I brought the car there the next day (location is less than 10 minutes away) and had it looked at by one of their damage inspectors. The guy clearly knew what he was doing because the first thing he did was go down and look under the car to check the metal reinforcement under my back bumper. I was going to mention this to him because the damage isn’t visible unless you look under but I didn’t even have to. Whole thing took about 20 minutes - for him to look at the car and write up his report.

Then they cut me a check right there on the spot and I was on my way home at 3:15 pm. So the WHOLE process of reporting the claim and getting a check for the damage took less than 24 hours. I mean, that is just impeccable service from Geico.

I’m so glad the other driver was insured by Geico (I am as well). Compare this with my incredibly poor, frustrating experience with AIG. Seriously, if you want to “save up to 15% on your car insurance” and get great service, go with Geico.

Microsoft Chased But Yahoo Wanted Independence

Unofficial sources have indicated Microsoft offered close to $40 a share privately last year and it was rejected by Yahoo. Later on, Microsoft very publicly offered $31 a share which Yahoo rejected. It basically did everything it could to avoid the deal, including invoking a poison pill. It demanded $37 a share but the most Microsoft offered was $33. After that debacle, Microsoft walked away leaving Yahoo the subject of shareholder lawsuits and criticized by institutional investors that hold large amounts of Yahoo stock. Not to mention Icahn’s current attempt to replace the Yahoo’s board and top management.

Still No Deal

Getting all that flak, they resumed talks with Microsoft, but MS no longer wanted to buy all of Yahoo. It now only wanted to acquire Yahoo’s search assets in the US and Asia. This is basically what they wanted in the first place. Everything else is just gravy. Of course Yahoo’s not going to let MS strip its crown jewels and we arrive at today’s news that their talks have ended with no deal. Again.

Deal With Google?

Well they wouldn’t sell search to Microsoft but they’re willing to outsource it to Google (who dominates search). This can only strengthen Google. Sure, Yahoo gets short term cash gains from the agreement but like I said, search is Yahoo’s crown jewel. It’s where the money is as Google has clearly shown.

Regardless of everything else it’s doing, Google’s primary money-maker is search. Google doesn’t release all these other services like Gmail, Analytics, Reader, Docs & Spreadsheets, Maps, etc. for the heck of it. These services make NO money but rather require a lot of engineering and infrastructure to provide such services on a large scale. It’s because the more people use these services, the more likely they are to use Google Search, and vice-versa. You build a critical mass of users and then you have network effects. That’s the whole point. It was the same deal with desktop OS’es. That’s why MS is concerned with Google. It’s the same evenw with Google Apps and its message security services offered through the Postini acquisition. It’s all about getting consumers and businesses under the Google umbrella, so they’ll use Google Search, Adwords, Adsense, etc. At the same time, it jabs Microsoft.

Doesn’t Look Good for Yahoo

By outsourcing search, Yahoo will eventually be reduced to a bit player with services like Flickr and its primary portal. Those things really don’t generate a lot of revenue or profit. Google’s eventually going to demand a bigger and bigger piece of the search revenue sharing and Yahoo will have no leverage. Because by outsourcing search to Google, Yahoo’s going to eliminate a lot of internal resources (that includes employees) that’s dedicated to search. Yahoo may do well in the short-term but it’ll eventually resume its decline. Shareholders aren’t happy with the news either, since Yahoo’s stock has gone down significantly this afternoon.

Well the deal will definitely attract regulatory attention since it would consolidate a HUGE share of the search market into Google’s hands. So it might not even go through. We’ll see. Hindsight is 20/20 but Yahoo should’ve taken the $33 offer. They had no way of knowing what would happen later on after they rejected the private offers last year so that’s understandable. Without buying Yahoo, Microsoft still has $40 billion to figure out how to fight Google in search. That’s not a small chunk of change.

Time Wasted on Useless Discussion

All these useless exchanges of emails, meetings, calls, etc. waste a LOT of time. Time that I’m billing for. Sure I’m getting paid, but I’d much rather spend my time being productive and doing something purposeful. After all, avoiding all this wasted time and money benefits my clients. My glimpses into corporate bureaucracy leave me assured that I want to remain on my current path. I could not possibly deal with that crap day in and day out. Crap like trying to educate a superior so they can make a decision they’re not qualified to make.

