Everyone wants to sell downloadable movies. Which is a good thing. Laptop travellers and PDA folks who like to watch movies wherever they happen to be will certainly benefit. Downloadable movies are also a way to kill time in the office. Its easier than picking up a book between phone calls.

The biggest business impact of downloadable movies wont be on the movie business, it will be on the paperback book business. But thats a post for another day.

This is a post to let you know about the 1 THING about downloadable movies that the prognosticators who think downloadable movies will replace or severely impact that retail sales business and to a lesser extent the rental movie business are missing.

The 1 Thing is that you can only download 1 Thing at a time. Sure, technically you could open multiple windows. Sure, you could also go to Moms computer and hope the DRM on the movie allows you to move it to the PC or device you want it on. But the sobering reality is this. You can only download 1 PC at a time.

Which means, there ain’t ever going to be a “Christmas Download”. THere is never going to be a card under the PC saying ” I just downloaded you 3 of your favorite movies”. Its not that it couldnt happen technically. Its the equivalent of saying “I just tied up my PC for 3 frickin nights to do this for you, it aint worth it”. Its also the equivalent of saying “I downloaded these movies, and you already know it because you were complaining about the speed of the broadband connection to the house while it was happening”.

Easier to download a movie ? Maybe. Easier to download 2 or 3 movies than going to the store to buy or rent ? Never. Never, ever, ever. (Which means not in the next 5 years).

The important business lesson for movie marketers is to make sure there is absolutely no confusion this Christmas or the next many Christmases that downloading a movie is an option to buying the store. YOU WILL KILL YOUR BUSINESS. You will upset customers. Upset retailers, and sell fewer movies. Thats usually not a good business opportunity.

I think most consumers will figure it out quickly that the hassle factor isnt worth it for buying movies for other people or more than 1 movie for yourself.. But I can assure you , smart studios will be all over making sure that retail is and remains the primary outlet and that movie downloads over the net is a niche business and nothing more for a long time to come

Downloading movies is a decent business for an aggregator. They have to be there. THere is some money to be made selling for laptops and PDAs. Downloading as a retail alternative aint gonna work

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My buddy and supergeek Rahul Sood, is the President and CTO of VodooPC. A high end PC company that sells great products to the gamer and ultra performance PC market.

I love his most recent blogpost because it is everything right about corporate blogging, its honest, timely and interesting.

I also love it because it shows just how involved and passionate great executives are. I’ve known Michael Dell for a long time and when we exchange emails, its not unusual for either of us to respond in the middle of the night. Its not unusual for middle of the night emails to get immediate responses.

It doesnt matter that he has been doing this for 20 plus years. Its in his blood.

I loved the exchange between Rahul and Michael because I can relate to it. When you eat, sleep, dream about, and live an industry and you can engage someone else who approaches the industry the same way, the conversations are amazing. You dont have to agree on things, but when both people know their stuff, everyone walks away from the exchange a lot smarter and incredibly motivated.

Motivated because it was a reminder of what you always know to be true in the technology business. There is always someone out there trying to do smart things and kick your ass and its your job to figure out how to do a better job.

If that doesn’t motivate you, then none of this probably makes sense to you.

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I gotthis email this afternoon from someone who apparently reads my blog.

“FYI: Gary Weiss, who has been pretty hard on you and Sharesleuth onhis blog, is fixing to do some heavy editing on your article on Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Cuban ). His username(he doesn’t use his real name) is Mantanmoreland. Unless you orsomebody gets on it, you’ll look pretty bad by the time he’s done.”

I hadn’t check out my wiki page in a long time, so i go on there and read some history about myself that never happened, other stuff that was just wrong and found out that I admired some guy named Brian and that I was related to some guy named Adam. Two people I had never heard of in my life.

But I digress.

As I go through making some updates, I get to the part about Sharesleuth.com that was entered by someone with a login of”Mantanmoreland”. Which of course matched what the emailer had suggested to me. As it turns out , this same login name is an author on the Gary Weiss Wikipedia page.

