.
UPDATE: Cuban has responded to the SEC complaint on his blog.
I am disappointed that the Commission chose to bring this case based upon its Enforcement staff’s win-at-any-cost ambitions. The staff’s process was result-oriented, facts be damned. The government’s claims are false and they will be proven to be so.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
