Bob and Scott » amazon http://www.bobandscott.com Never wrong... just early or late! Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:55:33 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Does Apple Have a Kindle Killer? http://www.bobandscott.com/podcasts/does-apple-have-a-kindle-killer/ http://www.bobandscott.com/podcasts/does-apple-have-a-kindle-killer/#comments Sat, 30 May 2009 03:07:14 +0000 BobL http://www.bobandscott.com/?p=914 Episode 14: Does Apple have a Kindle killer?

Episode 14 - Does Apple have a Kindle Killer?

Episode 14 - Does Apple have a Kindle Killer?



Is Apple Entering the Tablet Space

Is Apple Entering the Tablet Space?

]]> http://www.bobandscott.com/podcasts/does-apple-have-a-kindle-killer/feed/ 0 Is Twitter Down? http://www.bobandscott.com/general/is-twitter-down/ http://www.bobandscott.com/general/is-twitter-down/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:08:06 +0000 BobL http://www.bobandscott.com/?p=328 The day we decide to create a Twitter profile and jump on the bandwagon, the whole thing crashes.

I think the traffic surge caused by the whole Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN and the emergence of Oprah on Twitter is kicking the crap out of their systems.

Is twitter down right now? Not completely. Stylesheets aren’t loading all the time, received a 500 error, and it won’t accept an image upload, but not completely down.

Isn’t this running on the Amazon cloud (AWS)? Where does the trouble lie?

Funny day.  Earthlink had a major outage as well.

]]> http://www.bobandscott.com/general/is-twitter-down/feed/ 0 Visa and Mastercard Increase Interchange Fees http://www.bobandscott.com/general/general-business/visa-and-mastercard-increase-interchange-fees/ http://www.bobandscott.com/general/general-business/visa-and-mastercard-increase-interchange-fees/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 01:43:01 +0000 BobL http://www.bobandscott.com/?p=115 Effective 4/1/2009 Visa and Mastercard are increasing their interchange fees.  These fees are generally passed on directly to merchants.  The fees are relatively small, but the big picture will create a lot of additional revenue for Visa and Mastercard.  The bulk of the interchange rate that is charged kept by the issuing bank.  The interchange fees will pass to V & MC.

What does this mean?  It means that merchants with a large number of transactions will be paying more for their credit card processing costs.  A company like Amazon.com could end up paying $1 million dollars in additional fees per year.  These fees can really add up for a small business too.  For example, a restaurant averaging 100 transactions per day could see an increased monthly cost of $30.  Not earth shaking, but this is half of the phone bill at a time when every little bit counts.

Where are these fees going to end up and how can we profit?  This might be the ideal time to get long Visa and Mastercard.   These two companies essentially have a license to print money.  The interchange fee change, rather than the semi-annual interchange rate change, will go directly into the coffers of the card companies rather than the issuing banks.

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