How Important Is SEO & online reputation management

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Making Internet Money

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managing your personal finance

Best Mobile Personal Finance Tool?

Earlier this year we took a look at best money management web sites, but often, tracking money on-the-go is just as important. What's your favorite tool for managing your money on the go?

Photo by Erik Hersman.

Whether you're using a mobile-optimized web site or an application specific to the iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and so on, we want to hear from you. What mobile money management tool makes it easy to manage your money when you're away from your computer?

Hive Five nominations take place in the comments, where you post your favorite tool for the job. We get hundreds of comments, so to make your nomination clear, please include it at the top of your comment like so: VOTE: Mobile Personal Finance Tool. Please don't include your vote in a reply to another commenter. Instead, make your vote and reply separate comments. If you don't follow this format, we may not count your vote. To prevent tampering with the results, votes from first-time commenters may not be counted. After you've made your nomination, let us know what makes it stand out from the competition.

About the Hive Five: The Hive Five feature series asks readers to answer the most frequently asked question we get: "Which tool is the best?" Once a week we'll put out a call for contenders looking for the best solution to a certain problem, then YOU tell us your favorite tools to get the job done. Every weekend, we'll report back with the top five recommendations and give you a chance to vote on which is best. For an example, check out last week's Five Best Resources for Free Games.

Send an email to Jason Fitzpatrick, the author of this post, at jason@lifehacker.com.

Best Mobile Personal Finance Tool?

Earlier this year we took a look at best money management web sites, but often, tracking money on-the-go is just as important. What's your favorite tool for managing your money on the go?

Photo by Erik Hersman.

Whether you're using a mobile-optimized web site or an application specific to the iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and so on, we want to hear from you. What mobile money management tool makes it easy to manage your money when you're away from your computer?

Hive Five nominations take place in the comments, where you post your favorite tool for the job. We get hundreds of comments, so to make your nomination clear, please include it at the top of your comment like so: VOTE: Mobile Personal Finance Tool. Please don't include your vote in a reply to another commenter. Instead, make your vote and reply separate comments. If you don't follow this format, we may not count your vote. To prevent tampering with the results, votes from first-time commenters may not be counted. After you've made your nomination, let us know what makes it stand out from the competition.

About the Hive Five: The Hive Five feature series asks readers to answer the most frequently asked question we get: "Which tool is the best?" Once a week we'll put out a call for contenders looking for the best solution to a certain problem, then YOU tell us your favorite tools to get the job done. Every weekend, we'll report back with the top five recommendations and give you a chance to vote on which is best. For an example, check out last week's Five Best Resources for Free Games.

Send an email to Jason Fitzpatrick, the author of this post, at jason@lifehacker.com.

Source:http://removeripoffreports.net/

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Apple shares have dropped after the announcement that CEO Steve Jobs is taking some time off to deal with medical issues. Shares of Apple fell 6.45% immediately after markets opened on Tuesday morning, but quickly made up about half of ...

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Apple stock dips on <b>news</b> of Steve Jobs&#39; medical leave | VentureBeat

Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox ...

personal finance programs

On Monday, I linked to this op-ed from Tom Esvlin, Vermont's "stimulus czar," lamenting the way the money got spent. "Although I'd like to think Vermont did better than many states, much of the money ended up continuing bloated programs rather than providing a transition to a sustainable future," he wrote. That same day, Brookings' Gary Burtless e-mailed in a rebuttal that's worth quoting at length, as it's a very clear description of where the stimulus funds actually went, and why such a small percentage was directly devoted to building things. So here it is, with some edits for space:

The main problem with that silly op-ed is that it refers to only a small slice of the actual federal spending on stimulus authorized by the Feb. 2009 legislation. So far, the overwhelming share of that stimulus has been devoted to three items: Tax cuts for households; direct benefits to people adversely affected by the severe recession, mostly the unemployed or poor; and fiscal relief to state and local governments. Vermont did not need any "Czar" to receive or administer funds under these programs. The money for them quickly left the U.S. Treasury without any effort on the part of the Czar who penned this highly misleading op-ed piece. People in Vermont *directly* received benefits from the stimulus as: (1) lower federal tax withholding from their paychecks; (2) extended unemployment benefits; (3) premium subsidies so they could maintain their health insurance after they were laid off from a job in which they received health protection; (4) miscellaneous benefits (e.g., for college costs) under one provision or another; and (5) aid from the Treasury that permitted Vermont and its localities to finance their Medicaid and K-12 education programs without hiking taxes or lowering other public spending. The kinds of infrastructure spending for which the WSJ's "Czar" had some responsibility constituted a small percentage of the stimulus the Congress authorized for 2009 and 2010.



