Last year I received an email inviting me "to take part in a revolutionary new search engine." I was offered to be a guide at ChaCha, a new search engine that uses human guides to help users find what they want. Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos invested $6.5 million in ChaCha. Today, with 30,000 guides (I never signed up) and expecting 300,000 by June, the founder, Scott Jones, is taking ChaCha one step further -- his goal is to make ChaCha the search engine of choice for cell-phone users.

ChaCha will be available at a toll-free number, with easy searches handled by voice-recognition software and more complicated ones going to ChaCha guides. The guides will enter the results of their searches into a voice-recognition database for future users. While users wait for the guide, voice ads will be played. According to Jones, cell-phone providers will replace 411 services with ChaCha by 2010.

While Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is the obvious name each time Internet search is mentioned, ChaCha may actually see competition from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT). After a few days of rumors, Microsoft said it will buy Tellme Networks Inc., a provider of voice-enabled mobile search, directory assistance and computerized, speech-driven customer service hotlines.

Microsoft's plans for Tellme's technology are vast and not limited to mobile search but to applications for the home (operating the TV for example), car (getting directions for the nearest gas station) and Microsoft Office applications as well. If one day this technology works smoothly, Google and others would have some catching up to do.

I've always seen voice-activation as the natural progress of current technology and even wondered in the past if Microsoft wouldn't indeed be the one to bring it to successful fruition. Today, we are one step closer.

"Save."

"Publish."

24/7 Wall St. generated a list of 10 public company CEOs in December where investors in the underlying companies would be better served by a new CEO. Three of these have already been axed, and that is in roughly 6 weeks. Some calls aren't actually calling for the CEOs to be fired, but a title change or strategy shift was in order. There were few outright "He's Gotta Go!" and there still are. The FIRED CEO's are first, and the others are alphabetical by company. The names are highlighted so you can see the full comments and suggestions from the original article on each, and the original comments left on Bloggingstocks are here for the 7 of the 10 that are still pending:

Dell's (NASDAQ:DELL) Kevin Rollins.
STATUS: FIRED! His name will be forgotten by Wall Street most likely and will be referred to as 'That guy that took Dell down.'

Gap Inc.'s (NYSE:GPS) Paul Pressler.
STATUS: KIA! He's done and he'll have to go in for that old Japanese executive retraining boot camp before anyone speaks to him again.

The Home Depot's(NYSE:HD) Bob Nardelli.
STATUS: FIRED! But beware, he took a huge exit-payout and only has a 1-year non-compete. He'll probably end up in private equity and his name won't quietly disappear.

Amazon.com's (NASDAQ:AMZN) Jeff Bezos. He doesn't need to go away entirely! He just needs to do a partial title change. But will anyone inside the company tell the emperor he is wearing no space suit?
STATUS: Earnings are today, but either way the company could use an add-on here. I like Bezos and this will give him the latitude needed.

Citigroup's (NYSE:C) Chuck Prince. The prince calls for Draconian measures, and maybe the prince didn't mean just THIS Prince.
STATUS: Everyone has told this prince he isn't wearing clothes and he keeps ruling and ignores this. Sally Krawchek wasn't the problem. The stock is up in hopes that he'll leave and that new management can run the beast better.

Eastman Kodak's (NYSE:EK) Antonio Perez. Maybe he's nice, but for heaven's sake get the restructuring over with and get some mojo. Bring in a digital media leader.
STATUS: The earnings have turned, but the long painful restructuring continues and the last medical imaging sale funds might not be used aggressively enough. EK would still be better under a different digital leader.

Qualcomm Inc.'s (NASDAQ:QCOM) Paul Jacobs. He isn't being sent home yet, but his dad's shoes are proving very hard to fill.
STATUS: The note here is still in the pending file and he may survive if he can keep the stock from falling and if he can keep the company's patents and contracts alive.

