stocks

Want to make a fortune at Google? Rub lots of backs

Some people at Google slave away at building a better search engine, or enabling social networks like Orkut, or helping people find directions to places. Not Bonnie Brown. She rubs people's backs. And she has made multiple millions doing so.

Ms. Brown didn't get rich on her salary. In fact, Google paid her a miserly $450 per week (part-time, mind you). No, it was her stock options that have crowned her queen of the massage parlor.

She's not alone, either. There are apparently lots of millionaire-masseuses-in-waiting at Google:

It is estimated that 1,000 employees, Ms Brown among them, have accrued fortunes worth at least $5 million apiece from the nine-year-old web giant's rise and rise. The money has flowed from Google's stranglehold of the hugely lucrative online advertising market (it reported revenues of $7.5 billion in the first half of the year alone) and investors? seemingly insatiable appetite for the group?s shares. Yesterday, the company, founded in a garage by two students, sported a stock market value of some $207 billion.… Read more

Apple shareholder lawsuit over backdating dismissed

New Apple General Counsel Daniel Cooperman won his first battle on behalf of his new company yesterday, successfully convincing a judge to dismiss a shareholder lawsuit over Apple's stock-options backdating mess.

The New York City Employees Retirement System had sued Apple claiming that the company's practice of backdating stock options diluted the value of the stock. Apple has admitted that it improperly backdated stock options on several occasions, including two awards to CEO Steve Jobs, and last December it took a $84 million charge to account for the options.

But the suit had to show that Apple shareholders … Read more

PhotoShelter Collection gets good start

Last Saturday, the online image backup and storage website PhotoShelter officially launched its new stock photography outlet PhotoShelter Collection, which will compete with high-end stock houses, such as Getty Images and Corbis. With established stock image providers feeling serious pressure from microstock sites, such as Fotolia, which offer their images for as little as $1, it might seem strange for PhotoShelter to enter the game now, but they plan to distinguish themselves from the competition by giving photographers a larger commission, control over pricing, and by promising that they won't participate in what they see as the devaluation of … Read more

Pro photogs protest plummeting prices

Just last week, CNET blogger Stephen Shankland, shared his thoughts that recent changes affecting the professional photography market have a "silver lining that shouldn't be overlooked." While his optimism is a nice respite amid increasingly weary economic times, six professional photographers' trade associations are now speaking out against a new pricing scheme by stock photo giant Getty Images that offers its high-end Rights-managed and Rights-ready images, alongside its lower-priced Rights-free images, for the same low price of $49 when used on the Web. For all but the Rights-free images, this represents a price reduction of more than … Read more

Sun looks to brighten stock with reverse split

So, Sun investors, does that $5 stock price got you down? Change may be in the wind.

No, there is no crystal ball or vision of a mega-buyout around the corner. But rather, the company is looking to throw a little Miracle-Gro on the stock.

Sun Microsystems is proposing a 1-for-4 reverse stock split and is asking its investors to sign off on the idea at its annual shareholders meeting on November 8, according to its filing Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

If investors approve the reverse split, four of those $5 stocks would be combined and increase … Read more

Socks vending machine is quite a feat

As a wise woman once said, "Socks rock." Most people never leave home without a pair of socks, at least if they're wearing shoes.

But just in case, the Gallo stockings vending machine allows anyone to protect their feet from the inside of their shoes in a pinch.

The psychedelic Italian vending machine dispenses a wide array of absorbent footwear, perfect for yuletide emergencies, ad-hoc puppetry sessions, or avoiding fashion police busts.

Unfortunately, seeing and using the machine could lead to a frustrating infinite loop.

1. You see the machine.

2. It blows your socks off.

3. … Read more

Tech stocks mere passengers in Thursday's downhill ride

This is based on an initial, somewhat superficial look at Thursday's stock tumble, but it's hard to say tech stocks played all that much of a role in the plunge. Many of them lost a little ground but didn't get hammered like some among the Dow industrials, which ended up almost 300 points lower at the end of their second-worst trading day of the year. Most of the selling was said to be prompted by concerns over weakness in the housing market and grim prospects for buyout financing.

As of about 4:30 p.m. East Coast … Read more

iStockphoto to raise prices in August

iStockphoto, the Getty Images "microstock" subsidiary that sells low-cost imagery and video, will announce Monday plans to raise prices and therefore photographer revenue next month along with a number of promotional activities.

The company sells credits that give customers rights to use contributors' photos in materials such as advertisements, Web sites or brochures. The higher the resolution, the more credits an image costs, and the credit cost will increase from $1.20 to $1.30 on August 19, said iStockphoto Executive Vice President Kelly Thompson. (Credits are cheaper in bulk.)

Because photographers get a proportion of the credit … Read more

Personal investing in green-tech stocks: Where to begin?

The green-tech sector is getting hot for stock investments these days, in part because of some very hot recent solar IPOs, such as that of First Solar. As with everything, personal investors need to do their homework. Here's a few places to get started.

I follow three Web sites (and have occasionally written for or been interviewed by each of them) catering to investors in the energy and green-tech sector.

RenewableEnergyStocks.com is a content-rich site run by financial public-relations firm Investor Ideas, a subsidiary of Econ Corporate Services. Since the company is typically paid by the companies, you … Read more