In FY 2009 and 2010, the EXPECTED spending on infrastructure and other items for which the Vermont “Czar” may have had partial responsibility accounted for just 11% of anticipated spending under the stimulus legislation. The other 89% had nothing to do with the programs criticized by Vermont’s supposed Czar. Thus, all of his complaints – even if justified – are essentially irrelevant to the programs mainly supported by the stimulus law … at least so far. Obviously, in the years 2011-2019, that kind of stimulus spending would have accounted for a vastly larger share of outlays. But (and perhaps Vermont’s Czar has not kept up with this because he does not read a daily paper) the Congress just passed and the President just signed ANOTHER stimulus program consisting of more than 90% personal and business tax cuts and less than 10% extensions in unemployment benefits. So far as I know, very little additional spending has been authorized for those hated infrastructure / technology investment projects. Below is the CBO’s year-by-year analysis of the spending authorized under the Feb. 2009 stimulus law:

My own private view is that the country would probably have been better off if *MORE* of the original stimulus had been devoted to infrastructure / technology investment (more of it would have been spent on goods and services produced in the U.S. rather than China, East Asia, and Europe). Setting aside that consideration for a minute, what infuriates me about the piece cited in your blog is that it reinforces the very widespread but totally erroneous impression that Congress and the Administration were unaware of the administrative hurdles to fast spending that the “Czar” points out in his op-ed. Those hurdles were understood from the very beginning, which is precisely the reason that infrastructure/technology investment projects constituted such a small percentage of the total package. It is perfectly legitimate to criticize the pace of spending on these projects, but it is utterly deranged to think that the slow rate of spending on the projects constitutes a serious indictment of the spending authorized under the Feb. 2009 stimulus program. Very little of the expected spending under the stimulus program (at least so far) was supposed to be devoted to those projects.

A Pennsylvania startup Viridity Energy drew a series B investment of $14 million from Braemar Energy Ventures and Intel Capital, the company reported today.

Founded in 2008, Viridity Energy offers “distributed demand management software, systems and services,” that can turn very energy-consuming businesses into producers and sellers of power back to the grid. Viridity’s technology can also help companies get paid to control and reduce their energy consumption.

The company’s customers to-date have been retailers, hospitals, universities and various military and government agencies. In Philadelphia, Viridity set up systems for the transit authority (SEPTA) that capture energy released by braking, electric subway trains, and store it in rail-side battery arrays, routing the power back through the third rail to reuse it for trains’ acceleration.

Yep, electricity can be recycled.

SEPTA reported that the project cut expenditures directly. It also allowed SEPTA to get credits and incentives from the regional power authority for decreasing energy use during peak hours, and in general. The company plans to bring similar systems to other cities and transit systems in the U.S. this year.

Viridity Energy’s chief executive and president Audrey Zibelman said on Tuesday:

“We’re moving from an [energy] industry dominated by large-scale generation where customers are passive to one where customers are active in what they consume, and what they produce. First, there were personal computers. Now we’re going to personal energy.”

Her company plans to work as a “technology agnostic, market enabler,” she said. Its focus near term is to develop more, “micro-grids” in the northeastern U.S., California and Texas — all regions with aggressive goals to switch from hydrocarbon to renewable energy sources, or to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Its new-found capital will go towards hiring technical and sales talent to get new projects going, Zibelman said. Her company will also continue to build partnerships with other smart-grid and distributed energy players, such as the manufacturers of control systems, or banks and energy programs that finance solar, storage and power generation assets.

Free rental agreement forms on line cheap

Science <b>news</b>

Science news snippets Herpes target - UK scientists have used solution-state NMR spectroscopy for the first time to develop ...

