One after the other the big tech companies have come out with record breaking profits. Apple, Google, Amazon, and now Microsoft have smashed earnings sending stocks soaring. Apple for the first time broke the $100 per share threshold and Amazon’s stock has gone up a whopping 40% since Tuesday. Microsoft is already up 5% today which isn’t bad for a stock that has been dwindling since the beginning of the year. All of this growth in the tech industry makes me wonder how long this can go on for. The other lesson learned from all of this is that it is acceptable for tech companies (primarily Google and Microsoft) to release products that aren’t complete. Google has left Gmail in beta since its inception and Microsoft released an operating system that had significant flaws. Yet still both companies continue to experience rapid growth, not bad.

Many have predicted that the current tech boom that we’re experiencing is going to come to a halt once Google misses or meets estimates. I’m not quite sure that I fully agree with that given that Google, Microsoft, and even Apple are all sitting on fairly hefty sums of cash. Either way, now is a great time to be in the tech industry.

Cause and effect? Probably. WebMD hasn’t made any significant changes in years, and then comes along Revolution Health who launched their beta over 3 months ago and has made a significant number of changes in the meantime. Most notable for Revolution Health’s website is their combination of social media and valuable health information. Revolution Health is also a leader in the development world when it comes to Ruby on Rails. If you take a look at some of the videos featured on their blog, there are some pretty slick features that have been added. Drag and drop capabilities have been added for placing custom modules on the homepage as well as your own custom health pages. Revolution is positioned to go head on with WebMD, and at the current rate they will surely end up the victor unless WebMD rapidly adopts a new strategy. While it is an exciting time for the health care industry on the web, The New York Times highlights that it will take years for Revolution to become the dominant brand in the industry.

According to the Wall Street Journal (and Macworld.co.uk), EMI will announce today that they will offer much of their music via Apple’s ITunes store DRM free. Less than two months after Steve Jobs “Thoughts on Music” it looks like changes are actually beginning to occur. I was fairly skeptical about anything coming of Steve Jobs’ manifesto but apparently I was wrong. This will truly be a massive experiment for the record label given that there could be an increase in piracy activity as a result.

The Wall Street Journal also emphasizes the potential benefit gained by Apple from a move toward the removal of DRM:

EMI’s decision, if it’s followed by other major recording companies, could also lessen growing political pressure on Apple by consumer rights organizations in several European countries, including Norway, that want to see Apple make its digital music products, iTunes and the iPod, work with songs and hardware from other companies.

I personally support the movement though and hope that this is only the first in a series of steps toward a DRM-free world.

An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal this morning discussed Google’s loss of a suit filed against them by a Belgian newspaper. While the Belgian newspaper has won a large settlement (€3.45 million and counting), this is a dumb move by a newspaper company. As traditional newspaper companies face declining revenue, they will need to begin to shift their focus to their web based offerings. Both the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have successfully embraced the web. If you check out Techmeme on a daily basis, you are just about guaranteed to see a New York Times or Wall Street Journal article on the page. Why? These companies have realized that by posting buzz worthy news on their sites, bloggers will discuss and link to them. In turn both their reader base and ad revenue increase substantially. I guess the moral of the story is that old media is much slower to adapt to the new media landscape. That’s good news for us bloggers because we’re the ones filling the void.

Steve Jobs posted this month’s manifesto titled “Thoughts on Music”. Jobs outlines three alternatives for the future of digital music:

1. “The first alternative is to continue on the current course, with each manufacturer competing freely with their own “top to bottom” proprietary systems for selling, playing and protecting music. It is a very competitive market, with major global companies making large investments to develop new music players and online music stores.”
2. “The second alternative is for Apple to license its FairPlay DRM technology to current and future competitors with the goal of achieving interoperability between different company’s players and music stores.” Jobs goes on to explain why this alternative is not a good choice because there will ultimately be leaks in the DRM secrets making it more difficult for Apple to maintain its stability.
3. Abolish DRMs. Jobs then goes on to explain all of the reasons why DRM is a dumb system. These reasons included the fact that “In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves.”

