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Posted
Oct 20 2009, 03:53 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Price cuts work. In September, Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 outsold the Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii for the first time in recent memory.
Industry research firm NPD said that the video game industry, which includes both consoles and games, had sales of $1.28 billion in September, up 1% from a year ago.
Sony shipped 491,800 PS3 units in September, moving ahead of Nintendo’s Wii which shipped 462,800 units, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 which dropped to third place with 352,600 units shipped.
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Posted
Oct 14 2009, 07:41 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Michael Jackson's upcoming new album, "This is It," will undoubtedly be a smash. But Apple (AAPL), the No. 1 music store in the country, may miss out on the whole thing.
Apple's iTunes store won't be offering downloads from the album, reports Digital Music News, citing confidential information it received. The double-disc album releases on Oct. 26 worldwide, and Oct. 27 in North America. Michael Jackson's albums soared to the top of the charts after his death earlier this year, and it's safe to assume Apple would jump at the chance to offer "This is It." So what happened?
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Posted
Oct 08 2009, 03:46 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon (AMZN), is being praised as the man who has invented the next big and important electronic device.
That category includes the Sony (SNE) PlayStation 2, the Apple (AAPL) iPod, and the Nintendo Wii. The iPod has sold 200 million units worldwide. That, in the nomenclature of the electronics industry, makes it a once-in-a-generation success, a truly mass market product.
Bezos lowered the price on the Kindle to $249 from $299, and Amazon will release a version this month that can work over wireless networks in 100 countries. There is some compelling research that says people will not pay more than $200, or even $100, for an e-reader. That has not prevented Sony and Barnes & Noble (BKS) from entering the e-reader industry. Rumors are that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (NWS) will come out with a product of its own.
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Posted
Oct 07 2009, 11:48 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article is written by Minyanville's Mike Schuster
Gourmands, harried fiancées, and dentist office waiting rooms were struck a blow on Monday when publishing giant Condé Nast announced the closure of four of its popular magazines after severe drops in ad revenue.
Elegant Bride and Modern Bride will be ceasing publication as well as the soccer mom handbook Cookie. Gourmet will be shuttered at the release of its November 2009 issue, but will live on with TV programming and online recipes.
See also, Who Needs Newspapers Anyway?
The closures see roughly 180 employees laid off and a collective circulation of more than four million issues stripped from shelves and mailboxes.
Despite the dedicated readership each magazine held, the publications were at the mercy of a three-month study by the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. After its analysis, McKinsey advised several Condé magazines to cut 25% from their budgets, but no amount of cost-cutting initiatives was able to save the aforementioned few.
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Posted
Oct 02 2009, 08:19 AM
by
InvestorPlace
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 This article was written by InvestorPlace.
Disney (DIS) wants to get children and their parents interested in reading online. Disney Digital Books is the latest in what is becoming a long line of hardware and content companies, including Amazon (AMZN), Barnes and Noble (BKS) and Sony (SNE), that hope to get readers to throw away newspapers, magazines, and hard and soft cover books. Bing: Disney Stock
In the place of traditional media will be “print” products that can be read on the web or on news readers like the Amazon Kindle, Sony’s new e-reader and products from Barnes & Noble and several other content distribution firms.
Disney’s approach is slightly different from Amazon’s. Disney assumes that children will read from a PC screen. The company bills Disney Digital Books as a "cutting-edge way for children to experience the joy of reading in a robust and safe interactive environment."
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Posted
Sep 30 2009, 03:48 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
A devilishly clever new Trojan virus that works over the Internet can hack into bank accounts while people are online and take money without being noticed.
According to CNET, the Trojan, dubbed "URLzone," has features "designed to thwart fraud detection systems which are triggered by unusual transactions.”
The new program takes online fraud to a new level. And that should cause significant alarm among consumers. It appears that the experts who create the Trojans have made them so advanced that they will soon be able to get into credit card and brokerage accounts, which could cause a nationwide disruption of the financial system and drive people away from online banking. Financial firms have counted on increasing numbers of people to use the Internet for their transactions which save the banks money on retail locations and tellers.