Simple Things Get Blown Up

Sometimes, even simple tasks get completely blown out of proportion and out of scope. I’m working on a project right now where I’m building some add-on functionality for a web-based system I developed for a client. In order for me to produce what they want, it requires some action on their end. Sorry for the ambiguity, but obviously I need to keep the details confidential. The actual work involved on my end wouldn’t take more than a day. Yet we’ve spent weeks discussing the project and various requirements when I’ve very clearly laid out a course of action for them to follow.

It’s like when I say “hey I need this and that to move forward” and their first response is always “do you really need that? are you sure?” Then I have to explain why, often over and over again. Then they commence discussion on what they need to do on their end to meet my request. Stop talking about it and JUST DO IT. It needs to be that way - either do it or change key requirements of the project! What’s it going to be?

Just give me what I need and I’ll deliver everything everything in the specs - sounds simple right? That’s what I thought at first. But evidently nothing is simple anymore. Simple issues suddenly turn into big issues as more people throw in their 2 cents. Honestly, I can’t go into details but this project really isn’t complex, it frustrates me just thinking about such inefficiency.

Direct and Clear Communication Somehow Gets Muddled

What they need to do on their end to meet the initial project requirements doesn’t concern me because I have absolutely no control over that. I’m not involved in that internal process. Yet they’ve pulled me into their discussions even though I’m in no position to add input on this subject. It’s out of scope for what I was hired for. I don’t care how you do what you need to do, just make the appropriate changes on your end, so that I can proceed with the project. I like to streamline and simplify things whenever possible; the more focused the objective, the easier it is to establish a game plan for completing that objective. Don’t clutter my job up with irrelevant and unneccessary information.

I’ve made the requirements very clear - there’s no ambiguity. You see, that’s why I tend to write long emails, because I make it a big point to minimize ambiguity. When I’m providing instructions, the more clear cut things are, the less you have to interpret on your own, the better. You can never assume others are thinking in the same mindset as you. But you need to be competent enough for me to be able to hand off these detailed instructions and trust that you’ll be able to follow through and provide the desired result. The thinking has been done for you. Just execute.

Who Are You and What Are You Contributing?

Not only that, there are a few people I work with or report to regarding this project. People that are throwing in their own opinions when I’m in charge of producing the actual deliverables. People I need to clue in on intricate details of how the system I built for them works when they DON’T need to know such details because they add no value to my work. People that think they know more about the system that I built and try to correct me. I keep getting pushback when I point out their mistakes. I have to repeat myself over and over to get my point across. It’s absolutely fraking ridiculous. I really hate having to repeat myself.

This isn’t arrogance - I know the system inside and out because I put it all together. Every time they try to correct me, I spend more time explaining why they’re wrong. Clients need to trust the people they hire - if you can’t, then you hired the wrong person or you’re going about it all wrong. You bring in consultants and developers to use their expertise to help your business solve a problem. Don’t hire someone and think you can do a better job than they can. Because that’s just stupid; if you can really do a better job yourself, then do it already. Why did you need to hire them in the first place? What are you paying them for?

Closing Thoughts

When I was young, inexperienced, and just learning about the business world, I used to wonder why there were all these consulting firms. From small, boutique firms to large, elite firms. I wondered why companies had to bring in outside consultants to basically tell them how to run their business. Couldn’t they hire the right talent? With all the wasted time and productivity I’ve witnessed firsthand I can see why it’s so easy for an outside consultant to come in and advise on significant operational, organizational, and strategic improvements.

Obviously I can’t reveal more details about the situation that I describe but if I were to suggest the things that I’m thinking, in this specific case, it would be overstepping my bounds. You have to choose your battles and opportunities wisely. In this case, it wouldn’t go over well considering I don’t have good things to say about some of the people I’m working with in this project. Thus I watch sadly as my client continues to waste time and money on this project.

Apparently Dell does quite well in the PC gaming market with its XPS gaming systems so you have to question whether they actually needed to acquire Alienware. But what’s done is done anyway. Along with the announcement was that Alienware is coming out with ‘low-cost gaming systems’ which is almost an oxymoron. Gaming PC’s need to be high end so they can handle the latest games. A cheaper gaming PC is really just like any other standard PC you buy. In this case, it’s just branded under Alienware so you think it’ll work great for your games.