This is whatMantanmoreland wrote:

“In July 2006, Cuban financed creation of [[Sharesleuth.com]], which will publish negative information about publicly traded companies. Cuban will short-sell shares of companies mentioned in Sharesleuth in advance of publication. That has been widely criticized.”

So I edited it to the following:

“In July 2006, Cuban financed creation of Sharesleuth.com, which will set out to uncover fraud and misinformation in publicy traded companies. Cuban’s disclosure that he will take positions in the shares of companies mentioned in Sharesleuth in advance of publication has raised controversy”

Now I thought that would be the end of it. Not a chance.

As you can see from the history, 39 minutes later, here comes our friend MantanMoreland to change it all back. (You can see the change history here).

So Mantanmoreland must have had this on his watchlist, keeping an eye out for me. (Does this person have anything better to do with their time?) and he or she edited my changes quickly:

“Cuban’s has said that he will take positions in the shares of companies mentioned in Sharesleuth in advance of publication. That has been widely criticized “

Criticized vs Controversial. Is it a big difference ? Doesnt matter.

Now little “Wikiwars ” are inconsequential in the big scheme of things.The Wikipediahas a conflict resolution process in place to deal with such matters. But what has happened here leads me to ask a question.

If Mantanmoreland truly is Gary Weiss, is it ethical for a journalist to try to push his point of view on a public document under a pseudonym ?

Wouldn’t an ethical journalist publish his or her name ?

Didnt a journalist get fired or reprimanded for taking sides under a pseudonym on Yahoo Message Boards ?

Is Mantanmoreland the pseudonym of Gary Weiss of http://garyweiss.blogspot.com/

And if it is, how much time do you plan on spending trying to update my wiki page gary ?

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I usually try to stay away from Blogwars. You know where one blog calls out another for any number of reasons, but
primarily its to try to generate more interest and traffic to their blog.

I get enough traffic here, so I dedicate any pimping of products to movies and other businesses of mine.

But every now and then I get suckered in. This time Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine dragged me in. Its not because he
slams me in his blog. I couldnt care less what he has to say. Its not that he is slamming what we are doing with
Sharesleuth.com. Again, what he says isnt important.

What is interesting to me is how he slams me and how it represents everything wrong with his blog and everything
right about sharesleuth.com. Of course Jeff may think what he does on his blog is journalism. Im not sure.

Lets start with Jeff’s history with me. I dont have a history with Jeff. I wouldnt know him if he walked by me.
But out of curiousity
i did a simple search
to see if Jeff has written about me before. Boy has he ever.

One of the first times was in October of 2004 at Web
2.0. These are the highlights:

“It remains amazing to me that we are listening hell, paying to listen to a guy who made too much money
selling a company for too much money to a company that was stupid enough to buy it and then kill it. And he has a TV
show, too. “

“I understand why the world pays attention to Paris Hilton. I don’t understand why the world pays attention to
Mark Cuban. “

Oh no, not the Paris Hilton Dig !!!

But wait there’s more.

Then he disagrees with
my post about newspapers and media. Nothing wrong
with that. To which he adds: “Don’t you love how a rich guy dismisses the urge and need to make money? “

Ok Jeff. Do we know how you feel about me yet ?

Even when tries to compliment me, he has to slam me as he does in a
post:
“Accidental billionnaire Mark Cuban is the master of using his blog and email to show
how the sausage is made and many more are following
his example. “

From a feb of 05 blog:

“Open the gates

: Mark Cuban and I give big media the
same advice: open the gates, keepers.

: Commenters are pissed at his tone; I was at first, too. He compares us to tabloid lense-snappers. From
Cuban, that’s like Bozo the Clown critiquing opera. But the rest of the post is actually OK: It’s about the
people watching the powerful anywhere, everywhere. “

Get the picture yet ? Im guessing Jeff thinks im the luckiest guy on the planet and doesn’t like me. I don’t know
why he doesn’t like me.
Its not like i have
written about him at all ?Anyone out there have an idea ?