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Posted
Sep 23 2009, 04:06 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon (AMZN), is known for being eccentric, but his new handset offer may be taking that act a bit too far. Cell phones using the AT&T (T) wireless network were selling on Amazon yesterday for one penny each. If the program is a success it is likely to come back.
The only product not available at the remarkable price is the Apple (AAPL) iPhone.
The purchase of the phone must be made with a two-year AT&T wireless subscription. The phones also come with free two-day shipping.
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Posted
Sep 22 2009, 04:02 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
DVD sales are flagging and rentals are up -- news likely to be unwelcome at the major movie studios. The Digital Entertainment Group announced that in the first half of this year, DVD sales fell almost 14% to $5.4 billion. DVD rental revenue rose 8% to $3.4 billion.
While kiosk operator RedBox and DVD mailer NetFlix (NFLX) are a large part of the rise in rentals, it is Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) that really crush studio DVD sales.
Revenue for online stores was up 21% for the period to $968 million. At that rate of growth and the drop in DVD sales, Apple and Amazon have become essential to studio revenue and a real danger to premium DVD profits.
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Posted
Sep 15 2009, 01:30 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article is written by Minyanville's Kristen Graham
As one of the few freestanding electronic retailers left standing, I’ve found myself warming up to Best Buy (BBY) lately. See, Best Buy is a retail winner. This morning, the company released second-quarter results have further piqued my interest in the company.
The retailer missed earnings estimates as profits fell 22%. But total revenue rose 12%, boosted by the 170 new European stores it opened over the last year. And domestic sales increased 2% -- a solid figure in my mind as positive sales growth is pretty rare in the retail space these days. See Also: Best Buy boosts full-year forecast More importantly though, inventory fell 6.1%, positioning the company to enter the holiday season with a lean balance sheet. And market share soared 2% as its formerly crippled rival Circuit City is no longer in operation and current competitors just don’t offer as impressive of a selection of merchandise.
Despite increased traffic flow, the average ticket fell. This comes as no surprise as consumers simply don’t have the funds to make larger purchases right now. The key point here, though, is that consumers are still going to Best Buy for their electronic needs. Sure -- they may not be making purchases as large as they once would have, but they're still going or switching to the big-box retailer when they need electronic goods.
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Posted
Sep 03 2009, 10:00 AM
by
InvestorPlace
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 This post was written by Jim Woods for InvestorPlace.
There are those who accuse retail giant Wal-Mart (WMT) of being the ultimate predator. They swoop down onto small-town America gobbling up defenseless mom-and-pop retailers, or so the narrative goes. Now, Wal-Mart is testing the waters with a much more formidable opponent, and this one’s replete with piranhas and anacondas. Yes, Wal-Mart is taking on Amazon (AMZN).
On Monday, Wal-Mart announced it would launch an updated online commerce site, offering nearly 1 million items. What’s really interesting is that this store will offer products not only from Wal-Mart stores, but also from a number of outside retailers. Named the “Wal-Mart Marketplace,” the new online commerce site will offer products in a variety of categories including home, baby, toys, apparel, sporting goods and even sports memorabilia. The company’s partner retailers include eBags, CSN Stores and Pro Team.
Hmmm...sounds a lot like Amazon's business model when they branched out from books years ago. Sounds a little like eBay's (EBAY) business model, too.
Bing: Do you love or hate Wal-Mart?
Now, those of you who read my recent post about Wal-Mart know I am a big fan of the company, not just from a business perspective, but on moral grounds. The retailer provides millions of people around the globe access to low-priced goods -- and by extension creates wealth via the low-price savings dividend we all benefit from. They also provide millions of jobs for people around the globe. But I think Wal-Mart’s real virtue lies in the fact that the company continues making solid profits.
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