Apple, <b>News</b> Corp delay The Daily&#39;s debut | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Apple, News Corp delay The Daily's debut. Find more Apple news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

<b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s iPad-only newspaper, The Daily, delayed, reports say <b>...</b>

The Daily, the iPad-only newspaper from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., is being delayed a few weeks, according to the Associated Press. The digital paper is still working out subscription details, the AP said.

Making Money From the Internet

Last night just before 12 a.m., Twitter began exploding with the news: Facebook had raised $500 million — from Goldman Sachs. Bolstered by a $50-million stake from Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies, a previous FB investor, the Wall Street behemoth had slapped down $450 million to snag the Internet behemoth — now valued at a cool $50 billion. As if on cue, the internet noted that yes, that was cooler than a million dollars.

Notes the NYT’s Dealbook, which broke the scoop: this makes Facebook “worth more than companies like eBay, Yahoo and Time Warner.” It also doubles Mark Zuckerberg’s multi-billion-dollar worth. It also makes Goldman Sachs the gatekeeper to who now gets to invest in the super-hot Facebook, and to the inevitable Facebook IPO. According to Dealbook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin and Evelyn Rusli, Goldman is “planning to create a ’special purpose vehicle’ to allow its high-net worth clients to invest in Facebook, which would allow for max investment while circumventing disclosure rules for companies with 500 or more investors. Clever, that.

So: This is a big deal. Everyone’s already saying that this is putting Google even more on the ropes (seeing as now Facebook is the most visited website in the land) and that Goldman couldn’t be sitting prettier. Here are a few other things it means:

(1) Facebook hiring spree! To paraphrase Antoine Dodson, hide your startups, hide your engineers — Facebook’s a-comin’. Snapping up Hot Potato and Drop.io? Poaching Foursquare’s Nathan Folkman? That’s nothing compared to what Facebook’s got coming. Rumor has it they’re about to close on purchasing the Sun Microsystems campus in Menlo Park from Oracle. That’s probably not just for the scenery. They want to stock up, preferably with talent – and, importantly, companies – that will help it integrate across every platform possible. (I’m guessing one of the new buzzy photo apps will be snapped up.) If you think people are complaining about a developer shortage now, just wait.

(2) China! Mark Zuckerberg recently returned from a trip to China. Innocent pleasure jaunt for the Mandarin-speaking Facebook founder or connection-making relationship-building fact-finding mission to the land of 450 million potential users? China is certainly not an easy place to do business — they just kicked out Skype — but in a globalized, connected world, it’s certainly tough to ignore. Approximately 33% of its massive population is online and as we all know from the rest of the world, that is growing. It’s an insane market to ignore and smart, Mandarin-speaking audacious visionary CEOs probably aren’t going to shy away from trying. Facebook China. It’s gonna happen.

(3) Goldman’s PR Whitewash The Vampire Squid just attached itself to the buzziest, growing-est, Oscar-nominated-est, Person Of The Year-iest tech company around. Who will remember their year of scandal and record bonuses and how everyone hated Goldman Sachs (sample Gawker headline: “Who do you hate more, BP or Goldman Sachs?“). Goldman’s not there for you to like them, people, they’re there to make money — lots of it. But they did have a bruising year and being attached to the shining future-makers at Facebook (never mind the gatekeeper to the Facebook IPO) will certainly help. This lets them offer something shiny to their clients, and bask in that reflected glow. (And guaranteed cashola.) That doesn’t fool the people who know — I like Howard Lindzon’s take:

For Goldman Sachs, this is a no lose situation. If it works, they get the IPO and make some money. That is their job. They got off so easy with the government that this is like Vegas money they probably thought would be the taxpayer’s at some point a year back…The only thing I DO know is that Goldman could give a rat’s ass about the social web and sharing. If they are the top in social web, it’s small potatoes. The war in bonds, currencies and commodities is where the real money is at. This is play money. I hate that Facebook is letting them in.

This is not a coup for Goldman Sachs, this is a shame for the social web.

Okay I lied. I love Howard Lindzon’s take. So, maybe Goldman’s got an uphill PR sell. But — they’ve also got Facebook. Watch the narrative change.

