Liberty

Actually, it's Yahoo, followed by Hotmail, then Gmail. http://www.winrumors.com/hotmail-94-bigger-than-gmail-according-to-latest-u-s-stats/ Depends what you mean be "preferrable", and it depends if those statistics are reliable (third party traffic stats usually aren't.. the kind of people who install a tracking toolbar usually are the most clueless of web users, and they often seem to just make stuff up and be way off - I've been involved with a site getting tens of millions of pageviews a month and I've learned long ago not to trust these third party statistics).

It's still in semi-private beta and Google+ is already a top 10 source of Traffic for Techcrunch, a VERY popular site (and they're not using it yet to share links and promote things): http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/05/google-plus-sharing/ Not everything, but it dominates search and ads, and it has a shot at doing very well in social (though we'll only know for sure in a few years). Facebook's problem is that while everybody uses it, few people actually love - or even like - the company, and so it doesn't have the kind of loyalty that brands like BMW and Coke have. In some surveys Facebook rate around the IRS and AT&T, while Google on the other hand has a great brand. That helps, because average users care about being associated with a great brand (Myspace totally lost its brand through neglect, but Apple's still got it and cherishes it). Update: Google flight search tool coming.. they've really gone into overdrive lately: http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/05/google-flight-search-engine/

Unfortunately, group video calling isn't available in the free version of skype: http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/prices/premium-table-5?intcmp=gvcCS-prem Google+ Hangout will probably benefit from this (up to 10 people in a videocall, all in your browser).

I have Klarman's book (in PDF) and liked it a lot, but didn't learn too much from it because I was already familiar with Graham and Buffett. Always good to refresh your memory, but the Greenblatt book taught me a bunch I didn't know about spinoffs, so that's got to count for something.

Interesting prediction. One thing that I would add is that Google+ will pick up tons of users because of how you can receive content even if you don't have an account. You simply get a email from your friend with a G+ post, and you can click and see it on the site, see their profile, etc, and there's also a link to create an account. Lots of people will just keep reading the emails, but tons of people will create accounts. It's kind of like Google had a chance to look at Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc, and learn from their mistakes and successes and try to do something that improved on them all. And they haven't even officially launched yet, there are yet more features to be announced (as per the WIRED article..). We'll have to wait and see, but it certainly seems like a quality effort, and they've said that if some things don't work, they'll just fix them and keep at it until they get it right. They won't drop it like Wave or Buzz (from which they've learned a lot).

Have you looked at his first book, though? I'm in the middle of reading it for the first time after seeing it highly recommended by people like Geoff Gannon and other value bloggers, and there's no magic formula so far in that one. It's all about analyzing spinoffs and merger equity offerings and such. Definitely over the head of the average investor, which is why he's been trying to make it easier and easier with each book, but interesting stuff for most on this forum, I bet.

Looks like Google will consolidate other brands into Google+: http://mashable.com/2011/07/05/google-blogger-picasa-rebranding/

I'm a bit of a browser geek. Over the years I've used Netscape, IE, Mozilla, Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox, KHTML (on Linux KDE), Lynx, Safari, Opera and Chrome. In my opinion, Chrome is the best browser right now (and not by a small margin), and it has had a beneficial impact on all the others by increasing competition and introducing interesting new ideas to the ecosystem. It also seems to be evolving at the fastest rate, with a lot of under-the-hood improvements being added pretty much monthly. I also still love the comic book they released when it came out and think that was a great way to introduce some technical concepts to non-technical people: http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/med_00.html I'd love to see more of that kind of stuff being done..

Thanks for the precisions!

Could you elaborate on why you think he should have stopped? I'm curious to know if you think what he's doing is bad, or if you think it's simply not for you but could work for other people?

What I'm more curious about in the mid-term is to see if Altius will be as successful outside of Newfoundland-Labrador. If they can transition their expertise to other hunting grounds, I'll be very happy.

Interesting that he says that Ajit doesn't want the CEO job. Wish I had more context, and wonder if it means that he would refuse it, or just that he's fine where he is but would still take it if offered...

Thanks, I'll add that to my calendar!

Thanks for posting this, always great to hear from Charlie. I'd also love full notes if they can be found anywhere.

Thanks for sharing. Good analysis.

500k Android devices are now activated every day, and it's growing at 4.4% week over week, according to Google's Andy Rubin: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20074956-17/google-500000-android-devices-activated-each-day/ EDIT: also some reports that GOOG is in talks to buy Hulu: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hVPp0oCACt0N3YcsL8ZON_K2-yJg?docId=CNG.e740b6d0077ba8c28f6d1dd931c6f679.581 EDIT2: A couple years old, but nice interview form Charlie Rose with Marissa Mayer: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10129

Zynga filing for IPO. Google had at least 100m invested in them. http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/01/zynga-files-for-1-billion-ipo/

I can't predict the future, but Canada's RE market seems to be in an unsustainable place, and we've made a bet against it by renting instead of buying our first house. If the bubble bursts within the next few years, we'll hopefully be able to get a good deal on a house, and if it doesn't, we won't have sacrificed much because our 3bdr apartment is comfortable enough for us (we don't feel we're sacrificing anything by not buying now) and the lower bills leave me more free cash to invest.

I wonder if they're hiring the new salespeople because they're spending so much cash on buybacks, and because valuations are now higher than in the past few years, making acquisitions harder to justify. EBIX has almost always acquired to gain access to customers (not so much for the technology or people, apparently). Maybe now they figure it's easier to get new customers directly than through other companies... Or maybe they'll just keep doing both. Edit: Also, from a 2008 conf call, Robin talking about criteria for acquisitions:

I just found that. Interesting response. He mentions Buffett, and he did mention him before too. I suspect that the reason he's holding to his 4 million shares with a cost average 'in the single cents' is because he wants to keep compounding and eventually pull a Buffett (donate billions). But I have no evidence for this except his apparent love for philanthropy and the fact that he seems to think of Buffett as a model.

Totally. I'm hoping that this is a problem that can be overcome, and that Robin is smart enough to hire more good people to help in that and eventually switch to a top notch auditing firm to quiet the critics (I wouldn't be surprised if this happened when the contract with their current firm runs out). The way I see it, if EBIX had none of those issues (and I'm not convinced most are real, but appearances do make it easy to make the company look bad), we wouldn't even be talking about it because it would be so expensive that none of us would want to touch it (it would be another CRM or whatever). Sadly, what makes EBIX attractive and unattractive are kind of the same things at the moment.. I'm hoping it turns out to be a kind of salad oil phase and that we're eventually left with just the amazing business and none of the issues.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110701005599/en/Ebix-Announces-Accelerated-Plan-Double-Exchange-Sales

Looks like Chrome is going strong: http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/07/01/google-chrome-has-20-market-share-firefox-in-its-sights/ That's excellent for their moat, it helps them set the pace of browser/web standards innovation, and it's good for the brand. I also bet Chrome users do more searches because it's so well integrated.

Doc75, in your research have you listened to the investor presentation from a couple months ago? It gives some good color on Raina (esp. if you listened until the end): http://www.ebix.com/investors/Inv_call_11_Q1.mp3 Also, I've suspected for a while that a lot of image problems are cultural differences, and some stuff is lost in translation, so to speak. I think that some things you do and say in an interview in India will look weird and 'off' to someone in the US, f.ex. UPDATE: I linked the wrong file. I meant this one: http://www.ebix.com/2011_Investor_CEO_CFO.zip

Sad to hear :-[