ANOTHER month, another string of victories for Google, the world’s emerging internet superpower. On Tuesday April 17th, in the latest sign that Google has the upper hand over all its rivals, Yahoo! disappointed analysts with its first quarter results: profits were down by 11% to $142m. Google’s share of web searches keeps going up. It now executes more than 64% of all searches, according to Hitwise, a market-research firm. Yahoo!, its main rival, appears stuck at about 21%, and distantly third, Microsoft’s MSN continues its decline, to below 10%. With both the most popular search engine and the most efficient system for placing sponsored text advertisements, Google dominates the lucrative and fast-growing market for so-called “paid search” advertising (where advertisers pay only for actual mouse clicks).
Google’s grip is tightening elsewhere. Last week it said it would pay $3.1 billion for DoubleClick, the web’s largest broker between online publishers and advertisers for “branded” or “display” advertisements (paying for views rather than clicks). This segment is growing as fast as paid search. Google also struck a deal with Clear Channel Communications, America’s largest radio broadcaster, to sell airtime on 675 radio stations to advertisers in Google’s network. Earlier this month Google said it will place advertisements with EchoStar, a satellite-TV operator, and also with traditional newspapers. Google is thus launching an all-out attack on the entire advertising market.
In the process, Google is bashing Yahoo!. It, along with Microsoft and Time Warner, owner of AOL, had also bid for DoubleClick and failed. Terry Semel, Yahoo!’s boss, has suffered a string of strategic defeats, having been outbid by Google for a stake in AOL and for YouTube, the leader in online video. Moreover, Mr Semel had recently been trying to defend against Google in display advertising, while hoping to attack it in paid search. Traditionally, Yahoo! has placed text advertisements on its search pages based only on how much an advertiser bids for a given search term (or “keyword”, such as “mountain bikes”); Google takes other variables into consideration and so makes its advertisements more relevant to web searchers, thus earning more revenues.
In February Yahoo! launched a new advertising algorithm, called Panama, that is meant to close this technical gap, but there is scepticism that it can make much difference. Advertising systems do not ride on their algorithm alone but also on their network of advertisers and publishers. Google’s network, in paid search, is now so large that advertisers cannot afford to abandon it. So Panama may only prevent Yahoo! from falling further behind.
Mr Semel’s other defence is to use the growing fear of Google among “old-media” companies to engineer various alliances to contain the enemy. In March Yahoo!, along with MSN and AOL, signed on to a new partnership with NBC and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which intend to form a joint venture in online video to counter Google’s YouTube. Last week Yahoo! expanded an advertising alliance with Viacom, which is currently suing YouTube. And this week, Yahoo! announced a deal with a consortium of newspaper publishers to run their content on Yahoo!’s websites, and to place advertisements on the sites of the newspapers.
For MSN the picture is even bleaker. Online advertising is still a minuscule part of overall revenues but is still crucial to Microsoft’s growth strategy. So far Microsoft is failing. Sarah Friar, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, estimates that Google will make operating profits of more than $5 billion this year, which will grow by 36% for the next three years and Yahoo! will make $3 billion and grow by 20%. Microsoft’s online businesses will make losses of $2 billion, and more in the next two years. Microsoft’s nightmare scenario, however, is that Google will at some point disrupt its core business of selling shrink-wrapped software. Google recently said that it would add presentation software to the word processing and spreadsheets that it already offers free online.