He certainly details how lucky he thinks I am in his latest
blog post. Here is how he starts the
post:

“Mark Cuban has made his career and his fortune on dumb money. He sold his first company to CompuServe, a failure
acquired by AOL, another failure. He sold his next company, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo, which promptly did nothing but
kill it even as broadcasting came onto the internet, yet Cuban walked away with something in the billions, allowing
him to have fun, buying a sports team and starring in a TV show, which was also a failure. He invested in another
well-known company sold to AOL; return to Square One”

You missed a couple of companies in there Jeff, but thats beside the point. What does all this add up to ? It adds
up to the very distinct difference between a site like Buzzmachine and Sharesleuth.com

I dont know if Jeff Jarvis thinks of himself as a journalist. I do know that in my opinion his approach to writing
in every way is exactly what we will not do on Sharesleuth.com

Read our report on XNL. We don’t dont reference anyone we write about as “clowns”. We dont call any of the
investors dumb money. We stick to facts. Verifiable facts, without any prejudicial comments of our own added. None.
Nor will there ever be.

You see Jeff, that is how a writer, whatever you want to call him or the company he or she writes
fordevelops trust. You write the facts. People read the facts and go through a process of questioning them,
article by article, until they realize they can trust the source. Every company we write something
negative about will question every element of the article.
Read XNL’s response.If we can pass
the companies scrutiny, we will develop trust.If we can pass the scrutiny of the shareholders
andmarketers of the stock, we will develop trust.Trust is built from getting the facts rightJeff.
No exceptions.

Now look at your blog. Doesyour approach to writing build “trust” among your readers ? Does taking most of a
blog post to slam me before you get to trying to make a point the way to build trust among your readership ? Just
asking. Sharesleuth and Buzzmachineobviously approach this issuedifferently.

And while you are looking at ethics regarding sharesleuth, let me present a question for all who arehaving
fun discussing us.

In all cases, we contact the companies we are investigating at various levels. It could be corporate PR, it could
be management. Nowthat companies are aware of Sharesleuth.com and what we report on, is it their responsiblity
to shareholders todisclosepublicly the fact that one or more of their employees have been contacted by us
?

And toJeffssuggestion that my disclosing a short along with my “celebrity” impacting a
stock’s price, here is an old blog post referring to
stocks I shorted. From March of 2005 and the status of my positions. You can determine what has happened to the
stocks since then and what influence I had if any on their prices.

Longs

LGF – Never sold a share, added more

RENT – Never sold a share

NSIT – Got out because i dont follow the industry as closely as I used to

SIGM – Got out. The stock was running up because of things i wasnt clear about, so I sold.

GRU – Got out. I didnt like the way it was monetizing its traffic.

TCOW.OB – Havent sold a share

Shorts:

IOC – Stayed short for months, covered after they announced they were unable to find oil and had other problems in
their efforts

IIG – I covered it in the fall of 2005Then the stock ran back up and I shorted it again

Long – NFI , NFI Puts, Short – NFI Preferred – Still on.

Since the above post, I have also written about Overstock.com. I wrote again about it in
April of 2006, when I said I was short 2k shares. I
am still short 2k shares. I have tried to short more, but the vig on the stock is too high.

So there you have the positions I have written about. You decide if my “celebrity” has moved them. I can assure
you that in no case have I traded on any movement of the stock, if there were any after the blog posts came out.

Nor at any time was I called unethical for writing about my positions, AFTER I had put them on.

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Is a view the same as a hit ?

A hit for those of you who dont know is merely the presentation on a webpage of a file by a webserver. You put 10 graphics on a webpage, you get 10 hits when that page is displayed.

Internet oldie goldies will remember the entertainment from the mid 90s of sites publishing and talking joyfully of how many hits their websites got.To the uniformed, of which the business and general media was a card carrying member, references to hits were meant to represent how much traffic a website got. Stories were written daily referencing the “number of hits a site got” as a way to represent their traffic. Of course it was absolutely not the case. Fortunately these days, its rare you hear people use hits as a traffic metric.

