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Apple Reports Third Quarter Results

All-Time Record Revenue Earnings Increase 78 Percent

CUPERTINO, California—July 20, 2010—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2010 third quarter ended June 26, 2010. The Company posted record revenue of $15.7 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion, or $3.51 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $9.73 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.83 billion, or $2.01 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 39.1 percent compared to 40.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 52 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple sold 3.47 million Macs during the quarter, representing a new quarterly record and a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 8.4 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 61 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.41 million iPods during the quarter, representing an eight percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company began selling iPads during the quarter, with total sales of 3.27 million.

“It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple’s history with iPhone 4,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year.”

“We’re really pleased to have generated over $4 billion of cash during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue of about $18 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $3.44”

Today eBay takes a serious step towards domination of local classifieds by calling that thing that walked like a duck, quacked like a duck, and had a bill like a duck, A DUCK. Yep, eBay dropped the Kijiji name and replaced it with the oh so clever eBay Classifieds. Wow, now that has a good ring to it. LMAO

After years of confusion and having to play off the giggles in the room when you had to actually use the word kijiji, eBay has dumped that stupid ass name HALLELUAH!!!

As a matter of fact, this time last year I did a classic rant about how I hated the Kijiji name and now it is gone. I now have have to get new material to joke about. Now if the name change was not GOOD enough news, eBay also bundled a new iPhone app for eBay selling called … eBay Selling. I am so glad they did not use a Swahili word for this . I am digging the simplicity of the naming with the new eBay leaders, BRAVO.

eBay relaunched its Kijiji classifieds site as eBayClassifieds.com, with major enhancements that create industry-leading standards in trust and safety, customer service and user experience.

eBay Classifieds does not accept personals or other adult-related content, which research shows is a concern for consumers, particularly parents, when using online classifieds sites. Other features include:

• A redesigned Web site with a fresh, clean look that is safer and easy to use for local selling
• Strong filtering technology that significantly reduces spam and fraud, and builds trust among users
• Best-in-class customer support to increase responsiveness to buyers and sellers seeking personal assistance

“We’re introducing a more visual, easy-to-navigate and family friendly classifieds experience that our research tells us consumers in the U.S. want, eBay Classifieds sets a new standard in the U.S. classifieds market, offering a trusted local community selling format for items that don’t make sense to sell on the eBay marketplace, or when selling locally is preferable.”                              —- Lorrie Norrington (eBay President)

The eBay Selling app makes listing items on eBay a snap. Want to sell that item that you don’t need? Use your iPhone’s camera to take its picture and quickly list in on eBay. This application is meant for casual sellers and doesn’t support all the selling features available on the eBay site. But it is a great step in the direction of public adaption for mobile. And right on the money PERFECT timing to coincide with the Apple iPad Launch in a few days…Again BRAVO eBay!!!

With the new eBay Selling app, which is free to download, eBay sellers can:

• Point, shoot and click to list an item from their iPhones in 60 seconds or less
• Research sales trends and price ranges on eBay and list similar items for sale
• Easily and clearly view the status of items for sale
• Share listings with Facebook and Twitter social networks
• Quickly link to other eBay and PayPal iPhone apps

But WAIT THERE IS MORE!!! Not only did eBay launch a new selling app for sellers on eBay it also took that concept and created a separate app for buying and selling to the new eBay Classifieds platform too.

The new eBay Classifieds application for the iPhone, also free to download, creates an unmatched shopping experience for classifieds sellers and buyers. The eBay Classifieds mobile app provides:

• Free ad postings in less than a minute with up to eight photos, either from the iPhone’s photo library or its camera
• Fast and simple search by keyword, location, price range and other attributes
• Single-page ad view with reply, watch, and share features – all while on the go

With the recent release of PayPal Mobile for iPhone, paying for classifieds transactions is easier and safer than ever. A buyer can quickly email money or “bump” iPhones with a seller to transfer funds between PayPal accounts.

We live in the age of Big Brother! No silly, not the TV show. I am talking about the Orwellian talk coming to life. When I was just a young lad there was a commercial ad run by Apple Computers (yes, they USED to make PC’s LOL). They bought a spot on the Superbowl in 1984 Apple Macintosh PC.

It was THE most talked about commerce that year and launched the phenomenon that is Apple today. This commerce was actually a spoof of the George Orwell novel called 1984. 

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Big Brother is a fictional character in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the enigmatic dictator of Oceania, a totalitarian state taken to its utmost logical consequence – where the ruling elite (‘the Party’) wield total power for its own sake over the inhabitants.

In the society that Orwell describes, everyone is under complete surveillance by the authorities, mainly by telescreens. The people are constantly reminded of this by the phrase "Big Brother is watching you", which is the core "truth" of the propaganda system in this state. Big Brother’s physical characteristics are intended to resemble Joseph Stalin although in the film his moustache more closely resembles Adolf Hitler’s.

This is somewhat for the geek in me, but also just to reiterate what Brent Leary and I spoke about last year on his interview call. The iPhone and cellular technologies are not kids toys anymore. These are the pocket PC of the NOW. It is not something down the road, it is today!

• 13.7 Million Units Sold
• 25,000 Applications
• 800 Million Downloads
• Application eCommerce (hmmm…what’s could be next?)

The iPhone 3.0 is pushing the market forward and making business, transaction and payment easy. Should you be planning for the coming wave of users that ONLY have phones? Why will this new generation lug around big laptops any more? How will you keep up and stay relevant?

These are the questions I am asking my team, are you asking yours?

The Sneak Peak Video

Copy and Paste Function

Peer to peer networking

Was it just me? Or did you also get a charge out of the iPhone commercial on The Office this week? That took me by surprise, cause that is my favorite TV show and to see an iPhone commercial, you got to watch. To my surprise they were showing off eBay on the iPhone. I actually dug it…here it is for replay