Google may face a downside to its expansion, as Henry Blodget of Cherry Hill Research, points out. Placing advertisements on its own search pages gives Google profit margins of about 60%; placing advertisements on other web pages, such as blogs, yields margins between 10% and 20%. As Google expands into new segments, such as broadcast, its margins will probably keep declining, especially as new media partners are likely to give Google only “left-over” inventory. So Google is far from becoming a monopolist but it is, for the moment, far ahead of its peers.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
转载:一个黑社会分子的情书
……我不知道怎么说，但是我知道，再不说可能就没有机会了。昨天你的妈咪说要带你们转场，我警告她了，用我的拳头，还答应免了她这个月的保护费，她才答应把你留下。刚才老大打电话叫我去砍人，你知道那些四川人已经抢了我们几个档口了，这次一定要把他们清除，我不知道自己是不是可以活着回来……我可以做的也只有这么多的了，不要怪我，我是爱你才这么做的，你最近的生意不好，是我告诉手下的兄弟你的客人我要先看看是什么人，因为你以后还要陪我，我不想染上性病！如果你答应我，我明天就去戒毒所，我知道你也不想染上毒瘾！！ 在这个世界上，我们应该是绝佳的组合，你不会嫌弃我，我也不会厌恶你，我们都是明白人，你也知道我的势力人力物力财力智力还有你最看中的体力，我都是上上之选，还有最重要的一点：你是卖身的，而我是卖命的，你美丽而我威猛，我们再做一年半载，一起退出好了，去个陌生的地方，那里没有人在乎也不会有人知道我们的过去。我们在那里开始新的生活，不好吗？？我们都是没有办法才走到这条路上的；你已经做了几年了，你不厌倦吗？你养的那个小白脸花光了你的钱还甩了你，你还不明白只有我们才是讲义气的吗？对了，还是不说这些了，又勾起你的伤心了吧，对不起，我明白男人的痛苦和女人的乳房一样，越大越应该好好收藏………… 我知道你一直想批发自己，但是那些有钱人会对你好吗？我每天看你和哪些王八蛋一起我就有一种想杀人的冲动，如果再这样继续下去我想我会的。上次那个什么***经理虐待狂我已经砍了他几刀了，以后你要是不退出的话，我都很难保你，你知道那次的事我老大把我骂的很惨，下次再这样，老大会砍我的。我们的职业都不应该把感情放进来，但是我没有办法那么绝情，那天你的妈咪带你来试钟的时候我就知道了我完了，我的心动了，或许你不相信我，一个黑社会会爱上一个妓女吗？？你可能又在猜疑我和以往的你的那些罩场一样只是想尝鲜…… 我告诉你，我爱你，尽管这字眼很恶心，但是我不知道除了这个字还有什么可以描述我对你的感情，真的，没有你，我活不下去！！！！尽管在你之前我和好多女人说过这样的话，我向关二爷发誓，这次我是真的！你答应我好吗？我在遇见你之前，只知道做爱而不知道恋爱，只相信感觉而不相信感情，但是你出现了，活象电影中的情节，我迷上了你！小时候我过的很苦，我不说你也知道，那时有人告诉我“你长大了就好了，就会有一个女人爱你，她会关心你想你而你也会关心她想她……”那时我还不信，一直都不信，直到遇见你，我才知道，原来爱可以这么让人……对不起，我不知道怎么形容了。 刚才老大又打电话叫我了，如果我可以活着回来，你答应我吗？我想你会的，因为我知道比我好的人很多，但是没有人可以象我这么爱你，适合你，如果我回不来了，我的兄弟会把我的安家费给你，你去找个地方，开个小点的店，好好生活吧……
Monday, April 16, 2007
Investigating!The gunman from China
Authorities were investigating whether the gunman who killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history was a Chinese man who arrived in the United States last year on a student visa.
The 24-year-old man arrived in San Francisco on United Airlines on Aug. 7 on a visa issued in Shanghai, the source said. Investigators have not linked him to any terrorist groups, the source said.
Police believe three bomb threats on the campus last week may have been attempts by the man to test the campus’ security response, the source said.
The exits to the buildings where the shootings occurred were chained by the shooter, the source said.
Students complained that there were no public address announcements or other warnings on campus after the first burst of gunfire. They said the first word they received from the university was an e-mail more than two hours into the rampage — around the time the gunman struck again.
Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said authorities believed the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.
‘‘We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur,’’ he said.
He defended the university’s handling of the tragedy: ‘‘We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don’t have hours to reflect on it.’’
Steger said the university decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means of notifying members of the university, but with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out to everyone.
Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum would not say how many weapons the gunman carried. But a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was incomplete, said that the gunman had two pistols and multiple clips of ammunition.
