Rady’s New (and Friendlier) 404 Page

From Smashing Magazine:

Every day you visit one of them. The pages, which don’t exist any longer, have moved to a new server or have never existed at all. Once you’ve missed your intended destination, either through a bad or outdated link, or a typo in the page you were hoping to reach, you’ll hopefully get an internal error message from the server. However, by default these messages aren’t that helpful – after all, you are looking for the information, not for the reason you can’t find this information.

The web production team here at the Rady School introduced a new 404 error page that’s just a bit different from other 404 pages you may find on the web.  Our goal was to provide you with something easier on the eyes while helping you to your intended destination.

We’re confident that with the help of the index we’ve provided and the easy-to-use navigation, you’ll quickly be on your way.

Although we hope you’ll never come across this page by accident, it’s just another part of our efforts to make your online experience with the Rady School even better.

Web Stats: August 2008

Visits	12,000
New visits	71%
Top content	Full-Time MBA, MBA Admissions, FlexMBA, Faculty Directory, MBA Home, Faculty Research Areas, MBA Application Checklist, Full-Time MBA Curriculum, Full-Time MBA Costs and Financing, FlexMBA Costs and Financing, MBA Application Deadlines, MBA Application
Top countries	China, India, UK, Canada, Germnay, Taiwain, Japan, South Korea, Turkey
Top Local Cities	La Jolla, San Diego, Del Mar, Rancho Santa Fe, Poway, Carlsbad, La Mesa
Top Domestic Cities	New York, Los Angeles, Irvine, Chicago, Lake Forest, Santa Clara, Huntington Park, Phoenix, Washington
Top International Cities	London, Cambridge, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, San-Ch’Ung, Seoul, Bangkok, Istanbul, Zurich

Web Stats: June 2008

(compared to June 2007)
Visits: 11,600 (-16%)
Pageviews: 65,000 (-8%)
Average Pageviews: 5.6 (+9%)
Time on Site: 3:17 (+24%)
New Visits: 69% (-3%)

Top Content
Home (9,362)
MBA (5,757)
MBA Admissions (2,796)
MBA Full-Time (2,611)
MBA Flex (2,528)
Faculty Directory (2,289)
Faculty Home (2,125)
Exec Home (1,270)
MBA Admissions Application Checklist (1,082)
Undergrad (1,059)
About (1,009)
Faculty: Timmermann
MBA Flex Costs
MBA Fulltime Curriculum
MBA Application Deadlines
Corporate Connections

Top Countries
China (263)
South Korea (180)
India (152)
Canada (148)
Germany (148)
United Kingdom (142)
Japan (102)
Italy (87)
Taiwan (84)
Israel (78)
Turkey (75)
Mexico (70)
France
Australia
Hong Kong
Brazil
Switzerland
Thailand
Netherlands

Top U.S. Cities
La Jolla
San Diego
Poway
Del Mar
New York
San Francisco
West Hollywood
Irvine
Rancho Santa Fe
Los Angeles
Carlsbad
Beverly Hills
National City
Chicago
Lemon Grove
Washington
Alameda
New Haven
Seattle

Top International Cities
Shanghai
Chengdu
London
San-Ch’Ung
Beijing
Bangkok
Singapore
Istanbul
Tsuen Wan
Paris
Beersheba
Milan
Vancouver
Chennai
Dublin
Sydney

The Decline of eBay

If projections hold true, this may be the first year that eBay generates more revenue from fixed-price sales than from auctions. Nicholas Carr has an interesting post today about the decline of the online auction site:

We already know that the famously cute story of eBay’s origin – founder Pierre Omidyar launched the site to help his fiancee trade the PEZ dispensers she collected – was a lie cooked up by a PR operative. We also know that the company’s vaunted “reputation system” – the foundation of what has long been perceived as a radically new kind of self-organizing and self-policing commercial community – has been crumbling.

Now we’re beginning to find out that eBay’s seemingly revolutionary core – the online auction – may have been a fad all along. As Business Week reports, eBay’s auctions are “a dying breed.” Buyers and sellers are reverting to the traditional retailing model of fixed prices

Read more at roughtype.com.

