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Cake CEO Steve Carpenter believes that of the approximately $100 billion that consumers pay for stock management services, “a lot is wasted.” He’s built a service that identifies the stock picks from the best performing members in his community, and lets other users take advantage of their investing skills. Importantly, Cake doesn’t show you just which stocks have done well among its users. That’s old information. Rather, Cake identifies the users that are doing well in their portfolios and highlights their transactions, as they happen, for other users. One of the byproducts of that is the Cake Take, a rating service “akin to Morningstar,” Carpenter says. But it’s more predictive, more timely, and a lot less expensive to run, since it’s algorithmic and not based on the opinion of paid analysts. Fair warning: I don’t know if the Cake Take’s predictions are actually better than MorningStar’s. I just think the idea is sound, and more contemporary.

Previous coverage: The Financial Wisdom Of The Crowds: Spendview, Cake, Mint.

See also: Marketocracy.

Cake recommendations I'm supposed to be comfortable with.

If you’re a Cake member and you link it to your stock trading accounts, it combines information about other members’ activities with your own, and in the new “Scout” feature, identifies stocks that are performing better than yours, in users’ accounts with similar asset allocation to yours, but that also evidence lower risk. In other words, stocks you’d be comfortable owning and that should make you more money.

The stock tracking and community site Cake Financial is getting some interesting new features, including its first branded financial instrument, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that rolls up the best stock ideas from the Cake communuty.

It’s a timely idea, not just for consumers, who could always use better stock advice, but for brokerages. The price of stock trading is moving towards zero (see Zecco, among other trading houses). Online brokerages are now trying to make money by holding customers’ assets (offering banking services) and by layering in social networking features that make it harder for customers to leave.

Which brings us to Cake’s ETF, the Cakedex, which should be available via ETF resellers like iShares in 2009 (Carpenter gave iShares as an example only; he’s not revealing the outlets for the Cakedex yet). The Cakedex ETF will be an index fund made up of the top 100 holdings of the top-performing investors on Cake Financial. Details of the fund, such as how the holdings will be apportioned and how often the fund will rebalance, are still forthcoming. But this is a very interesting, efficient, and social financial product.

Paglo is free for everyone to use, at least through this summer. At some point in the future, Paglo has said that they may start charging a monthly fee for the service, or at least for the advanced version of the service.

(Credit: Paglo)

Paglo is billed as “The Search Engine for IT.” I think that is a pretty accurate description of the company’s product. They take a Web 2.0 approach to gathering and displaying data about a network and the devices in it. If you want an in depth look at how Paglo works and all that it has to offer, I would recommend checking out my review, from November. For the purposes of this post, I’m just going to cover what they’re doing now.

Paglo is launching the public beta of their service today. Currently, Paglo has been implemented at 800 companies, each with a target employee size of between 50 and 1,000 people. The core functionality of the service remains the same, but the most exciting addition is Paglo Share-its.

Share-its allow Paglo users to share their searches, dashboards, and alerts with other Paglo users. Theoretically, Share-its will eliminate the need for every IT person to create their own solution to the same problem. For example, if a new security exploit is found in a certain version of Flash, someone in the Paglo community might create a Share-it to identify the devices in the network that are at risk and need to be patched. Perhaps another Paglo user collaborates and improves upon this Share-it and creates an even better solution. Now, the entire community benefits from what they can collectively solve. Paglo is calling this “social solving” and I think that it could be a very powerful asset.

As I said in my previous review, I really think that Paglo is doing a lot of things right here. With the addition of Share-its, Paglo is certainly taking an already killer service to the next level. As the first solid Web 2.0 IT startup, I would really love to see them do well, so if you are in the IT sector, give it a look and maybe you will have a few less headaches trying to solve problems and a few less fires to put out.

Microsoft taking a sip of Midori

Sony picks up Web series Rocketboom

The last week has brought a flurry of news of tech companies jumping into the cloud computing game. CNET’s Charles Cooper and Dan Farber talk about what led up to this trend.

Tech goes back to school

Apple nixes second Black Hat talk

Internet pioneer Vint Cerf acknowledges that Internet service providers need to figure out how to manage network traffic. But, he says, they’re doing it all wrong. He’s posted a blog calling for online speed limits, as opposed to data volume caps, but will ISPs follow his suggestion?

Get those stories and more in today’s podcast.

