If you're feeling good about the market, you're not alone. Take my hand as we go over some of this week's more uplifting headlines.
1. Amazon rocks your world
Checking off an Amazon.com
Price cuts alone aren't smart moves, though. In fact, they can even lead to brutal margin crunches if not offset by volume gains elsewhere. However, you have to like Amazon's move just as rival readers with potentially better specs are readying an entry into the market.
Perhaps the even better move is that Amazon is putting out a $279 international version of the Kindle. The global model will be able to download books and magazines in 100 countries and territories.
2. Ask and deals ye shall receive
IAC's
IAC isn't the first portal to push lucrative e-commerce lead generation. However, Ask appears to be more aggressive than the pack. On the first day of the makeover, Ask.com's search box was wrapped around a rich snapshot of an autumn day at a park, with "deal" tags slapped on items including a watch, an outdoor jacket, and a football to showcase online deals in those categories.
The commercialization of a search engine is a tricky feat, but when you're as small as Ask.com, it doesn't hurt to take chances.
3. There's an app for that
Let's award some style points to Verizon
Are Verizon's claims accurate? Will AT&T fight back? The real point is that attack ads can be effective. It's not a coincidence that Apple's
4. Speaking of Ma Bell
With Apple's App Store now at 75,000 applications and growing, there is bound to be some friction between AT&T and programs that provide VoIP.
Well, AT&T is doing the right thing, allowing VoIP applications to use its data network. It had restricted the telephony apps to Wi-Fi connections in most cases, but now it's had a welcome change of heart.
It's about time AT&T lives up to the "unlimited" part of its "unlimited data" plans. Now let's see it truly come around and allow tethering, ideally without surcharges to the "unlimited data" that customers are already paying for.
5. Win the market's billions
You know that Wall Street sentiment is kind when not one but two huge IPOs take place on the same day. Banco Santander Brasil and Verisk Analytics
Banco Santander's Brazilian spinoff was able to sell $8 billion worth of stock. Verisk's IPO was a somewhat smaller deal, but the insurance-risk specialist was still able to raise the most money in an IPO for a domestic company since Visa