While I think this statement by Jobs is a positive statement, it does little to express what action should be taken by both Apple, other companies, and consumers to remove DRM. Ultimately, this piece was a move by Jobs to effectively remove Apple from the DRM debate. He is asking for Europeans primarily to “rise up” against the mighty record label titans and force them to remove the DRM chains. Ok Europeans …… go! Poor Apple is at the mercy of the big record labels, so they need the consumers to go do something about it. I’ve already seen what it’s like when the consumers protest DRM, and I doubt much will come out of such movements (although I hope something does). Let’s see Apple do something about it.

Earlier today Yahoo launched it’s new search marketing system, “Project Panama”. In contrast to Google who mixes advertiser bids and ad relevancy to determine ad placement, Yahoo strictly relied upon advertiser bidding as to how high an ad was placed in search results. This is only one change coming from the new Panama. Additionally, Yahoo is introducing a new interface, making it easier for advertisers to place ads.

Is this going to help Yahoo significantly? While I think more advertisers will be likely to try out the new Panama, it isn’t going to have much of any impact on the volume of users searching via Yahoo. I know from a first hand experience how difficult it used to be to place ads on Yahoo. You would have to literally talk to someone on the phone prior to your ad being approved. Additionally, to make minor changes to your ad campaign, you had to often times get on the phone with an advertising representative. Overall, I think the system will increase Yahoo’s ability to monetize their traffic in addition to increasing their overall advertising volume (if the system is as great as Yahoo claims it to be). On the other hand, not much will change in terms of absolute visitors to the site. While this is a huge step in Yahoo’s quest to turn around the company, it is only a first step in the long quest to success.

According to Crunchgear there is a Zune phone in the works. Apparently, it will be a smart phone that doesn’t run Windows mobile. Instead it will utilize an interface similar to the existing Zune interface. Correct me if I’m wrong … hasn’t Zune been a pretty big flop so far? I can understand being second to market with phone that consists of a Mp3 player, cell phone, camera, and internet browser, but shouldn’t it be built from scratch or piggy back on a more successful product?

Conversely, there is a pretty good chance of Microsoft taking what Apple has created, and making it better. The phone market is definitely a good opportunity for Microsoft to take some market share, especially considering the iPhone hasn’t even entered the mobile industry yet. Microsoft would enter the market within six months of Apple entering, versus the large amount of time Microsoft waited prior to entering the MP3 market. One could argue that the Microsoft Zune had more difficulty entering the MP3 player market since Apple already had a huge market share, with the successful IPod line. If the rumor is true, this could turn out to be an interesting rivalry.

That’s what you will be reading in the newspaper tomorrow after Google smashes earnings after the bell today. Look for the stock to hit $550. Currently options are priced for an 8% swing in the stock price after earnings are announce. I’m guessing that the volatility might be even a little higher. Either way, this will be exciting news. Based on the charts that I’ve seen which show Google’s market share in comparison to Yahoo and MSN, Google ate a huge chunk of their competitor’s market share. Good luck guys!

Update
So it looks like my forecasts were wrong, at least partially. Although Google smashed earnings, the stock price did not perform as much as I had expected (and apparently it didn’t perform as options players had expected as well). Valleywag seems to think that it’s because the market is concerned about the day Google just meets earnings. That will cause the stock to tank. Well, I’m a strong Google supporter, but I guess the market has finally become rational about this stock.

Today Microsoft Vista was officially launched for consumers. Let’s get excited! Not. I’ll be receiving my Vista upgrade from Dell in the next few days, but the odds of me installing it are fairly low. Why? Well I just read six good reasons not to upgrade over at PcWorld. The main reason that I’m not upgrading: Microsoft is already working on service pack 1 to fix existing bugs. When Microsoft XP came out, there was the same problem of having a bunch of bugs. Once Service Pack 1 was released, XP finally was stable. Additionally, you better have a new computer if you expect to run Vista with at least 2 Gigabytes of RAM and fast processor. Finally, you can still continue to use Windows XP without being concerned about lack of support. PcWorld says, “Microsoft has committed to at least seven more years of XP support, and even plans a Service Pack 3 next year.” So, I know I won’t be upgrading to Vista immediately, you might want to think about holding off as well.

