Shrinking down the boob tube
With the new primetime shows trickling in, the fall season is here. However, if you miss your favorite show, it's getting a lot easier to catch up. Over the past few days alone, NBC announced that it would be offering free week-long download rentals of its shows through NBC Direct. Disney's (NYSE:DIS) ABC also hooked up with Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX) AOL to begin streaming its new shows through AOL.
Ahh, remember the days when you needed a DVR or VCR to see the shows you wanted on your schedule? That is sooo 2006. OK, technically that is sooo 2005, since ABC has been streaming many of its hit shows through ABC.com since May of last year.
However, between Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) selling millions of television show episodes through its iTunes store to play through your iPod and the networks streaming their own shows, what are you still doing in the living room at 8 p.m. on a weekday evening? Couch potatoes are finally out of excuses.
Don't TASE me, bro
You know what's sad? I'm not just talking about the black eye that the University of Florida's campus police suffered after its takedown of a town forum protestor with a TASER (NASDAQ:TASR) on Monday. No, what's sad is that when I went to check and see if donttasemebro.com was taken -- seeing if anyone else was looking to hop on the pop culture bandwagon -- I found it taken, as well as the same domain in all 10 of the most popular domain name extensions. I can't even imagine what donttasemebro.biz or donttasemebro.mobi will be used for.
The publicity may not seem favorable for TASER, even if stun-gun abuse is ultimately up to the training of the actual user. Still, it shouldn't stop the orders. TASER had a good week in that regard, ringing up orders from both the French government and the United States Forest Service for hundreds of the company's signature X26 stun guns.
I wonder how many of those domain name speculators plan on actually selling TASER weaponry through their new sites?
There goes the discount brokerage neighborhood
E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) is getting back to basics, shedding non-core assets that include its mortgage origination business. The emphasis is now on retail investors, even though the move is clearly a response to the subprime meltdown that has held back even the quality lenders.
With E*Trade's stock failing to keep pace with rivals Schwab (NASDAQ:SCHW) and TD AMERITRADE (NASDAQ:AMTD) this year, losing the deadweight makes sense in theory. However, now that the Fed is hacking away at interest rates, it may be bailing out of the housing industry just as it's starting its long road back to recovery.
Until next week, I remain,
Rick Munarriz