Hearwho crunches text into MP3s for your amusement

Friendster gets $20 million, ex-Googler as CEO

World ready for Flash for dummies? You bet

Listen now:

Apple releases update to iPhone 2.0 software

Microsoft’s heads-up on security vulnerabilities

Apple’s Jobs says oops on MobileMe launch

Back-to-school gift guide

Download today’s podcast

Today’s stories:

Vint Cerf calls for Internet speed limits

Black Hat 2008 promises to be big

The service is free at the moment. Signing up is automatic if you copy a message to betty@ccbetty.com. A paid, premium version with additional features is coming.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET Networks)

Cc:Betty is missing a critical feature right now: it has no search function. That’s supposed to be coming in about a week.

There’s nothing in a Cc:Betty mail space that isn’t stored inherently in the e-mail messages themselves, but the system’s cataloging and feature extraction makes mail threads more useful and much easier to navigate if and when they get convoluted with a lot of people chiming in.

Cc:Betty, launching at this week’s Demo 09, is a clever online assistant that tracks e-mail conversations.

Using it is simple: you copy betty@ccbetty.com on an e-mail, and it creates a Web-based “mail space” for the thread. The system parses out dates and locations as downloadable calendar items and map links. It also creates catalogs of media items (pictures and videos) and files that are attached to messages.

Unlike the mail client add-ons (in particular, Xobni), Cc:Betty works with any e-mail system. Also unlike Xobni, it’s useful to everyone in a conversation, not just those who have installed the Xobni add-on.

The service catalogs the components of a conversation: the people participating, links, dates, images, files, and so on.

Using Cc:Betty reminds me of two different experiences: 1) Bug tracking system Bugzilla, which is a product some companies (like mine) use to track conversations around software development. 2) Tripit, the travel planning assistant that works like Cc:Betty: you cc it on your travel plans and it creates a useful record of all the related content for you.

Cc:Betty starts by collecting messages in the e-mail threads you care about.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET Networks)

As promised, Dell unveiled several new computers Wednesday made specifically for emerging PC markets like China and India.

There are four new models in all under the Vostro line–two laptops and two desktops. The notebooks will start at $475, and the desktops at $440, and will be available in more than 20 countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe.

This looks to be the beginning of the company’s promised push into two of the fastest-growing PC markets in the world. After establishing a retail presence in both China and India in the last year, Michael Dell said in March that while growth in the U.S. market for PCs would be “OK,” Asian markets would grow more.

(Credit:
Dell)

But looking abroad for a boost is a strategy that Dell’s not alone in pursuing. Chief rival Hewlett-Packard has been doing a bang-up business for a while now in China, which is the home turf of another PC heavyweight, Lenovo.

We’ll see Thursday how effective the retail push into Asia has been for Dell, when it’s due to report its second-quarter earnings.

Dell has traditionally derived the majority of its business here in the U.S., but for the first time ever its international business ticked above 50 percent of the company’s total last quarter.

New Vostro notebooks from Dell made for emerging markets.

The notebooks are available in 14.1-inch and 15.6-inch sizes, and come with Intel Celeron or Core2Duo processors, and Ubuntu Linux or
Windows Vista. The desktops come with Intel Atom, Celeron, or Pentium processors, and Ubuntu or Vista.

Dell says there will be more Vostro products for these markets released in the next few months.

Thompson said that the company has started offering a development kit for some software makers and partners, but that for the time being the kit will only be available to select developers.

Microsoft has said it is aiming to have the consumer version on shelves by 2011, as much as two years earlier than its initial plan.

It’s taken a little bit longer than expected, but Microsoft has its first customer ready to put Surface computers into public use.

Microsoft had talked about such a retail use for Surface, but in its demonstrations had featured AT&T rival T-Mobile. Thompson said that T-Mobile remains a partner, but he had no update as to when that carrier will be ready to use Surface in its stores.

“We’re looking at more of a managed rollout of the SDK at this point,” he said, adding that he would not characterize the software kit as being broadly available. “That’s where we want to get to. I don’t want to say this is a closed or managed system over time.”

An example of the Surface computer set-up that AT&T plans to use in its retail stores.

And, although Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said he wants the consumer version of Surface speeded up, Thompson said he also wants to make sure that the company doesn’t disappoint its earliest customers, who are all large businesses.

“We are trying to do the right thing and accelerate where we can,” Thompson said, but added, “I am very much focused on making this initial commercial plan a success without getting distracted.”

As for those early buyers, Thompson said that Microsoft does have other unnanounced customers for the Surface, though he declined to name names. (One name we’ve heard mentioned is Disney, though Thompson would not comment on that.) He did say that we would start to see activity through partners in some additional areas, such as government, health care, and education.