Today though, with all the excitement about rich media, whether its video or audio, you hear and read all about views and listens.

Which leads me to the question: Just what is a view or listen ?

For podcasts, is a listen a download ? I hope not, i have several podcasts in Itunes i subscribe to, and that download every episode, but I havent listened to in a long while. A couple others I have listened to the first several seconds or minutes of, but havent really dented. How would what i just did fit into the podcasts metrics ?

In radio there is Time Spent Listening. There are quarter hours , where a radio station gets credit for someone listening for 15 minutes if they listen for 5 minutes. Are there standards for podcasts ?

Then there are videso on the net. Just what exactly is a view ? Our HDNet Trailer for an upcoming Dennis Rodman show has been viewed 2339 times. I know i have gone to the site and it has started running at least 20 times that I didnt watch it all the way through. Are those counted ? I cant find anywhere on the Youtube.com site that defines how views are counted. Did i miss it ?

And this isnt a reference on Youtube. Its a question for an industry. Streaming video servers and Ad Insertion servers can count exactly how many bytes were streamed to a user which can be recalculated into number of minutes , seconds or hours for each attempt at viewing a video, whether ad or content. And from experience, i can tell you that a huge chunk of attempts to view are aborted for any number of reasons. Yet I have yet to see any references to views with an average length of viewing or a percentage of video watched competely through.

Just what is a view ? I have a feeling that its pretty darn close to a hit these days.

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I love seagate products, but what genius designed the packaging for their 6gb Pocket Hard Drive ? THe drive came packaged in one of those impregnable plastic shells (see picture in link above) that makes it look pretty on retail shelves but impossible to open once you buy it.

What is the logic behind making a product impossible to open once you buy it ???????

I bought the thing so my wife could backup all her digital pictures at home andon her parents computer at their home. Plus i thought it would be nice for her to be able to plug it in at her friends house and show off the pics of our beautiful daughter.

I went from the considerate husband to asking for bandaids.

I got home. Took the pair of small scissors I keep at my desk and gave it a shot. The result was deeper impressions in the skin of my fingers than progress on the plastic.

Next was the “big scissors” we keep in the storage closest with various office supplies. No finger problems, but they could only make a small incision into the surface of the packaging.

Now my manhood was at stake. If i cant puncture a plastic package…well. You get the picture.

So into the kitchen i went for “THE KNIFE”. Not a butter knife. Not a steak knife. Its THE KNIFE that you know you have and when you see it in the kitchen you think to yourself:

“Ok, if someone ever breaks in the house, this is where i go and I grab THE KNIFE and I protect my family as the slashing sounds from Psycho play through my head”

thats THE KNIFE i grabbed.

I sliced, I diced, i cut, i sawed. I broke the skin just enough to squeeze my fingers in hoping to pry apart the jaws of plastic that had intruded into my simple goal of helping out my wife. Unbeknownst to me, this was no passive plastic that gave up once the shield of its defenses were broken. Oh no. This was the payback plastic. The kind that wanted you to carry a reminder of the plastic battle you fought and fought.

The plastic drew first blood. My fingers went in, and I swear I heard it laugh milliseconds before it punctured me in a far more precise manor than i could ever inflict on it. Paper cut my ass. This was a plastic cut. Quick. Deep. Bloody.

Bloodied, but not beaten, i went back to the big scissors and finally managed to break down the plastic to the point where it could no longer put up a fight and could be ripped to shreds.

I had won. Not without a fight. Not without a scarred reminder of the battles fought.

As i basked in my victory, a thought came to mind.

WHO THE FUCK DESIGNED THE PACKAGING ON THIS THING AND WHY DO THEY STILL HAVE A JOB !!!!!

Damn you and any other product manager who thinks wrapping inpenetrable plastic around a product is a smart move. It isnt

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You dont know it yet, but Chris Carey and Sharesleuth broke new ground that will result in a “business journalists employment act”.

