“A former ATM software designer for a large bank, Demeter created ‘Trism’ in his spare time and pitched it to Apple last spring. The company made the game available for download with the July launch of its App Store, an online provider of applications for its iPods and iPhones. Priced at $5, ‘Trism’ earned Demeter $250,000 in profits the first two months. ‘It’s done phenomenal business,’ said Demeter, 29, who lives in the California’s San Francisco Bay area. ‘I’m very honored that so many people would enjoy my game. I get e-mails from 50-year-old ladies who say, ‘I don’t play games, but I love Trism.’ That’s the coolest thing.’” [Link]
“The $52 billion acquisition, announced in November, creates a new entity, Anheuser-Busch InBev, which immediately becomes the world’s largest brewer, with a brand stable that includes Budweiser, Bud Light, Stella Artois, Beck’s, Michelob, Busch, Brahma and many other brews. ” [Link]
“Yahoo announced that Yang, 40, will step down as CEO and return to his former role as “Chief Yahoo.” The company’s board said it has hired headhunter Heidrick & Struggles to find a replacement. Yang has come under fire for his inability to turnaround the company in his past 17 months as CEO. During his short tenure, Yahoo has had two major rounds of layoffs and has seen its search market share shrink significantly while a series of reorganizations led to the departure of senior executives. Yang was heavily criticized by Wall Street and shareholders for failing to reach an agreement to sell the company to Microsoft.” [Link]
“Citigroup Inc revealed plans to cut 52,000 jobs by early next year in a dramatic move to restore the No. 2 U.S. bank to health as it combats mounting debt losses and sagging economies worldwide. The reductions announced on Monday by Chief Executive Vikram Pandit will affect 15 percent of Citigroup’s work force, and are in addition to 23,000 jobs eliminated between January and September.” [Link]
“Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been charged by the SEC with insider trading relating to Mamma.com. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Mark Cuban insider trading charges stem from and allegation that he sold shares of Mamma.com prior to a private offering.” [Link]
“According to an anonymous and unverified insider tip, Circuit City is closing 155 stores and withdrawing. This will be officially announced tomorrow at 8am, says our source. The tipster says that store employees were told this morning. No information was provided at that time about severance pay.” [Link]
“JellyCloud, a Redwood City, Calif.-based targeted ad network, closed its doors this month after raising $11.5 million in venture-capital funding earlier this year. Adzilla, a similar network in San Francisco, also ceased operations. San Francisco-based AdBrite, which was founded in 2002 by Internet entrepreneurs Philip Kaplan and Gidon Wise and has raised a total of $35 million in funding, recently cut 40% of its work force to make itself profitable.” [Link]
“Microsoft Corp. said Tuesday that regular PC users will be able to test out a “beta” version of Windows early next year. Windows 7, the forthcoming operating system, will let users choose to see fewer alerts and warnings from their computers.” [Link]
“A widely watched survey by the private Conference Board, which dates back decades, plunged to its lowest point on record in October as Americans complained about fewer jobs and smaller incomes and ratcheted back plans for major purchases like cars and appliances. Americans also say they believe the economy will worsen before it improves — a sign of deep pessimism that reflects a year of painful declines in stocks, jobs and home values. ” [Link]
“A third of U.S. workers say they have called in sick with fake excuses at least once this year, according to a survey released on Wednesday. One in 10 said they skipped work to avoid a meeting, buy time on a project or avoid the ire of a boss or colleague, the survey found. It was conducted by Harris Interactive for CareerBuilder.com, an online jobs site.” [Link]
“News that world leaders will hold a crisis summit shortly after the US presidential election next month did little to stem apparent panic selling, spurred by worries that the worldwide economic slowdown will only get worse.” [Link]
“With a shot of the ‘big board’ on Wall Street present on the screen almost continuously for the hour, showing the Dow down 514.45 points, Cavuto paraded out a who’s who of capitalist pigs who preached to the crowd about how we’re going to hell in a hand basket if Obama wins. These guys are freaked out and that their robber baron days might be coming to an end.” [Link]