Web Stats: May 2008

Visits: 14,000 (-20%)
Pageviews: 76,000 (-11.5%)
Average Pageviews: 5.5 (+10%)
Time on Site: 3:18 (+9%)
New Visits: 65% (+3%)

Top Content
Home (10,212)
MBA (6,308)
MBA Admissions (3,118)
MBA Full-Time (2,971)
MBA Flex (2,728)
Faculty Directory (2,486)
Faculty Home (2,339)
Exec: Climate Change & Business (1,933)
Undergrad (1,849)
Exec Home (1,790)
Faculty Research (1,612)
About (1,218)
MBA Application Checklist (1,170)
MBA Flex Costs
Faculty: Timmermann
Corporate Connections
MBA Full-Time Costs
MBA Full-Time Curriculum
MBA Application Deadlines

Top Countries
China (257)
United Kingdom (228)
India (195)
Canada (176)
Germany (143)
Japan (100)
Mexico (98)
Italy (88)
Turkey (78)
France
Taiwan
Brazil
Australia
South Korea
Spain
Netherlands
Switzerland
Israel
Hong Kong

Top U.S. Cities
Los Angeles
New York
San Francisco
Chicago
Irvine
Seattle
Palo Alto
Washington
Philadelphia

Top International Cities
London
Shanghai
Chengdu
Beijing
Seoul
Istanbul
San-Ch’Ung
Paris
Bangkok

Is it Easy Being Green?

Kristen Nicole from Mashable is covering this month’s SF Green Tech networking event, and uses the occasion to discuss the perception of climate change among investors

Outside of political figures and a few Shell commercials here and there, however, we rarely get a glimpse of how the financial world, namely investment institutions, views our global warming crisis. Tonight at the SF Green Tech event, we got to hear from Ray Lane himself on the mentality his investment firm has on green tech. Lane is a Managing Partner at Kleiner Perkins, and was candid enough to share his political views (he’s a Republican, btw) as well as his thoughts on green tech and the research therein…

Aside from driving a Porsche 911, Lane does really care about the environment. Kleiner Perkins has invested in transportation and biofuel companies like GreatPoint Energy and Fisker Automotive, and while the company is focused mainly on early stage growth, a potential for diluted shares in a startup doesn’t deter Kleiner Perkins from getting in on the alternative energy game.

Lane also pointed out that despite strong initiatives from each of the current presidential candidates, the federal government should in fact “get out of the way” when it comes to alternative energy infrastructure implementation and leave things up to individual states. Lane brought up some valid points, and it was interesting to hear from someone on the investment side of things, as green tech becomes more pertinent and applicable in our everyday lives.

Read more at mashable.com.

Microsoft Attempts to Buy Yahoo

It’s official: Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo. An acquisition for the ages. This will certainly shake things up a bit. It’s only going to cost them 45 billion, or $31 per share. From the press release:

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) today announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion. Microsoft’s proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock. The offer represents a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock on Jan. 31, 2008.

We’ll be following this story closely. Stay tuned.

Hoover’s Connect: LinkedIn for Businesmenn?

Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins from Mashable on today’s launch of the new social network for businessmen:

Hoover’s today launched officially the Hoover’s Connect social network, a very highly engineered social network for businessmen intent on networking and establishing relationships with targeted prospects. The launch announcement comes hand in hand with confirmation of the rumored agreement Hoovers has made to acquire Visible Path, a company responsible for powering Hoover’s Connect in it’s beta last year.

Visible Path is a service that provides connections for businesses, mapping a company’s social graphs. Or, as Kristen put it in her review last month, “a custom LinkedIn for just your company, and the peripheral contacts outside of the company that are made through individual connections.”

Read more at mashable.com.

A revolution is taking shape

“When the founder of Microsoft retires this year, it will not only mark the close of a remarkable business career. It will signal the end of an era in computing.

‘The next sea change is upon us.’ Those words appeared in an extraordinary memorandum that Bill Gates sent to Microsoft’s top managers and engineers on October 30 2005.

Belying its bloodless title – ‘Internet Software Services’ – the memo was intended to sound an alarm, to warn the company that a new revolution in computing was under way, and that it threatened to upend Microsoft’s traditional business.

What had always been the linchpin of Microsoft’s success – its control over the PC desktop – was fading in importance. Thanks to the proliferation of broadband connections in homes and offices, people no longer had to buy packaged software programs and install them on their computers. Instead, they could use their web browsers to tap into software supplied over the internet from central data-processing plants.”

Read more at ft.com

Mig33 Raises Another $13.5 Million for Mobile Social Network

“Mig33, a mobile social networking service, has raised $13.5 million in funding, adding to $10 million the company raised in May of last year. If you’re not familiar with the company, it’s relatively new to the US, initially gaining traction overseas, passing 6 million members last summer.

Since then, the company has re-located to the US and now claims more than 9 million total users.”

Read more at mashable.com