Hedge Funds, Private investors, Mutual Funds employ analysts by the boatload. They get paid quite nicely. Those analysts spend their waking and probably a good portion of their dreaming moments trying to figure out ways to get an edge that can improve their returns.

They hire or put on contract, experts, consultants, investigators, anyone who can help them outperform their peers.

If Sharesleuth is successful, you can bet that any of the above with billions of dollars at stake will gladly hire the best and brightest business journalists they can find.Bigger the rolodex, the better. Old is the new young. Crusty is the new Yuppy.They will unleash those journalists to uncover stories that can give them an edge.

The process will be amazingly similar to what is happening with Sharesleuth. The jouralist will have more time and probably resources to go out and dig up the really good stuff than they did when they worked in traditional media. They will get to useall the investigative training and contacts they have acquired and accumulated over the years. Whatever skills they think theyhave, they will be get the enjoyable task of putting them to work.They will be given as many words, paragraphs or pages as it takes to convey the facts of their investigation.

Rather than turning in the story to an editor, it will go to an analyst, fund manager or investor.

That person , based on that information, might possibly make a trading or investing decision that could make or lose millions upon millions of dollars.

After making those trading decisions, that manager, who now owns the story, will make the decision whether to release that story to media outlets, knowing, that based on the contents of the story you wrote for him, it could and probably will, influence the price of the stock of the company(s) involved. The factor of impact on the price will certainly impact how aggressively he asks you to convey the story to your former peers to publish or distribute further.

The media outlets that think the story you wrote might have interest to their readers in turn, will assignthe person who took your placeto investigate it and write a story. Completely independent of course. But your former employer and peersknowhow thorough you are. Yes they will reconfirm your work, but its still an extension of the work you did for hire. Except now the lead for the storycame from a source that all involved knows has an interest in moving the price of the stock of the company involved and the headline is written by some guy in the newsroom that has no idea about any of the above.

What are the disclosure obligations of the media outlet , if any ?

Of course the fund manager/analyst who owns youramazing work, will alsogladly distribute the content to the sell side analysts that cover the stock, with the specific goal of impacting the price of the stock.

This already happens every day. All day, every day. The only difference is that the people creating and publishing the information arent “business journalists”.

If you take this investigative work for hire job, are you still a journalist ? Are you a corporate investigator ? Are you a financial analyst with a background in business journalism ? Or are you a hack that sold out for the money.

Lets add another element to the discussion. If the story you wrote is published on an openwebsite called “Our-research.com”, does that change anything ? Does it matter if its published before or after the person who hired you to do the work trades on that information ?

Should “our-research.com” have to register itself as a particular type of entity ? Should there be a disclosure paragraph at the bottom of every website that in addition to a privacy statement, offers a “Reader Responsibility” Statement ?

Should every website have to “declare itself” ?

personally, I think the idea that we add a Reader Responsibility Statement to the bottom of Sharesleuth.com is a good one that im considering.

From the top of my head:

“Sharesleuth.com publishes business stories about companies that we have researched solely for the purpose of improving our ability to profitably trade or invest on the information we uncover. We publish this information after we have traded in the stock, not prior, not simultaneously. Our obligation is not to the reader, it is to the trading activities of our owners. Readers should not use this as the foundation for thier own investment or trading strategies. Readers should not presume that the information published on this site will or will not impact the perception or valuations of the companies profiled or referenced. Sharesleuth.com is publishing this information simply because we want to. This site is funded completely by the results of our financial activities. Sharesleuth.com retains the right to investigate any person or company, trade or invest on that information, and not publish that information”

What do you think ?

But lets get back to the “full employment act”

Information is power. Those who do the best job of uncovering information have the opportunity to be hired by those who stand to make or lose the most with, or from the lack of access to that information.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the world of business journalism. Will it be like 1999 when every sportswriter had to make the decision to take the inevitable riches that stock options in BroadbandSports.com , Sportsline.com and others would bring ? Or will todays business journalists stick to their beat working for the “security” of the newspaper /big media business.

