1. Terry Semel is kicked out of office at Yahoo. After a $70mm+ compensation package last year, I doubt that he really cares. It seems that Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch isn’t too sad about the move. I guess he thinks the world is run by the valley (I’m not sure that he’s very wrong).

2. Entrepreneur has some useful stats about the 14 - 34 crowd. I find myself in 3 of the categories and I’ll let you guess which ones. Actually, the self-publishing one should be a dead giveaway.

3. The NY Times reports that growth in online sales continues to slow. While it’s still well above overall retail growth, we should start getting used to single and low double digit sales growth. Does anyone wonder why the NY Times is always at the top of the Technorati news links list? I think it’s a fix.

4. As the dollar weakened against other major currencies, NYC is no longer among the Top 10 world’s priciest cities. Moscow is now the reigning king (I guess Vladimir Putin has done something right). I’m still left wondering why they’re analyzing it on a relative basis. I live in NYC and it’s still pretty damn expensive. The last time I checked the dollar is worth a dollar. Nothing more, nothing less.

5. Oil prices rise to a 9 month high of $69 a barrel. It’s getting pricey, and since one can almost predict seasonal trends nowadays, we’re in for a long and cruel summer. Especially for those of us that drive to work. Yet, refinery capacity doesn’t change and Congress is doing nothing substantial about it. No matter what they say.

Does this remind you of someone in your office?

It’s no secret that the web has opened up many opportunities to make money from the long tail. Ebay, Google, and Facebook have done a great job in taking advantage of this philosophy. The cold and huddled masses that may have been cast away by the giants of industry in a prior era, are being embraced and coddled by the giants of today.

After all, it’s all about letting the little man be successful, allowing the entrepreneur to strike it rich, and giving the consumer the customization that he demands. Screw the masses. That stuff is for the old plodding giants of yesteryear like GE, Pfizer, and ExxonMobil. “Would you like premium or regular sir?” That type of customization doesn’t work anymore and if you try to create a business that operates along those lines, it just won’t work.

A while back, I promised that I wouldn’t comment on Facebook until the din had died down. Since Facebook made the announcement on May 24, it’s been a few weeks and we’ve all had time to think about it and ponder. Even before the concept of the social platform, Facebook had done a great job of reaching out to the masses. By starting with a well-defined niche, it had been commended many times over for its strategic success in capturing the college social networking market and then opening up to the broader community of web users.

Facebook then announced that it was opening up its platform to allow widgets that not only could be placed on the page, but would be promoted from within Facebook and would be allowed to utilize internal Facebook apps through an Open API. Amazing! Especially, since this is exactly the opposite of how the very successful, but waning, MySpace has approached the market landscape from a strategic perspective. I suspect that the folks over at MySpace are pulling a few all-nighters trying to figure out how to open its services in an API.

Pronto!

What happens to Facebook?

It now calls itself a “Social Utility” and has 305 applications (some Facebook created apps are included in that number), with the most popular app being used by over 5.5mm users. Amazing!

Here’s a quick breakdown of the Top 10 apps:

Top Friends: Save time and show your friends some love. Add a box of up to 24 of your BFFs to your profile. Now they are one click away, you don’t have to search every time you want to go check up on them. Now the question is… who is in your top friends box?

iLike: iLike lets you add music to your profile and find your favorite concerts (not to mention see who else is going!). Bonus: Use it to get free mp3’s that match your tastes and try to beat your friends at the Music Challenge.

Fortune Cookie: Is he the one? Does she have a crush on you? Should you take that job? The Fortune Cookie knows and tells all. May all your fortunes come true. (Zero MSG.)

Horoscopes: Whats in store for you? Will today be the day? Find out by adding a RockYou horoscope to your page and get updates every-other-day covering all zodiac signs.

Graffiti: Graffiti lets you draw on your friends’ profiles. As simple as that.

X Me: Tired of just poking? X me opens up a whole new world of action-based communication, for example ‘Hug Her, Slap Him, Tickle Them!’

Movies: Rate & review movies, share reviews with friends and meet over 14 million other film fans already on Flixster.

SuperPoke!: Why just poke when you can pinch, hug, tickle, pwn or even throw sheep?

Mobile: The Facebook Mobile application allows you to view a stream of the latest content your friends have uploaded via Facebook Mobile. It also provides a phonebook view of your friends, and allows you to subscribe to your friends’ mobile content.

Free Gifts: Allows you to send gifts for free! Gifts will be added constantly!

Enjoy!

Back on May 08 of 2007, Paula posted a list of blogging salaries that took the world by storm. At least the blogging world that is. While I’m sure it was missing many, many salaries and included a few individuals who purists would not consider pure bloggers, it still provided an interesting, somewhat comprehensive, and thought provoking list. Since I commented on that article, Paula decided to email me and see if I was willing to share my blogger earnings. I promptly responded that if making $10 a month was enough to get me on the list, I’m ready to divulge the info to the general public (actually if you read my post about my first month of writing a business blog, you’ll see that I had close to 1000 visitors, but didn’t even mention the dollars and cents).

