Mike Wagner - Perpetual beta

I was encouraged to go to a weekly networking/entrepreneur get together yesterday and glad I did. It was Seattle Open Coffee started by Andy Stack at Louisa's Coffee . As opposed to many networking events, this was smaller and over coffee which allowed myself and others to actually get to know each other and share ideas and thoughts. It's every Tuesday of the week from 8:30AM till 10AM at Louisa's on 2379 Eastlake Ave E. You can read about it on upcoming here and here . Perhaps I'll see you there next Tues.

How about the semantic OS? I saw a demo today of ActiveWords which made me think of exactly this. We have become accustomed to not being capable of executing the actions on our machines without flipping through through menus or hitting a series of shortcut keys (I personally know more shortcut combos than I ever cared too). ActiveWords bypasses this by allowing users to customize actions in Microsoft's product by creating key words typed whenever and wherever to execute specific actions. Example: you're in Excel and need to search google.... simply type the word you correlate with executing a browser and directing it to Google, press the space bar a couple of times and boom, you're in Google. This is just one example of how users can customize their work patterns so as to not have to waste time or thought in how to execute specific actions. Check it out for free, and spread the word. Download

A good breakdown of my trade pick of the year China 3C Group ticker CHCG.OB. Keep loading up at any price sub-$2 per share and hold on. The company itself has been a money making machine over the past 2 years. The cash flow and earnings per employee is through the roof. At these levels it looks very very underpriced. If CHCG uses its cash for additional expansion, revenue/earnings could easily double. This makes it a growth story. Shareholder Equity Shares Outstanding 52.7 M Institutional Ownership 7.77% Number of Floating Shares 42.7 M Short Interest as % of Float -- Valuation (MRQ) Price/Earnings (TTM) 4.09x Price/Sales 0.34x Price/Book 1.63x Price/Cash Flow 5.32x CHCG's P/E Ratio is lower than 88% of other companies in the Audio & Video Equipment industry. This typically means that investors are willing to pay less for its level of earnings relative to future growth.Profitability (TTM) Gross Margin 17.89% Operating Margin 12.95% ...

There is a good post over at ZDNet about the Long Tail we've been hearing about the last few years. Definitely worth a read especially if new to the term. "Commentary-- The "Long Tail" moniker has been used extensively (some would say overused) in marketing and mass media over the last couple years. Now, as different use cases for SOA evolve, the metaphor seems appropriate to explain the growing use of services outside of the core domains of SOA, business process implementation and integration. First, let’s take a step back. The term “long tail,” coined....." http://news.zdnet.com/2424-3515_22-199150.html

Target price may be reduced - but not that much considering the level one could enter the stock now. 03/18/08 - Maxim Group NEW YORK, March 18 (newratings.com) - Analyst Albert Lee of Maxim Group maintains his "buy" rating on China 3C Group Inc (CHCG) , while reducing his estimates for the company. The 12-month target price has been reduced from $7 to $5. In a research note published this morning, the analyst mentions that the company has posted its EPS and sales for the previous year short of the estimates. China 3C’s guidance for 2008 indicates that the sales momentum in 2H08 would be offset by higher-than-previously-anticipated gross margin pressure, the analyst adds. There is low near-term visibility into the company’s internal unit expansion strategy, Maxim Group says. The EPS estimate for 2008 has been reduced from $0.62 to $0.44.

For those who know me know I have been investing since I was 15. Every once in awhile I divert from the usual web 2.0 topics to that of a investment I have taken a position in. Today is one of those days since China 3C Group , CHCG has gotten pummeled today as what I believe to be a over-reaction by speculators to FY2007 results today. I consider the consumer electronics retail sector in China as an opportunity to reap the history of one of the fastest growing staples of any growing economy. Mix that with $25 million in cash on the books and a solid, real (sometimes you just don't know with over the counter stocks). As always, do your own DD but as I see it the stock still looks extremely cheap on a valuation basis even after the guidance, and is building a base on which to spring higher. Not including cash and simply assigning an industry PE of 10 we should be at $4.50 on normal growth rates. Besides the speculators, & extremely volatile world markets, the company has st...

Sort of, during my search for new oppertunities I've been talking with many people and the conversation usually seems to settle on just this topic. So, I dug up an old post I wrote, while acting as Product Marketing Mgr at Enterprise Mashup software company JackBe, with a diagram created by JackBe's CTO, John Crupi . Sunday, June 3, 2007 A lot of people ask us here at JackBe about the definitions and or differences between Web 2.0, Enterprise Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0. So here are some of my thoughts simplified for a blog post. Web 2.0 – There are two parts to this one which will make sense when I get into the difference between Enterprise Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0. 1 . Web 2.0 – the user-driven paradigm shift. Youtube , blogs , wikis , RIA s with greater self-service capabilities… all of these are examples of a paradigm shift from older HTML static, mostly one way communication of ideas and information to a new User-Driven web model which enables you and me ...