Car emissions and housing starts lead the news this morning. More on those shortly. In the meantime, here’s what caught my attention:
How Twitter plans to make money (Silicon Alley Insider)
“To make money, Twitter will sell businesses access to a “lightweight analytics” tool and a directory of commercial accounts, cofounder Biz Stone told the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York. He said Twitter is also considering revenue-sharing deals with mobile phone carriers. One thing Twitter will not do is sell ads, Biz told the crowd via a video hook-up.”
The media’s broken business model (Real Clear Markets)
“…success in the new age of media will be determined by branding. Whoever manages to convince a large and sticky audience that, for whatever magical reasons, their media are worth reading and hearing, will win in the new age. It’s possible that some of the incumbent players will make this transition, but most won’t, and many people will succeed wildly that you haven’t even heard of yet.”
The government in business — exit strategy (Chris Farrell/Businessweek)
“First, set the rules of the game, build in incentives that encourage competition, embrace transparency and openness, and then let the free market work its magic. It’s an approach the Administration is already taking in its discussions on regulatory reform in the financial-services industry–just ask Geithner and Larry Summers. The same holds for the push behind creating a cap-and-trade system to deal with global climate change.”
Obama should reappoint Bernanke (Forbes)
“Because Bernanke would be trusted by the markets to be more independent of the current administration, we think he is clearly the superior choice. In fact, the markets may demand more aggressive tightening action from Summers then they would from Bernanke. By reappointing Bernanke, the message to the markets would be that the Fed is less likely to make the same mistake of being too easy, for too long, all over again.”
Auto bailouts: Spin, lies and layoffs (The Nation)
But “help” that pays Chrysler to shutter factories in Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Michigan and move work to Mexico, that pays General Motors to shutter factories in locations across the country in order to move the work to China, that pays Chrysler and GM to drop roughly 1,900 dealerships, is not going to get the American middle class through this downturn.
San Francisco may tax butts (NY Times)
“In what he casts as an attack on litterbugs and nicotine addiction alike, Mayor Gavin Newsom wants to impose a fee on an age-old inhabitant of city streets: the cigarette butt. The proposal, to be introduced next month to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, would add 33 cents to the cost of a pack of cigarettes, to offset the estimated $10.7 million the city spends annually removing discarded butts from gutters, drainpipes and sidewalks.”
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