In reality, my earnings were not $10, but $5.58. This was about what I expected and let’s just call that a rounding error Another proof that blogging is not a money-making endeavor, but hopefully a career-promoting one…

In any case, Paula was nice enough to let me know that this would make the list and I am happy to send traffic and two links her way. Her blog is a great read and I’ve looked through each and every post. I’m sure that she does the same when it comes to my blog.

Thanks Paula!

While the Frisbee has officially been around since the early to mid 20′th century, it seems that today is the 50′th anniversary of the frisbee name. Every entrepreneur out there would love to create a product with the same lasting power in the minds, hearts, and elbows of people around the world.

Walter “Fred” Morrison originally named it the Pluto Platter. It seems that 50 years ago, Wham-O Inc. changed the name and created a sensation. Interestingly enough the use of this name is still restricted and the company continues to send legal notices to various infringing manufacturers. This brings up a whole other issue of when should a trademark cease to be a trademark: A trademark is protected for as long as it continues to be in use. I can understand that. But how about when it reaches the common lexicon and is used for any brand of product, generic or actual?

We’ve seen a ton of words that have lost trademark status. Some of the more interesting ones include Aspirin, Crock Pot, Dry Ice, Escalator, Heroin, Tabloid, Tarmac, Yo-Yo, and Zipper.

Shouldn’t Frisbee join this distinguished list?… and Scotch Tape.

Then we could let Apple create the iFrisbee. Evidently, it changes songs with the severity and accuracy of the throw. If you throw it while you’re looking at the target, it tells you to “Think Different.” Then Steve Jobs starts humming a nasty tune

Here, give it a whirl…

In the past, I’ve toyed with ideas to avoid the expiration date on gift cards and, of course, the potential business concepts to capitalize on those ideas. While the gift card business is a tough one, it’s growing hyper-fast and has a tremendous pool of dollars associated with it. With annual expenditures on gift cards exceeding $40bb, its ripe for some kind of market or exchange where trading and selling can occur.

A whole host of niche exchanges have started and while some may say they’ve seen moderate success, I’d say they haven’t seen great success. These include CardAvenue and Plastic Jungle. Ebay remains the king in this category (as it does in most), and for some reason continues to dominate the competition.

So my thoughts always ran along the following lines: The interesting thing is that a $25 gift card is not really worth $25 to the card owner if it’s going to languish in his bottom drawer. An arbitrage opportunity is born because of the mispricing of this asset. You would think that there is a market opportunity to go ahead and buy a card at a discounted price and then flip it to someone who is more motivated to actually use the card.

Great arbitrage!

The issue with this line of thinking is that once the person is willing to sell you his card, he becomes a motivated seller and can go to any of the above exchanges and/or use the card himself.

Another lost arbitrage opportunity?

Not if it has expired. My Money Blog has a great thought on the process of avoiding expiration. While I’m not sure how legal it is, it seems that there are laws prohibiting expiration in seven states (California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Washington). Ship your card to an individual in any of these states and they can claim a new one.

Now, that’s an arbitrage!… and one that I expect CardAvenue and Plastic Jungle are going to look to take advantage of.

… and soon!

For anyone who has flown recently, you’re likely well aware of the restrictions regarding flying with liquids. It obviously affects every facet of personal hygiene, from lens solution to deodorant to toothpaste. Of course, when I was traveling to Norway I didn’t realize that it affects food as well. Yes, the TSA confiscated my kosher version of peanut butter, jelly, and mayonnaise. I’m sure it ended up in the local TSA kitchen cupboard, smothered over a couple of great tasting wholewheat sandwiches.

Of course, my initial story doesn’t compare to what I saw on the reverse trip (on the layover in Amsterdam). I was walking through security and the two teenagers in front of me proceeded to empty their bags of about 7 bottles of vodka and whiskey. I asked the security agent who gets to keep them. With a stern face, he completely ignored me, opened the bottles, and poured them into the local recycling bin. If I hadn’t been there, I’m sure he would have given someone else a stern face, turned around and put all the contraband in the local Amsterdam kitchen cupboard. To be used for late night excursions, etc…

Where’s this leading to?…

Entrepreneur posted about this new invention called the Senicon. Evidently, its being used in Japan, Switzerland, China, and Laos to detect explosive liquids through electromagentic waves. I’m still wondering if my peanut butter would have fit in that tiny slot. I guess I’ll just never find out…

Damn TSA

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the use of alternative means to save energy and potentially save a few bucks. Certainly, this has been a very popular trend amongst the liberal elite and I don’t expect it to go away anytime soon. In fact, as I’ve mentioned before, I expect that it will eventually become economical for all of us to partake in the alternative energy action.

Astartupaday had a great comment on how Google could do something for the planet, but I suspect that if Google switched to a black background there would be many more suicides and cases of depression. People would leave in droves, be forced to use Yahoo search, and hate every minute of it. In other words, it would be bad for business.

But how about the amplification of power… what do I mean? If we can amplify sound, shouldn’t we be able to amplify power? Plug the converter into the outlet and make 1 kilowatt into 2. That would be something that can really change the planet…

… and our home exhaust