“Merck also said that it will cut 7,200 jobs by the end of 2011 to lower costs, with 40% of the reductions coming from the U.S. Merck also will cut its number of senior and mid-level executives by about 25%. As of Sept. 30, Merck had about 56,700 employees.” [Link]
“Yahoo announced plans on Tuesday to lay off at least 10 percent of its workforce, some 1,400 employees, as the weak economy cut deeply into third-quarter profits at the struggling Web company. Yahoo said net profit for the third-quarter of the year was 54 million dollars, or four cents per share, down from 151 million dollars and 11 cents per share during the same period of 2007.” [Link]
Playboy Playmate picture
“In a filing with the SEC last week, Playboy revealed that it is planning to dump the production of its bunny-laden soft core DVDs and concentrate on producing content for online viewing instead. ‘We will continue to deliver more of our content digitally, using our assets across multiple distribution platforms and adding more a la carte offerings,’ CEO Christie Hefner (yep, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s daughter) wrote in a memo to employees. ‘Given the declines in the DVD market, we will exit that business in phases over a few months to concentrate on selling that content online.’ ” [Link]
“The Sunnyvale, Calif., Internet company is expected to disclose the cost cuts as soon as Tuesday, when it reports quarterly earnings, say people familiar with the matter. The cuts will involve layoffs, among other things, these people say.” [Link]
“A tipster tells us that Yahoo plans to cut 3,500 jobs, chiefly in sales and finance, on December 10 — while keeping plans for a multimillion-dollar holiday party days before the cuts” [Link]
“Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Craig Moffett tells the The Wall Street Journal that amidst economic turmoil, sales of HDTVs seems to be suffering. While there are no specific stats for HDTVs, Moffett points out overall sales in electronics were down 14 percent year-over-year in September. Best Buy revealed a 2 percent drop in same-store sales in September, after it had been predicting 4 percent growth during that period.” [Link]
“General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC have held preliminary talks about a merger or an acquisition of Chrysler by GM, according to published reports Saturday. The Wall Street Journal, citing people it described as familiar with the discussions, said Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm that owns 80.1% of Chrysler and 51% of GMAC Financial Services, proposed trading Chrysler’s automotive operations to GM. The Journal said Cerberus would receive GM’s remaining 49% stake in GMAC.” [Link]
“Tokyo’s Nikkei index briefly tumbled more than five percent, dropping below the key 10,000 points level for the first time in more than four years on fears that government efforts to end the crisis may be too little, too late. Across the region dealers’ screens were awash with red as markets suffered heavy losses in the wake of steep falls in the United States and Europe.” [Link]
“‘If the [iTunes music store] was forced to absorb any increase in the … royalty rate, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss - which is no alternative at all,’ Cue wrote. ‘Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate [the iTunes music store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably.’” [Link]
Kendra Wilkinson picture
“Tycoon Hugh Hefner has been advised to cut back on staff at his multi-million dollar glamour empire as it struggles to cope during the global economic turmoil. The 83-year-old has been told to lay off some of his staff at his Los Angeles and New York offices as soon as this month or go bankrupt. ” [Link]
“The sources said Citigroup Inc and Wells Fargo & Co are among the parties in talks with Wachovia, the sixth-largest U.S. bank by assets. The New York Times said the two companies were locked in a bidding war for a possible takeover of Wachovia, citing people involved in the talks.” [Link]
“Walmart began selling DRM-free tracks in its music store in August of last year. 13 months later, the mega-corp has decided to follow the footsteps of so many others and hit the kill switch on its DRM management servers.” [Link]
“The closing represents the demise of what once was the largest U.S. thrift but came to symbolize many of the worst excesses of the mortgage boom. Federal regulators said WaMu has suffered an exodus of $16.7 billion in deposits since Sept. 15, leaving the Seattle thrift ‘with insufficient liquidity to meet its obligations.’” [Link]