(4) Bigger Players, Bigger Bets When Lindzon points out that this is small potatoes for Goldman, he’s not kidding. But now the bigger fish are sniffing around and what started as mutterings about a bubble somewhere in the late fall now seems to be turning into a gold rush. (Doesn’t Google and their adorable $6 billion offer for Groupon seem so quaint right now? Never mind Twitter’s recent $3.7 billion valuation.) These are billion-dollar figures, and they are actually now starting to sound…eensy. As Ray Kurzweil points out, when technology advances it does so exponentially — so it makes sense that the explosion of tech startups would chicken-egg in conjunction with an explosion of investor dollars — not just the usual (and educated!) suspects, but people on the sidelines reading about Facebook in their Time magazines and deciding that maybe the Internet’s not a fad, after all. (Yes. These people do exist, and many of them have a LOT of money.) High valuations, big deals, young companies getting scooped up — it’s gonna be a dizzying year.

(5) Sympathy For The Google. It’s official: Facebook has gone from underdog challenger of the mighty Google to the top social-tech dog. So watch for everyone to start rooting for Google again. After a wave of backlash (see here and here), the pendulum will swing back around to rooting for the loveable search giant with the cuddly name. Google can take your pity – its market valuation is almost four times Facebook’s at $190 billion, and its current year revenue is about $22 billion to Facebook’s $2 billion. Back to Lindzon: “I think that Google has to buy Twitter and that will start to be a meme soon. It’s a chess game and nuclear war now in the social space.” That sound you hear is the sound of the tech press collectively wetting itself. Ew. But still — everyone likes to root for an exciting matchup. Expect to see some bold moves from Google, soon — if they’re smart. Big “if” (RIP Google Buzz). But isn’t that how underdogs like it?

(6) New Facebook Ad Models. All that said…Facebook has made a big point about how it hasn’t really focused on the silliness of “making money” yet, despite that $2 billion annual rev and nearly 1 trillion display ads per year. I believe them — can they really not do better than targeted ads for Jewish singles in your area? You bet they can: They also make a point about knowing every little bit of information about you for the ultimate in micro-targeting. The online ad industry is evolving and innovating right along with the rest of the web (see AdKeeper) and the key to dominating going forward will be data — using it wisely to convert your users into dollars for advertisers. This is where smart technology will take user data and figure out how to map it on top of shopping data, so that purchasing intent can best be harvested. The stigma about buying online has now pretty much disappeared. With more people using the web, and mobile devices, more often do run more of their lives, there are big bucks at stake. And I’m not even TALKING about how Facebook is looking to horn in on search.

(7) New Facebook Business Models. They have all these users. All this data. They’d be crazy just to stick with what they’ve got. Hell, now they’ve got fun money just to fling up into the air and see where it goes. They’re poaching the best and brightest who all gush on and on about how “exciting” and “creative” and “free” it is. Clearly these people are getting to work on some fun stuff. So far Facebook has shown itself as adept at replicating the innovations of its competitors (see: Foursquare –> Facebook Places). But with all the resources at their disposal and innovations happening across every industry on every platform, they’d be nuts not to at least test the waters. Hey, that car’s not gonna drive itself. Oh, wait.

(8) People Generally Freaking Out This has already started to happen. First Groupon (“What? But they AREN’T EVEN A TECH COMPANY!!!”) and now Super-Sized Facebook. Entrepreneurs and founders and people with fledgling ideas that are half-built that they’ve been slaving over at night are obsessing about all day are suddenly freaking out that they have to get to market NOW before the bubble pops and the money dries up. Chill out, dude. (And, ladies!) If you’re making something of value, it’ll take. Just focus on it, be smart, and don’t let Twitter and TechCrunch freak you out. (Here, take some advice from these people.) Just a moment of Zen amidst the craziness. All right, now – onward! It’s 2011 and YOU’D BETTER NOT SCREW THIS UP. Haa, just kidding. Mostly.

Well: It should be interesting. Happy New Year, everybody!

