SUV Sales Down Sharply

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Not a surprise… Sholnn Freeman on the sharp decline in SUV sales:

The sales spiral of the Ford Explorer demonstrates consumers’ shifting tastes. It was once one of the nation’s most popular vehicles, but Ford sold fewer than 12,000 last month, a 52 percent drop from November 2004.
At the height of the SUV boom in 2002, Ford routinely sold 25,000 to 40,000 Explorers a month.
Ford is looking to offset the weakness in trucks with more sales of passenger cars, including the Ford Fusion and Lincoln Zephyr.

Network Neutrality

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David Isenberg:

There’s a consensus emerging among my friends Brough Turner, Bill St. Arnaud and Martin Geddes, that Network Neutrality by regulation is not practical. Each has their own reasons, but the conclusions converge inescapably with mine — given current industry structure, the incentives are all wrong. Vint Cerf’s fervent wish (hey, mine too, were it possible!) for a “lightweight, enforceable Network Neutrality rule” is a pipe dream. Any such rule I could think up would put today’s carriers in an untenable, self-competitive situation.

Portland: Open Source Central?

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Elizabeth Armstrong Moore. Consider the following:

  • Companies like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Intel have developed their own open-source labs here.
  • Linus Torvalds, author of Linux, the first mainstream open-source operating system, moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to work at the Open Source Development Lab in Portland.
  • In mid-October the city hosted the first Government Open Source Conference, a gathering for state and municipal technology managers interested in using open-source software in the public sector.
  • Most recently, Oregon Gov. Theodore Kulongoski announced a $350,000 contribution from Google to develop open-source software, hardware, and curricula at Oregon State University, which boasts an Open Source Lab, and Portland State University. Portland’s standing as a hub for open-source development is not lost on the governor, who is eager to bring even more jobs and investment to what he calls a “burgeoning open technology cluster.”

One in Six Web Users Sell Online – Pew Internet

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AP:

One in six U.S. Internet users have sold goods and services online and 2 percent do so on a given day, a new study found.
Sales are typically done through such online classifed ads sites as Craigslist or through an auction like eBay, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said Sunday.
Those who use the Internet more frequently, have high-speed broadband connections or have been online longer are more likely to be an online seller, the study found.
Online selling is also higher among men, the more affluent and the better educated.