Or maybe im completely wrong, and no one will want to hire journalists who know how to dig and find information that can make them more money

Regardless, the discussion is interesting

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Sharesleuth.com . Such a big controversy. The question is why ?

A while back we told everyone exactly what we were
going to do with Sharesleuth.com . We told everyone that i was going to trade on the information before we published
the story. There was much commentary.

Was it good journalism ?Was it responsible journalism ?
<just for fun, this is a link to the definition of
journalism>Then everyone wanted to know if what we were going to do was legal.
Was it against SEC
regulations.Was it
ethical ?

Everyone wants to question what we are doing. Great. Question away.

What the people who are doing the most questioning, the traditional members, and the traditional bloggers, are
missing, is the hypocrisy in their criticism.

One former BusinessWeek reporter suggests in his blog what I am doing with Sharesleuth is not responsible
journalism because I am trying to make a profit by trading on the information that we uncover. All the while, he
promotes his site to draw readers, possibly chooses blog posts that will generate the most readership
andpromotes his TV appearances as a means to pimp his books, which are for sale with HUGE
graphicson every page of his blog.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.Nothing at all. The news, his news has to get paid for somehow ,
right ? But is he a responsible journalist ? Is he a responsible publisher ? Do we even know ?

Doesnt the foundation of responsible journalism come from transparency ?

Tell us what the goals of your publication are so we can understand your motivation and use it as a filter when we
read your blog. your newspaper. Watch your network.

Of course if he did that, he would be alone in the publishing universe. Every media outlet has an agenda. Given
that almost all are public entities, the primary agenda is Earnings Per Share. When was the last time you read the
New York Times say they were going to proactively choose to lower their earnings this quarter and for the next
several quarters so they can invest in doing a better job of reporting ? Or that they planned onexpanding the
number of pages dedicated to their journalistic endeavors at the expense of shareholder return ? Anyone ?

Of course theNY Times is not alone. Every major media company, newspaper or otherwise seems todoing
every bit of financial engineering they possibly canto increase earnings per share and stock price. Use cash to
buy back stock. Save cash by firing reporters and closing bureaus.

I havent heard a lot about increased investment in journalistic efforts at the expense of EPS. Has anyone ?

When CBS hired Katie Couric, the story wasnt whether she would improve the network news. It was how much she was
getting paid and could she increase ratings. Les Moonves wasnt excited to talk about the new levels
ofnewsgathering CBS could reach with Ms Couric.Heseemed tobe incredibly proud that they
covered her salary with advertising sales in the upfront. EPS baby.

If the NYTimes was truly a responsible publication, wouldnt it change its motto on the front page from “All the
News Thats Fit to Print ” to something else ? Doesnt that motto suggest they would invest in the newsprint and
newsgathering resources required to get any and all news they deemed fit to print ? Maybe it could “All the
News That we can Afford to Print “

Shouldnt a truly responsible and transparent publication offera series of footnotes or a syllabus online
defining why they chose to cover a given story ?

How much better would we all feel if we read:

“this democratic candidate was falling behind. Our publisher felt his side of the story needed some
visibility”

“we like this guy, we wanted to trash the other guy”

“we think this story will be very popular with Hispanics 18 to 24, which is a demographic we are trying to reach
because we think we can grow our advertising to that market by 20pct or more this quarter”

“Bottomline, we just want to try to get as many readers as we can. So we pick and choose articles that we think we
increase our circulation numbers. Sometimes we do have to choose between what we think are the more important news
stories and numbers. I wish i could tell you which story was which, but if i did, they would fire my ass”

“that story had a great headline that we could put on the front of the business section, so we went with it”

Now thats transparency and responsible journalism.

Its all about the money. The difference at the responsibility level between those major media companies and
sharesleuth.com ? We are transparent. You know exactly how we are paying forthe storiesand we make no
apologies for it.