Related:

Goldman’s Facebook Coup [Felix Salmon - Reuters]

The Social Web Index … All-Time Highs in Pressure and Price and Shame on Facebook [Howard Lindzon]

Was Goldman wise to invest $500m in Facebook at a $50B valuation? [Quora]

Goldman Sachs Just Bought The Facebook IPO [Business Insider]

Follow Rachel Sklar on Twitter here.

Illustration of Mark Zuckerberg as Avatar-ized Time Person of the Year from Sandbox World (via Boing Boing) (hat tip: Bnter).

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Business cycles and the essence of long-run economic growth are distinct issues. Preventing recessions is not the key to growth, as these are regrettable but unavoidable companions to an economy directed by a capital allocation process that is susceptible to systematic failure. Preventing the last failure is pretty irrelevant, because the next systematic failure will be different. Last I checked, only the US government is offering low-down payment loans, and no one offers no-documentation loans, so our government is not really helping here. As for creating growth via something new, if centralized governments could do that, the Soviet Union would still be around.

That decentralized, self-interested, people can collectively make such large errors seems irrational or corrupt to many, but they should remember that growing economies require people to be making things better, which means, new ways of doing things. New ideas are often wrong. Economics has gone onto intellectual cul-de-sacs many times (socialism, Keynesian macro models, input-output models, Hilbert spaces in finance, Arbitrage Pricing Theory, Kalman-filter macroeconomic models, etc.). Other scientific disciplines have their own mistakes, and political mistakes--stupid wars--are also common. These are rarely conspiracies, but rather, smart people making mistakes because the ideas that are true, important, and new, are really hard to discern, and tempting ones are alluring when lots of other seemingly successful people are doing it.

My Batesian Mimicry Theory posits that recessions happen because certain activities become full of mimics, entrepreneurs without any real alpha who got money from investors looking in their rear-view window of what worked and focusing on correlated but insufficient statistics. For example, people assumed a nationally diversified housing prices would not fall significantly in nominal terms, because they had not for generations; people assumed anything related to the internet would make them rich in the internet bubble, conglomerates would be robust to recession in 1970, that the 'nifty fifty' top US companies had Galbraithian power to withstand recessions in 1973, that cotton prices would not fall in 1837, etc.

As in ecological niches, there is no stable equilibrium with when mimics arise to gain the advantages of those with a real, unique and costly, comparative advantage. Every so often there are too many mimic Viceroy butterflies, not enough real poisonous Monarch ones, and a massive cataclysm occurs as predators ignore the unpleasant after-effects and start chomping on all of them. The Viceroy population grows until this devastating event occurs, a species recession. Next time, it won't happen in butterflies, but rather, among frogs or snakes. They key is, some ecological niche is always heading towards its own Mayan collapse (distinct from the 2012 Mayan apocolypse).

The key to wealth creation is doing less with more--destroying jobs at the micro level and creating jobs at the macro level by reallocating capital and labor to more valuable pursuits. The computer got rid of things from typesetters, secretaries, to engineers working with slide-rules, but these people didn't stay unemployed, they did something else, making the economic pie bigger. This is antithetical to government and unions who think creating a permanent 'job' creates productivity--stability at the micro level and stagnation at the macro level. Wealth is created by having decentralized decision-makers focused on simple goal of making money, which means, they oversee transactions where revenues collected are greater than expenses paid. If externalities are properly priced (I know, most liberal think this never happens), this implies value is created. The continual improvements in method (ie, productivity, wealth creation) merely maintain profits in a competitive environment; to do nothing would see their profits eaten away by competitors would could easily copy what they did and just undercut their prices.

The key to this is having managers who keep their workers focused. A good example is a story I heard second-hand about a football player for Minnesota Vikings in the 1970s. Coach Bud Grant called this marginal player into a meeting, and said, 'Here's what I need you to do...'. The player, an articulate fellow quite confident in himself, interrupted with an explanation of why he wasn't doing better and suggestions about how to correct it, mainly focused what others were doing wrong. Grant cut him off: 'You don't understand. This isn't a negotiation. Do what I'm telling you, and you have a role here. Otherwise, you don't.' Hierarchies only work well when people have clearly defined goals, and managers who manage their direct reports singlemindedly.