It reeks a little of the Vista Capable debacle. People got tricked into thinking Vista Compatible meant the PC they were buying would work fine with Vista, but features are scaled back and performance is mediocre. Hence the lawsuit. It’s kind of the same in this case. You buy a relatively cheaper gaming PC from Alienware (I say relatively cheaper because gaming PC’s typically cost more and have higher premiums) and think that you can run Crysis on high settings. That’s just not going to be the case.

Personally, I would never buy a prebuilt PC ever again. After I built my first PC, it was clear to me that custom self-built PC’s are the way to go. You cut out a huge profit margin PC makers add on to price of the hardware. And prebuilt PC’s like Dell and Alienware use proprietary components making it hard to swap out or upgrade certain components.

New Update

Apparently Dell has stated they are not dropping the XPS gaming line, contrary to what was reported in the WSJ. Oh well. Their XPS gaming line and Alienware are in the same market. I still don’t think this strategy makes sense.

Now Online Retailers Must Charge NY Residents Sales Tax

So the state isn’t collecting the tax revenue that it wants. Now that they’ve enacted this law, it forces online retailers to charge their customers sales tax. So for New Yorkers like myself, we’ll be paying an additional 8.375% on purchases we make at sites like Amazon and Newegg (2 sites I purchase from). Normally, since neither of those businesses have a physical presence in NY, they don’t have to charge sales tax.

But the new law says that as long as the online retailer has an affiliate in NY, they must charge sales tax. Note that an affiliate can be anyone - I’m signed up as an affiliate of both Amazon and Newegg and I’ve used affiliate links in my blog before. Hypothetically, if I’m their only affiliate, both Amazon and Newegg would now have to collect sales tax from any customer located in NY.

Obviously this isn’t desirable since not having to pay the extra tax is one of the primary reasons I purchase things online (aside from prices generally being lower online and the convenience of being able to find less common products more easily).

Amazon Files Lawsuit Against New York

Well now that this new tax law has been enacted, Amazon filed a lawsuit against New York over the law, calling it unconstitutional. I certainly don’t want to pay the tax and I’m fully on Amazon’s side. I can understand why the state wants to collect more tax revenue but I don’t think levying more taxes on citizens during a recession is that helpful to the state economy. Plus, like any normal person, I just don’t like giving up more of my hard-earned money to pay taxes.

Are They Profitable?

My point is Digg isn’t really all that. They’re a private company so I don’t know what their finances look like but I suspect they operate around break-even or maybe they’re mildly profitable. I can tell you I have NEVER clicked an ad on Digg, in fact I’m pretty ad-blind to their ads, in that I don’t even read them or really notice them on the page. Ad blindness or ignorance is particularly common among techies, which make up a large part of Digg’s audience. So I wonder how much revenue Digg is actually pulling in.

Digg’s “Algorithm”

Either way, Digg is easy to copy. There’s even a module for the open source CMS, Drupal, called Drigg, that basically lets you run your own Digg clone. Maybe the algorithm is simpler but the point is Drigg shows how easy it is to replicate Digg’s core functionality. I hesitate to even call Digg’s algorithm an algorithm because it’s not that complex. I’ll call Google’s search engine an algorithm because that actually is very complex and difficult to emulate (or else someone would have done it already, like Yahoo or Microsoft perhaps).

Less Interest in Digg Over Time

I used to frequent Digg more when it was just tech news and I’d actually go deeper into the pages of news but they’ve now branched into so many things, it just feels noisy. And I hate how there’s so much content spam where the sites that show up on Digg actually aren’t the original source of the content. They’re either just reproducing it, linking it, or providing commentary which I don’t really care for. When I’m interested enough to click on a Digg link I want to see the original source. Now I pretty much only visit Digg every couple of days and I just check out the top 10 list. I kind of suspect the same cycle happens for most other users, some of whom probably never go back.

Sell Now or Risk Lower Valuation in the Future

So that’s why I think Digg needs to sell. The linked article mentioned Digg was looking for around $300 million before but it now expects less. And Digg has constantly been rumored as an acquisition target but nothing ever materializes, while other properties are getting snapped up left and right. I think that’s probably because no one thinks Digg is worth it. I still think it isn’t. After all, Digg hosts none of its own content and depends on users to post links, which numerous other services also do. Digg can easily lose huge swaths of users to other services. But companies like Google and Microsoft don’t mind throwing around 200-300 million bucks.