With the announcements of Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton forming exploratory committees last week on the web, it seems as though much of the 2008 Democratic Presedential campaign is going to be played out on the web. With hundreds of thousands of bloggers covering each and every move of the candidates, it is probably a smart move by the candidates to make announcements via the web.

Two days ago, Hillary Clinton took advantage of Yahoo Answers to ask the people about health care. Hillary asked “Based on your own family’s experience, what do you think we should do to improve health care in America?” Since then there has been almost 35,000 responses and there is still 11 days left to answer.

New web technology provides a forum for candidates to interact directly with the people. This is truly great press for Yahoo Answers, further extending their lock down on the online answers market. While I don’t imagine Hillary Clinton reading 35,000 responses (and I’m sure it will be astronomically higher by the time the question ends), it is great to see candidates embracing new technology.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is working on a deal to buyout the video game advertising company Adscape. This news follows in step with Google’s entry into radio advertising. Additionally, there are rumors that Google is discussing an agreement with CBS that would enable them to broker TV and radio advertisements. What does all this mean?

It looks like those responsible for company ad placements are going to eventually have a much easier job. I (and I’m sure Google as well) envision a system in which you are going to be able to monitor an ad’s effectiveness all from one location. Additionally, you will be able to control your advertising portfolio all from one control panel. This is pretty cool not only for those within the marketing division of large organizations, but also those responsible for managing the marketing of small businesses. There are already web based solutions for purchasing tv ad spots, and the rates are pretty reasonable. When I checked out the price of tv ad spots on Spot Runner I found a range of rates from $9 for a 30 second spot on the Travel Channel in Salem, Oregon, to $431 for a 30 second ad placement on HGTV in Brooklyn, New York.

In the whole scheme of things, it is pretty obvious that Google in not only trying to shake up the advertising industry with their extremely successful AdWords system, but also aiming to provide advertising managers with a single control panel to manage all of their advertising. While this shift is going to take some time to occur, there are some pretty big steps being made. Although video game advertising may not be the biggest step for Google, it is an important move in their quest to become the leader in advertising brokerage.

If you have been reading the news recently, you would have heard that Time magazine is laying off almost 300 magazine jobs. While this is not the end of Time Inc., it illustrates a shift in where readers are getting their content from. Although this shift didn’t begin yesterday, we haven’t even begun to see the major impact that this will have on the magazine industry.

Jeff Jarvis wrote a great post about how People magazine has always been incredibly inefficient. At one point, they expected writers to be producing one story a week. Compare that to the four or more stories that professional bloggers are writing on a daily basis.

Seth Godin realized how much work it is to be an elite blogger after sitting next to Cory Doctorow (the co-founder of Boingboing) at a conference. Seth describes what the experience was like:

I sat next to Cory at a conference today. It was like playing basketball next to Michael Jordan. Cory was looking at more than 30 screens a minute. He was bouncing from his mail to his calendar to a travel site and then back. His fingers were a blur as he processed inbound mail, visiting more than a dozen sites in the amount of time it took for my neck to cramp up. I’m very fast, but Cory is in a different league entirely.

While most writers don’t work at this pace, it is pretty obvious that the magazine industry is up against some pretty big challengers. In a world where mass media has a monopoly on the distribution of content, it is only expected that magazine and newspaper organizations are going to get bloated. Now, with the advent of blogs, mass media is going to need to straighten up. According to yesterday’s news that Web newspaper blog traffic tripled in December, it seems like the mass media isn’t completely ignorant of their competition. At the same time, there is no doubt that we are experiencing a major shift in the content distribution industry.