In our story on Xethanol, you didnt see any of the typical “at X times sales it has a market cap of Y, while this
other company we want to compare it to trades at some lower multiple of sales and at lower market cap,”
suggesting that the stock is expensive. Thats suggestive and leading and we are going to do our very best to
avoid all valuation comparisons, which IMHOis always laughable filler. Nor did you see any “this expert
saysthis stock is expensive too ! “. Thats what you typically find in your every day business article
about a company,particularly negative articles. Again laughable stuff, the type of fodder you find on
CNBC…”I like this stock because ” “I dont like this stock because ” Its all filler.

Look at cable news.There are no longer any arguments about who delivers the most depth of coverage on
any given topic. The only discussions are about who gets bigger ratings and why. There is more value in a
dead blonde and a hurricane than finding originalnews or a story with impact.

It is what it is, and Im fine with that. They may not be transparent in writing, but they are so obvious in their
pandering for ratings, you cant question it.

Sharesleuth.com is what it is. Its paid for by my trading based on the information we uncover. I might make
money. I might lose money. Thats the risk i take.

If there is a real question that could be asked about sharesleuth, its “why would someone read it ?” And the
answer is, if you happened to be interested in the company(s) we write about, hopefully you will learn facts about
that company that you didnt know before.

And for those of who think i might have had this stock in my portfolio first, and went after it with sharesleuth
after the fact. This email from chris (its not the entire email, but it makes the point) was received on May
8th 2006 at 11:03am

“Hi Mark,

I thought I’d call your attention to a company
that might be featured in the debut installment of Sharesleuth.com – if the situation doesn’t blow up before
then.

The company is called Xethanol Corp.
(OTCBB:XTHN), which went public in early 2005 through a reverse merger with the shell of a failed pottery-equipment
company.

Xethanol operates two tiny ethanol plants in
Iowa, accounting for less than 1 percent of U.S. capacity. The company has only modest revenue ($4.34 million in
2005) and is deeply in the red (a loss of $11.7 million last year).

Even so, Xethanol’s shares have more than
tripled over the past four months, partly because of interest in alternative fuels and partly because of a relentless
public-relations campaign. The stock closed Friday at $11.76 and up $1.40 this morning, giving the company a market
cap of more than $210 million.

Volume has been averaging topping 1 million
shares a day recently so you might be able to find some shares if you want to bet against this outfit.”

Unfortunately, it was playoffs time , things were hectic and I didnt see it till May 10th

On May 10th at 3:15pm, i sent
this email to my broker

Char

See if we can borrow and
short

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hey, im busy. You may or may not be.

here are 3 ideas that if i werent so … busy, I might take a flier on.

1. Txt messaging for 911 and Hospital Emergency rooms.

Most phones have text messaging. Soon, all will. Every city should have an emergy room SMS number that anyone can text with info saying, who they are, what happened, and that they are coming.

It could easily be extended so that anyone could go online and register their phone number and insurance info, so that when a txt was received from your phone number, it automatically pulled up any insurance information and/or patient history so that the entire process can be shortened in the hospital.

it obviously wouldnt work for everyone, but if the process is sped up for some, its sped up for everyone.

And for 911, of course, straight from any horror flick, the 911 for the time you cant or dont want to make a sound, or when a whisper isnt loud enough. TXT 911 with the problem and information. They can text you back.

2. Many high end cars are coming with navigation systems. Put in an address and find it. At least in my car, its connected to a DVD in the back of the car. Someone who is smart, could open up the specs for the DVD and create custom DVDs with the basics like information on the closest 7-11, but also customized information as well.

And if car makers are smart, they add a USB port and a rack so that hard drives can beused and then they publish the specs so that all sorts of cool apps could be created. Or better yet, they could make it IPOD compatible, and chop out 10gbs of the IPOD for this application and the rest could be piped in for music or back seat video.

3. if i had no money, i would start a business going door to door with a laptop and a scanner and scanning peoples pictures for a buck a pic for up to 10, then discount from there. Beats the hell out of mowing lawns or shoveling snow and any kid or adult could do it. If you want to think big time, set up a service with the local drugstore and have people drop off their pics and you go by every day and return them the next day.

Easy money

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