Private firms can do this much more quickly and often than government, and are rewarded with investment and retained earnings to the degree they do it well. When the government wants to do something, like build a light-rail system, it instead satisfies all its stakeholders who have no financial downside, only veto power, and so the cost/benefit calculus is almost irrelevant. The probability that benefits will outweigh costs when not prioritized is negligible, as highlighted by the fact that companies have to work very hard to make this positive when all those other considerations are ignored.

Thus, Minneapolis's light rail, at the cost of $1.1B for 12 miles of track, takes me longer to go downtown than a car because it stops 19 times at places no one wants to go because these 'hubs' were then sold as development opportunities, and an unusual number of ex-city councilmen are part owners of coffee shops and stores near these stops. Ridership does not even cover their marginal costs. It could have worked if they had an express train that went non-stop from end to end, but doesn't because it was not designed with the goal of making money, only the hope.

Good companies like Facebook, Apple and Google, have this sense of really understanding their users. Lots of simple things that making going to their sites and getting what you want. Their inferior competitors are relatively ugly, cluttered, and clunky. These generally weren't genius ideas like the ideas needed to create the first transistor, or Cantor's diagonal argument, in that there competitors had similar raw competence in these field, but it did take people looking to do things better than others, and decisive people who could empathize with their customers created really great things.

Robin Hanson had a neat article about the Myth of Creativity, where he criticizes Richard Florida's vision of bohemian lead productivity:

This is a Star Wars vision of innovation: "Feel the force, Luke; let go of your conscious self and act on instinct." And it is just as much a fantasy as that celluloid serial. Innovation is no more about releasing your inner bohemian than it is about holding hands, singing Kumbaya, and believing in innovation.

In truth, we don't need more suggestion boxes or more street mimes to fill people with a spirit of creativity. We instead need to better manage the flood of ideas we already have and to reward managers for actually executing them.

Sure, it's good to punish fraudsters, and be wary of the stupid ideas that were passed off as brilliant in the prior cycle (eg, Angelo Mozilo winning the American Banker's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006, celebrated by politicians on the right and left, prized by Fannie Mae, and Harvard, is now an example of the 'unregulated predatory private sector'). But this is like learning not to put one's hand on a hot stove--good to know, but old news to most. Our priority at the top level should be to get out of the way, and so government should focus on its essential but limited perennial tasks as opposed to creating some new engine of growth. Leave that for the millions of people making sure millions of small changes are constantly made to daily procedures. Such changes do not require vision from politicians, subsidies, or tax breaks, but are rather the natural by product of people trying to make a buck. It's the standard Hayek/Friedman view of macroeconomics, and it's still the best description of how the complex adaptive system of our economy works.

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Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

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Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

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Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

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Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

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Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

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Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

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Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

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Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Keira Knightley is Single and Other <b>News</b> - The Superficial <b>...</b>

We only had to go back six years to find find a photo of her not looking like Gollum.) - The paparazzi ruined Keira Knightley's relationship. - Wendy.

Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about?

Making Money on Line

Seriously? This is the question of the day? When people are still voicing serious and legitimate concerns about the rest of the economy? We're talking about a company with enough money in the bank to make a Goldman Sachs-sized investment in Facebook if it wanted to, more than triple the amount Dell had in the bank at the end of the last quarter, plus more than five times the amount HP had too, while we're at it.

Let's look at a number for a minute: Apple has 51 billion dollars in cash. That's 51,000,000,000 bucks. Or, approximately the amount of money it takes to fill a vault-slash-swimming-pool. Who has that kind of money these days and didn't get it via government bailout? Apple, that's who. What is its secret? It made that money the old-fashioned way, by selling new-fashioned things.

In a time when few companies are profitable and everyone's excited about a flat line since it isn't a downward curve, Apple is making money iHand over iFist. One could presume from this that analysts and others who watch CNBC professionally would be excited about a company with growth and profitability in the current climate. However, that's not the case.

Remember when Apple wasn't doing well? Those bygone days when people may have actually believed the name of the company was "Beleaguered Apple Computer?" Well, once Uncle Steve made his return in 1996, that started to turn around. Apple Computer started making things that start with "i," and in 2001 with the launch of the iPod, Apple was officially cool again. You know, unless you were an analyst on Wall Street, in which case Apple wasn't cool, it was just less lame than before. But seriously, have you seen what sort of stock prices Dell and HP have these days? Now those are tech companies.