The 24-year-old man arrived in San Francisco on United Airlines on Aug. 7 on a visa issued in Shanghai, the source said. Investigators have not linked him to any terrorist groups, the source said.
Police believe three bomb threats on the campus last week may have been attempts by the man to test the campus’ security response, the source said.
The exits to the buildings where the shootings occurred were chained by the shooter, the source said.
Students complained that there were no public address announcements or other warnings on campus after the first burst of gunfire. They said the first word they received from the university was an e-mail more than two hours into the rampage — around the time the gunman struck again.
Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said authorities believed the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.
‘‘We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur,’’ he said.
He defended the university’s handling of the tragedy: ‘‘We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don’t have hours to reflect on it.’’
Steger said the university decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means of notifying members of the university, but with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out to everyone.
Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum would not say how many weapons the gunman carried. But a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was incomplete, said that the gunman had two pistols and multiple clips of ammunition.
At least 30 students are killed by a gunman in a Virginia college
A massacre of at least 30 students in a Virginia college is the deadliest school shooting in American history.
ON MONDAY April 16th, a gunman killed perhaps as many as 32 people at Virginia Tech university, in Blacksburg, Virginia. In the way of the modern world, somebody with a mobile-phone camera was nearby to capture it. The shaky, grainy recording shows little, but the audio is telling. One high pitched shot after another rings out, erratically but quickly. Witnesses initially described an Asian-looking gunman of university age, who carried at least one, perhaps two, semi-automatic pistols, with lots of ammunition. At the end of the rampage he was dead, perhaps by his own hand.
This is the deadliest university shooting in American history. In 1999 two outcast high-school students killed 13 others and themselves at their school in Columbine, Colorado, setting off an anguished national debate about bullying in school, violence on television and other such topics. In the hitherto most famous university-based murder spree, Charles Whitman killed 16 people, mostly shot sniper-style from the top of a tower at the University of Texas, in 1966. He had a brain tumour that may have affected his behaviour.
This is the deadliest university shooting in American history. In 1999 two outcast high-school students killed 13 others and themselves at their school in Columbine, Colorado, setting off an anguished national debate about bullying in school, violence on television and other such topics. In the hitherto most famous university-based murder spree, Charles Whitman killed 16 people, mostly shot sniper-style from the top of a tower at the University of Texas, in 1966. He had a brain tumour that may have affected his behaviour.
No one knows yet what led the young man to slaughter so many at the quiet university in this sleepy western Virginian city this week. But there are sure to be recriminations about how the day was handled. At around 7.15 in the morning, someone entered a student dormitory and shot several people, killing at least one. Police rushed to the scene, and other students woke to the sounds of gunshots, sirens and police milling around.
Most of the carnage came two hours later, in a different building filled with classrooms. The police will want to know where the killer went in the intervening two hours. Parents and students will want to know why, with the gunman still at large, the university did not cancel classes. The university was only “locked down”—with students forced to stay in their classrooms and dormitories—after the second round of killings. Students sat, some reading the news wirelessly on their laptop computers and instant-messaging with loved ones, until shortly after noon.
And as is always the case after such a tragedy in America, many will point their fingers at the country’s lax gun laws. The laws vary from state to state, and in southern states like Virginia, they tend to be the least strict of all. In that state, no license or training is required to buy a handgun, and buyers can avoid background checks by shopping at gun-shows. An investigation of course will follow. But, at the least, some will question Americans’ comfort with the easy availability of deadly weapons.
Similar atrocities have happened in countries with much stricter laws—at Dunblane in Scotland in 1996 and in Erfurt, in Germany, in 2002. But such events, elsewhere, lead to the laws being tightened even further. Inevitably individuals set on committing violence find some way to act, but with such effective tools as automatic pistols available to do so quickly and efficiently, the toll may be higher. In a country already jumpy about terrorism, it is a sobering reminder of the nearness of death.
Most of the carnage came two hours later, in a different building filled with classrooms. The police will want to know where the killer went in the intervening two hours. Parents and students will want to know why, with the gunman still at large, the university did not cancel classes. The university was only “locked down”—with students forced to stay in their classrooms and dormitories—after the second round of killings. Students sat, some reading the news wirelessly on their laptop computers and instant-messaging with loved ones, until shortly after noon.