Although AT&T will be the first place the public can go to regularly see the Surface, Microsoft has permanently installed the machines in one other place: its own campus.

At last year’s partner conference, Microsoft talked about having a software development kit available by April.

The company will use several counter-height units inside its cellular retail stores. The company is beginning with five stores on April 17: two in New York, one in San Francisco, one in San Antonio, and one in Atlanta. Each store will have a few of the Surface machines where customers can compare the features of different phones as well as check out service plans and view coverage maps. Currently AT&T uses laptops in the store to offer such features.

“We’re in business now,” said Pete Thompson, the general manager of Microsoft’s surface computing unit.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

“You can just walk into most lobbies,” Thompson said, adding that the company has about 15 to 20 buildings with the machines so far. “We’re putting in three to five a week.”

Perhaps most interestingly, the first one out of the gate is not one of the company’s earliest partners. Instead, it is cellular carrier AT&T that is ready to make use of the touch-screen computers.

The current version of the Classmate PC, to be updated by Intel soon.

Intel is working on the next version of its low-cost laptop, which could be ready in the next month or so, according to a report in PC World.

The version currently shipping runs Linux and just got a spec bump: It now contains a 1.6-gigahertz Atom processor and 1GB of memory.

(Credit:
Intel)

Though originally intended for education applications in developing nations, earlier this year Intel began making the Classmate available at retail in the U.S. and Europe.

We may already have a clue as to what tweaks the software might be getting. Last month, Sugar Labs, a spin-off of rival low-cost laptop maker One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), said it would develop a version of its Sugar interface for the Classmate PC.

There are no pictures, and very few concrete details on what changes are in store for the device, which is intended for school children. Intel would only say it will have a “new look and feel,” and will get both hardware and software upgrades.

I imagine something like this Danger Service renamed under Windows Live for Mobile brand, with more connections to relatively new services like Windows Live Photos, and perhaps new client pieces as well. Music will be part of the picture, but this is more about mobile than Zune.

Why? Because Microsoft–unlike Apple, and Research in Motion, and Nokia–isn’t a hardware company at its core. Microsoft only builds hardware when it can’t get a partner to do so (Xbox–who’d take the per-console loss?), or when it feels that partner products aren’t getting enough traction and thereby letting a competitor build a threat to Windows. It built Zune because the
iPod was slaughtering all the Windows Media-based players, revitalizing Apple and getting consumers to take another look at the
Mac. (Sure enough, Apple’s now the fastest-growing computer manufactuer in the U.S. and has taken a couple points of market share away from Windows-based PCs.) Microsoft briefly built wireless home routers because it felt partners weren’t making them easy enough to set up on Windows, especially compared with Apple’s Airport. And way back when, the company originally built keyboards and mice to promote Windows, and found that it was a profitable little business.

As one of my colleagues put it the other day, Microsoft killed the rumors that it’s building a
Zune phone, but it didn’t drive a silver stake through their heart and bury them at a crossroads at midnight. In other words, until Microsoft makes some kind of phone-related announcement, misinformed analysts and news outlets will continue to speculate that there’s going to be a Microsoft-built Zune phone, and Microsoft spokespeople will continue going on the record with vehement denials.

Windows Mobile may have stalled in the water while the iPhone and RIM phones have continued to take market share, but to Microsoft, 11% global market share and 16 million units a year isn’t unsuccessful enough to kill the platform and change strategy completely.

Danger built the Sidekick, but Microsoft was mostly interested in the company for its services expertise.

That said, Microsoft might not announce any of this at CES, but might wait for a more mobile-specific conference.

This is getting silly. I’ve been saying since February that the most likely course of action for Microsoft to take is to build a Zune client for Windows Mobile. Not a Zune phone.

Recall that Danger–the company Microsoft acquired last February–has some expertise in services. The company’s Danger Service automatically backs up e-mail and photos in an online repository, pushes e-mails out to the device, offers remote storage for games and other apps, and synchronizes everything between the mobile device and a PC. In other words, everything Microsoft’s been saying under the “software plus services” rubric for the last couple years.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

So let’s assume the rumors are based in fact and that Microsoft is going to make some sort of phone-related announcements at CES. (I haven’t been briefed on any such announcements, so this is all speculation on my part.) Befitting Microsoft’s new self-image as a software plus services company, I would expect the company to announce new and refreshed software and services for mobile phones. Specifically, a Zune client that connects to the Zune Marketplace, plus a revamp of the historically lame MSN/Windows Live services for mobile.