I call shenanigans! Now, instead of being impressed with profitability, the question is "Oh sure, you're all profitable, but can you stay that way?" Apple hasn't proven that yet? Explain to me how making ANY money in a time of unprecedented financial volatility is something that gets played down. What will it take before Apple gets a fair shake? A brand new device that sells a million units in three months? Try two and a half. A new version of the same thing released a year later, how long did that take to sell a million? Three days.

Find and replace "Apple" with a non-tech company in some of these articles and see if it still makes as much sense. Just the iPhone product line by itself is bigger than Coca-Cola, but Apple still gets dismissed like this?

Someone needs to have a little heart-to-heart talk with some of these guys. Apparently they've all had their heads down in their BlackBerrys for so long that they don't realize it's cool these days to carry around something Designed In Cupertino. Clearly a lot of other people have figured it out -- what's stopping Wall Street from seeing the light?

Fragmentation. Curation. Recommendations. Take your pick: Android is getting all three, compliments of a new Amazon-run application marketplace due to launch later this year.  Today, Amazon has launched the developer-facing part of the store, inviting devs to submit their applications so that they’re ready when the app store is ready for its consumer debut later this year (Amazon isn’t giving a firm date on the full launch). The developer portal is at http://developer.amazon.com.

We reported on this impending news back in September, so it isn’t a huge surprise. But it’s going to bring some very interesting dynamics to the way Android applications are purchased and distributed. In some senses, this is the Android equivalent of Apple’s App Store — even more so than Google’s official Android Market.

I spoke with Aaron Rubenson, category leader for Amazon Mobile Services, and

Ameesh Paleja, general manager for the Engineering Division of Mobile Services, about the new store, and it clearly has the potential to be a big deal.

First, some background for those who don’t follow Android too closely. All Google-endorsed Android devices ship with the Android Market, along with a suite of other Google-made applications like Gmail. Android Market is a lot like Apple’s App Store with a few key differences: it doesn’t have an approval system, so developers can quickly submit and iterate on their applications. It also tends to have a lot of junky applications that Apple would reject — things that crash on launch on certain devices, or apps with that occasionally have features that don’t work as expected. While Google’s terms do require descriptions to be accurate, the general attitude is to let the market decide what works, and it surfaces the top rated applications (most of the time) while letting the junk sink.

Amazon is taking an approach that is more in line with Apple’s. Developers who wish to appear on Amazon’s store have to get approval (Amazon says that the process is currently taking about a week). And Amazon is going to have slightly more stringent guidelines: your application has to work properly (i.e. it can’t crash right off the bat) and it has to do what you say it does. It also has to be safe. Android Market has many of these same requirements, but the difference here is that Amazon checks apps before they’re deployed to its store, while Google does so after problematic applications are reported.

However, unlike Apple’s screening policies (which were largely a mystery for years and are still pretty wishy-washy), Amazon says it’s going to take a more liberal stance as far as what’s allowed on the store. Porn and illegal apps are not allowed, but your satire apps should be okay. And developers won’t have to make any changes to their .apk files, either — it sounds like you can upload the same ones to both Google’s and Amazon’s marketplaces (neither has any exclusivity requirements).

The biggest departure from the mobile app stores we’ve grown accustomed to involves pricing. Unlike Apple’s App Store and Android Market, where developers can set their price to whatever they’d like, Amazon retains full control over how it wants to price your application. The setup is a bit confusing: upon submitting your application, you can set a ‘List Price’, which is the price you’d normally sell it at. Amazon will use a variety of market factors to determine what price it wants to use, and you get a 70% cut of the proceeds of each sale (which is the industry standard). In the event that Amazon steeply discounts your application, or offers it for free, you’re guaranteed to get 20% of the List Price.