Actually Jay Adelson, Digg’s CEO posted a short statement saying the rumors of an acquisition are false but who knows. Regardless of that I think if the principals and investors at Digg want to cash in, now is the time. Keep waiting and that bubble will deflate even more.

I’ve traditionally been a fan of Intel but I think we can all agree the industry needs AMD’s presence. Without anyone around to challenge Intel, we could easily fall back to the Pentium days when Intel acted as a monopoly. Competition spurs innovation and price reductions. Intel wouldn’t really have put that much effort into their new Core architecture if AMD wasn’t chewing away market share with cheaper, better chips. Intel wouldn’t have cut prices so much over the last 2 years if it weren’t for AMD. There was a period when AMD enjoyed profitability and rising market share but unfortunately they seemed to have stirred a sleeping giant.

Amidst AMD’s current delays and chip problems, Intel has announced they are also delaying the release of 3 new chips. This is not because Intel has problems and needs the delay. They simply don’t need to release these new chips so quickly because AMD doesn’t have anything that competes. Intel continues to hold the performance lead and has a huge advantage in production capability and technology. This alone shows why AMD needs to really step up their game. Without leapfrogging, AMD will only get further and further behind Intel. Without AMD, Intel is free to jack up prices and hold back on releasing new products - these are the practices of a monopoly. While this benefits Intel, it hurts us consumers.

I also read that AMD’s planning on releasing a line of tri-core chips. To me that just seems really gimmicky. At this point AMD needs a hit product that’s going to sway customers their way. Tri-core chips just doesn’t seem to cut it. What’s the point when there are quad-core chips available? If their argument is that they can price it in between dual-core and quad-core chips, I don’t think that really flies too well either. I bought my quad-core for just $280 - I’d much prefer paying that tiny bit more and getting a whole extra core.

Even though I prefer Intel chips (because they’re better at the moment and probably will be for another good year or two), I definitely want to see more companies out there capable of challenging Intel.

Wall Street Journal: Microsoft Is in Talks To Buy Facebook Stake

Yahoo scoffed at buying Facebook for $1 billion and they were right to do so. Since Facebook is a private company it doesn’t disclose it’s revenue publicly but it was understood at the time that $1 billion was a rather large multiple of Facebook’s annual revenue. You can factor in things like their large growing user base, brand equity, and general mind share in the social networking space but how long can those things last? Can Facebook’s popularity be sustained long enough that it would actually earn a positive return for whoever invests in or buys the company at such a high valuation? I don’t think so but what do I know. I do think Facebook needs to cash in soon before the… *cough*bubble*cough* … pops.

Anyway, I’ve been really busy with work over the last 2 weeks; not much else going on at the moment. Not much time to blog.

I took a high level international trade class during my time at Cornell and I did surprisingly well in that class despite thinking a lot of the stuff would go right over my head at the beginning of the semester. (I had to take the class to fulfill a requirement). I will attribute this to good teaching - which is less common than you think in today’s institutions of higher education (even at Ivy League schools). This is an example of a class that translated to real world value. Admittedly you probably don’t have to take an international trade class to figure out how a falling dollar is good for exporters but I wouldn’t have even thought about this if I hadn’t taken the class. And now I understand the economic reasons behind it - and knowledge is always better than ignorance. Overall I’d say the class was actually really interesting despite it being a lot of economics and mathematical formulas because we read about a lot of real world examples. The Game Theory was also very interesting. If it were just definitions and formulas, obviously it wouldn’t be that engaging.

Now I digress.. it’s ironic how my best subject in high school (ah yes, the carefree days of high school..) was Math and then in college my worst subject was also Math. The difference was my level of interest. I mean I just completely hated math class (and this really started senior year in HS due to senioritis). Nowadays I barely even use multiplication - I mean that’s what calculators are for. Like when I’m at the gas station, you’ll see me punching numbers into my cell phone.. 15 gallons x freaking $3.499 equals..

P.S. I know June has been a very prolific month of blogging so far. I’ve been working a LOT this month and I guess every time I take a break, I blog.