AMZN doubles profit, Universal revenues decline

Universal:

For 2007, Universal Music Group’s revenue fell 1.7% to 4.87 billion euros ($7.21 billion). Digital sales rose 51%, representing 14% of total revenue for the year.

Amazon:

[Amazon's] fourth-quarter net profit rose 112 percent to $207 million, or 48 cents per share, from $98 million, or 23 cents per share, a year earlier. Sales rose 42 percent to $5.67 billion in the quarter.

Can’t wait the inevitable “how dare Amazon profit our content” declaration from the studio heads!

Forbes lists America’s Fastest-Growing Large And Small Metros

#2 is Cape Coral, Florida:

Cape Coral was the fourth fastest growing U.S. city with a population of more than 100,000. By 2012, average personal income of its residents is expected to grow by 6.9% annually–second only to Naples, Fla. During that time, the area’s population is also forecast to grow by 13.3%.

This Cape Coral, Florida:

Cape Coral is in Lee County, across the Caloosahatchee River from Fort Myers. In the county, a tidal wave of foreclosures is turning some neighborhoods into veritable ghost towns. The county school district recently scrapped plans to build seven new schools over the next two years. Real estate agents and construction workers are scrambling for other lines of work, and abandoning the area. As houses are relinquished to red ink and the elements, break-ins are skyrocketing, yet law enforcement is resigned to making do with existing staff.

“We’re all going to have to tighten the belt somehow,” says Robert Petrovich, Cape Coral’s chief of police.

In Cape Coral, foreclosure filings in the first 10 months of the year reached 4,874, more than a fourfold increase over the same period the previous year, according to RealtyTrac, an online provider of foreclosure information.

Caveat emptor!

Is the EEEEEPC really competing against the iMac?

DigiTimes reports that Asustek, brimming with confidence over the success of the Eee PC, is broadening its product line with other e products: Asustek Computer has announced it is planning to launch a family of Eee products including: E-DT (desktop PC), E-TV and E-Monitor.

Okly dokly.

The E-Monitor will be an all-in-one device similar to Apple’s iMac and Dell’s XPS One. E-Monitor will cut into the 19-21-inch market and will come with a built-in TV tuner. Pricing is set at US$499, compared to the iMac’s price of US$1,199-2,299 and the XPS One’s price of US$1,499-2,399. E-Monitor will also be based on Intel’s Shelton’08 platform and will be launched in September this year.

Uhh? So, the E-Monitor will compete with the iMac? Does Monica Chen (the author) or Asus really believe that the target consumer for the E-Monitor is same as the one considering an iMac?

All the products while have low-cost as their major selling point, according to Jerry Shen, president of Asustek.

So, the target consumer is actually the same one who considering a Dell or those cheap Linux boxes in Wal-Mart, but the iMac and Apple references were included to get the article higher page views! Got it.