The bottom line here is that Amazon will be offering discounts on some applications (possibly making them much cheaper than the same application on Android Market or elsewhere). That sounds like it could be a recipe for frustration for some developers, but Rubenson and Paleja say that they’re going to do everything they can to maximize the amount of money developers make, and that sometimes that involves adjusting pricing. They also say that Amazon has an incentive to keep developers happy — and that developers can remove their apps from the store with ten day’s notice. We’ll have to wait and see if the system works.

So why, aside from these pricing differences, would consumers want to use this Amazon App Store at all? There are a few answers to that question.

The first is that there are manufacturers making Android devices that decide not to partner with Google to offer the official suite of Google applications (including Android Market). Amazon is happy to offer their store to these manufacturers, and it will work on any Android device version 1.6 or up. So if, for example, Facebook releases its own flavor of Android down the line, they could include Amazon’s App Store.

Reason number two: Amazon says that it can offer recommendations using the technology that already exists on Amazon.com. This includes the obvious example of showing applications that are similar to each other, but Amazon will also be looking for correlations between physical products and apps — it might start recommending a popular baseball app to someone browsing for a baseball bat, for example. And it’s going to be promoting these applications as users browse Amazon.com.

Amazon says it’s premature to talk about what the store itself will look like, but they did share a few details about the consumer experience. First, payments unsurprisingly will be done using Amazon’s one-click payment system (which already has tens of millions of credit cards on file), though developers can integrate whatever transaction system they want into the app itself.

Customers will be able to browse through applications from their phone or on Amazon.com using their desktop computers, and they’ll be able to ‘send’ applications they buy to their mobile device. This sounds similar to what Google showed off at Google I/O, but with one minor caveat: the apps won’t actually be pushed and installed immediately, it sounds like you’ll have to fire up the Amazon application to do that.

So how will people actually get access to this Amazon marketplace from their Android device? This is going to prove a bit tricky for some users — Amazon will offer a walkthrough instructing users on how to do this, but it will require you dig into the settings menu on the device and allow installation from “Unknown Sources”. It’s easy to find if you know what you’re doing, but it sounds a bit scary. However, Amazon is also in talks with various partners, and we’ll likely be seeing plenty of applications shipping with the market pre-installed.

Now, Amazon isn’t the only company that’s making alternative Android App Stores — Verizon is also doing one of its own, and there will surely be more to follow. But Amazon is in a position to establish itself as the de facto non-Google App Store — and that could prove to be very important. As Kevin Marks wrote recently (and we discussed further), Android is going to increasingly fragment into flavors that aren’t as closely tied to Google, and we’ll start seeing more alternative versions of the core ‘Google Apps’. Amazon’s App Store would fit in nicely as one part of this alternative suite.

This will also bring pricing battles over the same applications into the equation (which hasn’t really been possible when app distribution is monopolized by a single storefront). And, yes, it could lead to some user confusion, though Amazon has a strong incentive to keep this as straightforward as it can.

Make no mistake — this isn’t going to replace Google’s Android Market by any means. Google’s store will have better international support for some time (Amazon is US-only at launch) and it will still be shipping on plenty of phones by default. But given how many Android devices are going to be out there in the near future (they’re activating over 300,000 a day), there’s certainly going to be enough customers to keep more than one store in business.

I asked a few times about timing for the consumer launch but couldn’t get anything more specific than “this year”. However, the team did say that the mobile storefront is being built with tablets in mind, so my guess is that we can expect this to launch after Android tablets running Honeycomb are on the market (which will probably be around April or later).

I asked the Amazon team how Google felt about the launch — there was an audible chuckle, and they said something about Android being on an amazing growth trajectory and that they were fond of its openness.

Reached for comment, Google gave this statement:

Android is an open platform – and entities other than Google are free to create their own content and marketplaces, much like the web.

I bet they’re thrilled.

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Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...

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Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...

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Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...

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Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...

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Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...

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Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Masturbation Excuse FAIL - Epic Fail Funny <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

ABC <b>News</b> Chief Open to Bloomberg Partnership - NYTimes.com

The new president of ABC News says the door remains open to some form of future partnership with Bloomberg News.

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill - Shira Toeplitz <b>...</b>

Joseph and Vlad, the victims in the violent home invasion earlier this week, spoke to the Mercury News on Friday on the condition that their last names not be used. They told publicly for the first time their terrified, ...