“During the first day of its release Sept. 2, Google Chrome rocketed to 1% of the market, Net Applications said. Since then, the upstart browser has fallen to 0.77% as of last week, with the losses shared evenly between IE and Firefox. ‘A bunch of people gave it a quick try, and its share has been sliding ever since,’ Vince Vizzaccaro, executive VP of marketing for Net Applications, told InformationWeek. ” [Link]
Wynn Las Vegas picture
“Vegas barreled through previous U.S. economic recessions with no problem, but the current slowdown — marked by home foreclosures and then high gasoline prices — has had a much bigger impact on the gambling mecca than economists expected. And while free rooms and room discounts have kept hotels relatively full — occupancy is down just 1 percent in the year to July — gambling revenue is down 6.5 percent.” [Link]
Google G1 picture
“US telecom carrier T-Mobile is slated to unveil on September 23 a ‘Google phone’ built by Taiwanese firm HTC and to have the device for sale in stores as early as October. Google is hoping Android will become the dominant operating system for mobile phones. It is designed to improve the speed and quality of using the Internet on handsets.” [Link]
“‘First, there must be no blank check when American taxpayers are on the hook for this much money,’ Mr. Obama told supporters at an outdoor rally in downtown Charlotte. ‘Second, taxpayers shouldn’t be spending a dime to reward C.E.O.s on Wall Street while they’re going out the door.’” [Link]
CNBC Anchor Maria Bartiromo picture
“Through the first three days of the week, half a million viewers have been watching CNBC during the business day, nearly double the number that watch on an typical day. On Monday, the network drew an average of 488,000 viewers between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m.; on Tuesday, that average grew to 523,000, the network’s biggest audience since 2001; and on Wednesday, the number only dipped slightly, to an average of 495,000.” [Link]
“Morgan Stanley sought shelter from the growing financial storm Wednesday, entering preliminary merger talks with Wachovia Corp. and other banks as a seventh straight decline in the company’s share price sent the stock to its lowest level since 1998. After a harrowing day, Morgan Stanley’s shares finished down $6.95, or 24%, to $21.75. Goldman Sachs Group, the largest U.S. investment bank by market value, also fell $18.51, or 14%, to $114.50.” [Link]
“‘It looks very much as if this matter will … be sent to the WTO at the end of the commission’s investigation,’ Lode Van Den Hende, outside counsel for the Remote Gambling Association, told reporters as EU officials were in Washington to probe U.S. Justice Department enforcement actions.” [Link]
“The New York Times, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter, said an auction of the bank was already under way, and The Wall Street Journal reported Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. expressed interest in a takeover.” [Link]
“In an attempt to reduce the risk to the financial system should the fourth biggest firm on Wall Street file for bankruptcy, rival banks with positions in credit, equity, interest rates, foreign exchange and commodity contracts were allowed to trade in a two hour window even though the US financial markets were shut. If Lehman goes bust it will be one of the biggest failures in Wall Street history.” [Link]
CNBC Rebecca Jarvis
“The latest plunge came after reports that Lehman’s efforts to secure a strategic investment from Korea Development Bank, a deal Lehman has been pursuing for months, had failed. Worries about Lehman renewed concerns on Wall Street about the financial sector, pushing the overall markets lower. The Dow Jones industrials were down more 280 points or 2.4 percent just before the close. The broader Standard & Poor’s 5000-stock index was down 43.27 points, or 3.4 percent, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 59.95 points, or 2.6 percent. Bond prices jumped as investors sought safety.” [Link]
“Why doesn’t News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch just make it official? His wife, Wendi Deng, serves as ‘chief strategist’ for MySpace China, the media conglomerate’s Internet outpost in her homeland. MySpace China CEO Luo Chuan has just quit. Just promote her already, Rupert!” [Link]
“The move to take control of the two companies, which may be announced Sunday, could amount to the largest financial bailout in the nation’s history, and is a bid to ward off further damage to the U.S. housing market which is in its deepest downturn since the Great Depression. ‘I think all shareholders will be disadvantaged,’ Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, told Reuters.” [Link]