And as is always the case after such a tragedy in America, many will point their fingers at the country’s lax gun laws. The laws vary from state to state, and in southern states like Virginia, they tend to be the least strict of all. In that state, no license or training is required to buy a handgun, and buyers can avoid background checks by shopping at gun-shows. An investigation of course will follow. But, at the least, some will question Americans’ comfort with the easy availability of deadly weapons.
Similar atrocities have happened in countries with much stricter laws—at Dunblane in Scotland in 1996 and in Erfurt, in Germany, in 2002. But such events, elsewhere, lead to the laws being tightened even further. Inevitably individuals set on committing violence find some way to act, but with such effective tools as automatic pistols available to do so quickly and efficiently, the toll may be higher. In a country already jumpy about terrorism, it is a sobering reminder of the nearness of death.
UPS to build global air hub
United Parcel Service Inc, the world's largest package delivery provider, will build an international air hub in the city as the US freight company accelerates its expansion drive in China.
The hub, to be located in Shanghai Pudong International Airport and scheduled to open next year, will cover 96,000 square meters and will be able to sort 17,000 pieces of goods an hour by 2012, according to an agreement UPS signed yesterday with the Shanghai Airport Authority.
The new hub, with an initial investment of $20 million, "is a critical milestone in our goal to maximize our air network infrastructure in China", said Ken Torok, president of UPS Asia-Pacific. "It will connect China to international markets faster and more efficiently."
The hub will bring to four the number of UPS's regional air hubs in the Asia-Pacific, the president said.
The express delivery giant now has three hubs in the region in Hong Kong, Taipei and the Philippines.
The new project is the latest move by UPS to speed up its pace of expansion in China, where the logistics market is expected to grow rapidly.
The Atlanta-based company launched direct flights between China and Europe and added three flights between Shanghai and the US earlier this month.
It took direct control of its operations in China in 2005 after buying out its Chinese partner Sinotrans Air Transportation Co's 50 percent stake in a joint venture.
UPS, which has poured about $600 million into China over the past five years, "is committed to China and will continue to invest in China to enhance our transportation and distribution services", Torok said.
Leading international freight forwarders FedEx, TNT and DHL have all stepped up their expansion in China.
Germany's DHL has spent $315 million on express delivery and logistics infrastructure since it entered the country in 1984.
China's logistics market, which is expected to grow 30 percent annually over the next three years according to consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle, stood at 3.84 trillion yuan last year, said the National Development and Reform Commission.
The hub, to be located in Shanghai Pudong International Airport and scheduled to open next year, will cover 96,000 square meters and will be able to sort 17,000 pieces of goods an hour by 2012, according to an agreement UPS signed yesterday with the Shanghai Airport Authority.
The new hub, with an initial investment of $20 million, "is a critical milestone in our goal to maximize our air network infrastructure in China", said Ken Torok, president of UPS Asia-Pacific. "It will connect China to international markets faster and more efficiently."
The hub will bring to four the number of UPS's regional air hubs in the Asia-Pacific, the president said.
The express delivery giant now has three hubs in the region in Hong Kong, Taipei and the Philippines.
The new project is the latest move by UPS to speed up its pace of expansion in China, where the logistics market is expected to grow rapidly.
The Atlanta-based company launched direct flights between China and Europe and added three flights between Shanghai and the US earlier this month.
It took direct control of its operations in China in 2005 after buying out its Chinese partner Sinotrans Air Transportation Co's 50 percent stake in a joint venture.
UPS, which has poured about $600 million into China over the past five years, "is committed to China and will continue to invest in China to enhance our transportation and distribution services", Torok said.
Leading international freight forwarders FedEx, TNT and DHL have all stepped up their expansion in China.
Germany's DHL has spent $315 million on express delivery and logistics infrastructure since it entered the country in 1984.
China's logistics market, which is expected to grow 30 percent annually over the next three years according to consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle, stood at 3.84 trillion yuan last year, said the National Development and Reform Commission.
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