When it comes to grocery shopping, it has always been a question of paper or plastic – but not anymore. With reusable bags now in style, some stores (and China) are ready to do away with plastic bags.
Reuters reported today that China launched an initiative to ban plastic bags as of June 1. The Chinese government is putting pressure on the manufacturers of the plastic bags through tax hikes on plastic bag production, in attempt to limit the amount of litter in China’s countryside.
Although it’s unclear how well this ban on plastic bags will work, China’s efforts are impressive, especially during a time when the country had been targeted by avid protesters around its treatment of Tibet.
Back in the United States, Whole Foods decided to go plastic-free. USA Today reported that Whole Foods stop offering disposable, plastic grocery bags in all 270 stores in the USA, Canada and United Kingdom as of Earth Day, April 22. According to Whole Foods, this change will keep roughly 100 million plastic bags out of the environment during the time period of April 22 to the end of 2008.
Whole Foods has replaced plastic bags with the option to purchase reusable ones for just 99 cents. The reusable bags are 100% recycled, and customers receive 5 cents of their purchase every time they reuse a bag.
While some of us were enjoying a nice little Saturday (A trip to Home Depot to get some wall paper, maybe a stop at Bed Bath & Beyond), Steve Ballmer and Jerry Yang were working OT to get the Microsoft and Yahoo! deal done. However, a funny thing occurred sometime in-between them sitting down early Saturday in Seattle and Yang landing back in Silicon Valley on Saturday afternoon – The deal completely collapsed.
The story (in-short) played out because Ballmer led off the meeting (turns out they had been talking in somewhat secret all week) by offering Yang $33 a share. Yang countered that by saying $37 a share was the lowest offer they would accept and by all accounts the room went silent after that. Yang who was accompanied by co-founder David Filo at the meeting returned to The Valley shortly after and once again got on the phone with Ballmer. At that time Ballmer officially withdrew Microsoft’s offer for Yahoo!. According to the New York Times, this news was met with high-fives between Jerry and the rest of Yahoo!’s board. Goes to show you the disdain the Yahoo! board room still held for Ballmer and company regardless of what the deal would have met for stock holders.
Both sides have officially stated their thoughts on the end of the acquisition talks with releases here and here. Ballmer sent this backhanded thank you to Yang for his consideration and sent this note to his employees.
Yang brought forth his additional thoughts on the last three months with this post on Yahoo!’s weblog Yodel Anecdotal. In which he clearly stated his displeasure with the spin Microsoft put on the acquisition process and its collapse.
“By the way, I’m sure you’ve all read or watched the news about this. Frankly, there’s a lot of nonsense and misinformation in what’s being reported. Just so we are all clear, here’s what happened. The board took its mission very seriously. We clearly indicated to Microsoft that we were open to a transaction but only if it were on terms that fully recognized the value of Yahoo! and was in the best interests of our stockholders.
No one is celebrating about the outcome of these past three months… and no one should. We live and work in a competitive world and the Web is only going to get more competitive. Executing on our strategic plan is what matters most.”
Yang also states “With Microsoft’s withdrawal, we’ll be better able to focus our energy on growing our industry leadership and maximizing value for stockholders.” Clearly an attempt to reassure investors set to nosedive the stock this morning.
Which has happened, although the fall has not been as great as some predicted. Yahoo! opened at $23.02 a share this morning as pre market traders dumped the stock after closing at $28.67 a share Friday evening. However, it has rebounded to around $24 a share at 11:30 a.m. ET, which is still far above the $19 a share it was trading at before Microsoft made its offer public three months ago.
Fortunately for Yang it appears his move to test an advertising deal with Google has some investors pricing-in what a full time ad partnership with Google would mean to the business. A deal that Yang must make sooner then later. Still, many investors and Yahoo! employees are voicing their displeasure with Yang and the board after passing up the $33 a share and watching the stock plunge for the 16 percent:
o “There is going to be a lot of pressure on Yahoo’s management to deliver in the next year or two.” ~ Bill Miller, a portfolio manager for Legg Mason (Yahoo!’s second largest shareholder), in the New York Times
o “I am in shock.”
o “I don’t know if we won or we lost. I think we lost.”
o “I don’t love that it was Microsoft, but I think everyone thought $33 was a pretty good offer from a pretty good tech company.”
o “Having to face my staff tomorrow will not be so much fun and I need some Prozac, since I don’t know what I can say to them about how our leadership is going to get our company going again.”
o “Where’s the Jelly memo when you need it?”
o “I can’t really talk to Jerry, since it is difficult to tell a founder tough things he probably needs to hear.”
It certainly will be an interesting couple of weeks and months at Yahoo! as they try to doge loosing crucial members of their team and investor lawsuits. Rest assured (or uneasy) Jerry, you’ll still be in the spotlight.
In closing, It has been a wacky three months and I don’t think too many people foresaw it ending this way.
On a side note: The weekend collapse of the deal was a “victory” for bloggers and the digital media who were able to break the news and post follow-ups ahead of much of the mainstream media. Swisher and Michael Arrington were neck-and-neck in breaking the news as they both posted off of information gathered from anonymous Microsoft/Yahoo! sources before official comment came in the form of the press release from Microsoft. Just another illustration of the great contacts Swisher and Arrington have at Yahoo! and Microsoft along with the clout they carry in the industry.
I’m at RIPE56 today and tomorrow. RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens) is a collaborative forum open to all parties interested in wide area IP networks in Europe and beyond, and RIPE56 is, you’ve guess it, the 56th meeting.
This week-long event brings together the best minds on IP networks, and I’m here working predominantly on the issues of IPv4 depletion and IPv6 uptake. This is a complex issue requiring some deft communications.
Right now however, I’m in a very interesting presentation by Thomas Billeter and Fredy Kuenzler of Zattoo. From their website:
“Zattoo has developed a software program that allows you to watch TV on your computer. All you need is a broadband connection and a current operating system (Windows XP or Vista, Mac OS X, or Linux). The service is legal and free of charge.
“Zattoo is a peer-to-peer application. This means that the data is not streamed from one central server to all users watching a certain program, but flows from one user to the next, thus also using the computing power of the users’ computers.”
Employing a team of 50 and funding of $15m, Zattoo is already live in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. More European countries and the US are planned this year.
Of course, the business plan is underpinned by advertising revenues, although the possibility of subscription based services isn’t dismissed at this stage. The pitch to broadcasters and advertisers: “Zattoo attracts fleeing viewers back to broadcast TV“.
The guys have just shown a matrix with “clips” and “full 24/7 programming” along one axis, and “archive content” and “live content” along the other. Here’s how they slot themselves and competitive video offerings in that matrix:
Zattoo currently serves two million users with 500 servers in 16 locations. Another 200 servers will be added in a few weeks. Less than half of content delivery is managed peer-to-peer due to the upload bandwidth constraints of typical ADSL broadband connections.
Their research has revealed why their current userbase is attracted to Zattoo:
29% want to watch whilst they do other stuff on their computer
22% don’t have a TV
18% use it when they are away from their normal TV
14% use it when their normal TV is being used by someone else
