Archive for January 18th, 2010
Here Comes ESPN To Xbox (MSFT, DIS)
Microsoft (MSFT) and Disney (DIS) are in talks to bring live-streaming sporting events to Xbox Live, according to Brian Stelter of the New York Times.
This service would allow Xbox 360 users without cable to watch ESPN content through their gaming consoles.
No deal has yet been reached, and neither company has yet confirmed the report.
Still, this move fits in well with the overall strategy being pursued by all three major console makers: To turn gaming consoles into more generalized entertainment centers by building up (and monetizing) online networks.
This is a game that Microsoft is decidedly winning, and that Nintendo (NTDOY) is very badly losing, with Sony (SNE) in more direct competition with Microsoft. While the news is being framed as the Xbox taking on cable providers, the home console is clearly a very long way from being a serious threat to them.
In the console wars, however, this would be another huge win for Microsoft.
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See Also:
- Microsoft’s Xbox Live Is Blowing Away The Competition
- Will The Xbox 720, PS4, And Wii 2 Come Out In 2010?
- Previewing What’s Coming To Xbox Live
It’s Over: Scott Brown Is The 3:1 Favorite Over Martha Coakley
The FiveThirtyEight Senate Forecasting Model, which correctly predicted the outcome of all 35 Senate races in 2008, now regards Republican Scott Brown as a 74 percent favorite to win the Senate seat in Massachusetts on the basis of new polling from ARG, Research 2000 and InsiderAdvantage which show worsening numbers for Brown’s opponent, Martha Coakley. We have traditionally categorized races in which one side has between a 60 and 80 percent chance of winning as “leaning” toward that candidate, and so that is how we categorize this race now: Lean GOP. Nevertheless, there is a higher-than-usual chance of large, correlated errors in the polling, such as were observed in NY-23 and the New Hampshire Democratic primary; the model hedges against this risk partially, but not completely.
Read the rest of the post at FiveThirtyEight.com — >
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See Also:
- Jim Cramer: Markets Will Surge Wednesday If Coakley Loses
- Here’s What Will Happen To Healthcare Stocks If Scott Brown Wins Tomorrow
- Scott Brown Peaked Two Days Too Early
SAI Is In The Valley
Guess who has two thumbs and brought the rain to the Bay Area today?
This guy! [Points thumbs at self]
That’s right, I’m going to be in the Valley (and making trips to San Francisco) till Friday.
My schedule is getting pretty tight, but if you’d like to say hello, reach out!
Contact: nicholas@businessinsider.com
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Google Just Keeps Getting Bigger (GOOG)
Google just gobbled up more office space to expand their New York headquarters.
They just signed a lease for 57,000 additional square feet in their 111 Eighth Avenue building in Chelsea, according to the New York Observer. CB Richard Ellis’ David Hollander, Stephen B. Siegel and Ken Rapp of CB Richard Ellis represented Google for the deal.
Read the Observer‘s full report, along with a draft of Google’s expansion.
As SAI reported last year, Craig Nevill-Manning became Google’s first engineer in New York in 2003. He had to convince Google (GOOG) cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin as well as CEO Eric Schmidt to sign off on the idea.
All three were reluctant to expand Google New York beyond a sales office. They didn’t imagine the New York area had the engineering talent Google would need.
When we visited Craig at Google’s New York offices last week, he told us Larry, Sergey, and Eric finally told him he could set up an engineering outpost in New York, “as long as I found at least fifteen good software engineers.”
Six years later, Google employs between 700 and 800 software engineers in New York, housing most of them in the old New York Port Authority. (It is, by square-footage, the largest office building in the whole city.) Craig, now an engineering director, says he drew talent from Wall Street, IBM Labs, and Bell Labs.
Read more on Google’s New York offices from TBI:
Google New York: Scooters, Slides, And Legos — Oh My!
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See Also:
- Google New York’s Trendy Neighborhood
- Google New York’s Alumni: Where Are They Now?
- Who’s Who At Google New York
Here’s What Will Happen To Healthcare Stocks If Scott Brown Wins Tomorrow
Cramer’s prediction about a huge stock market rally if Scott Brown wins got us thinking: what do we predict will actually happen to healthcare stocks if the insurgent GOP candidate wins and torpedoes healthcare reform.
Casual observers would guess that healthcare stocks will rally, but that ignores the fact that healthcare stocks rallied even as it looked like reform was a sure thing.
One reason for this — and it’s the same reason that many industry lobbyists went to bat for Coakley — is that reform would likely be good for the industry (more people on insurance, more people buying drugs, no government competition.
Of course, the fact that healthcare stocks rallied at the end of last year doesn’t mean much, since the whole market drifted upward, so who knows what was due to reform and what wasn’t.
Anyway, here’s what will happen if Brown wins: Healthcare stocks will initially rally in the first half of Wednesday, before settling down, if not ending in the red outright, as the smart money dumps their shares.
If Coakley wins, we’ll get the opposite.
Anyone disagree?
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See Also:
- Scott Brown Peaked Two Days Too Early
- Martha Coakley Falls To 40% On InTrade
- Healthcare Stocks EXPLODE Higher After Big Vote On Reform