Sirius Satellite Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) & XM Satellite Radio (NASDAQ:XMSR). It is a dead heat in the race, and if two companies need to merge, it's these two. There can be only one.
STATUS: Still pending, still a tie! They should just merge and get it over with. A merger wouldn't be great for consumers and competition, but would be best for investors.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s(NYSE:WMT) Lee Scott. The company is struggling under its own weight, and it needs some good PR. Getting rid of the Darth Vader of Corporate America and bringing in someone fun and likeable would be the best start.
STATUS: He's still gotta go. If he is still there at the end of this year it is because he intimidated every internal external challenger. Darth Vader wasn't a hero until the last 10 minutes of the original series after almost 6 hours of being the bad guy. Lee Scott could become a good guy if he would just leave.

Yahoo!'s (NASDAQ:YHOO) Terry Semel. Yes, when you see him leave or forced out, Yahoo! holders should be happy.
STATUS: Panama may save him, but Wall Street would rather see Semel leave. Sue Decker is better suited for the role.

A lot of these may be controversial, and there are plenty of other companies that might benefit from a new CEO. None of these attacks are personal and these are merely based on observation and analysis. The list could probably be 100 CEO's long.

Jon Ogg is a partner in 24/7 Wall St. LLC; He does not hold securities in the companies he covers. He also not been compensated to represent any of these companies in any light.

A piece in Monday's New York Times discussed up-start companies seeking to create new search engines that are better than Google. The most interesting threat may come from Wikia (the start-up of a founder of Wikipedia), which will try to create a search engine much as Wikipedia was created: with the help of programmers and users all over the world. Since 2004, venture capital firms have invested $350 million in 79 search-engine related companies. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, has invested in ChaCha, another search-engine start-up.

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) investors will want to pay attention to the number of competitors lining up with the goal of toppling Google. Remember, Google began its rise to dominance over Microsoft, Lycos, and others when two Stanford Ph.D. students started the company in 1998 in a friend's garage. All it could take for Google to be ruined is for two more college students to come along and invent a better search engine. I see that as being the primary long-term risk factor for Google investors. In 25 years, will Google still be the "World's Best Search Engine"?

In the early days of Amazon.com, the thought was that this company had a limited future. After all, how many books can you really sell?

Well, of course, the founder of the company, Jeff Bezos, was thinking on a much grander scale; that is, his company would be the dominant player in ecommerce. And he has achieved that. The problem is that the company's financials are still lackluster. While other dot-coms, like eBay and Google, post strong profits, Amazon.com really looks like an a brick-in-mortar play.

However, Bezos is now moving into other areas. For example, he is allowing the world to use the company's sophisticated infrastructure, such as for storage, fulfillment and so on. In fact, the company has some big-time clients for these services, such as Microsoft. In fact, today, at the Web 2.0 Conference, Bezos made it clear that this utility strategy is a big priority.

True, the strategy does have some allure. No doubt, much of the Amazon.com infrastructure is underutilized (because the business is seasonal and subject to occasional spikes). What's more, there are many companies that would prefer to outsource certain operations. Actually, this is particularly the case for upstart Web 2.0 companies, which can avoid heavy costs.

But, the fear is that Amazon.com could be losing its focus. Its core business of ecommerce is coming under attack from players like Google as well as traditional retailers such as Wal-Mart.

Also, building the systems to deliver these utilities is not cheap. Amazon.com has spent $650 million in technologies in 2006. What's more, it will need to spend marketing dollars to find B2B customers. There are also dollars needed to keep the customers.

So, while this may be great for Web 2.0 companies, the pay-off for Amazon.com does look fuzzy.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates InvestorOffering.com.

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has recently started slowing down technology spending and trying to "recruit returns" on that investment. At the same time, the world's largest online retailer has started increasing spending on marketing, a move which is raising eyebrows among investors, especially since Amazon's margins aren't growing like dandelions in spring.

Does Amazon.com constantly need to fuel marketing and advertising costs to spur growth that investors need to see consistently from the company? That's the sentiment going around these days, although it's just sentiment. But when you see numbers like marketing spending rising 50% over the prior year in Amazon's recently reported third quarter, red, green and blue flags start going up. A gain like this -- which outpaces even sales growth that gained 25% in the same period -- sends a sign; of what I am not sure.

Amazon.com has now been accused by some market pundits of "buying revenue," or increasing marketing expenditures to see short-term revenue gains -- which in turn, please investors who myopically always look for "the next quarter's numbers" like that's all that counts. Hogwash, but that's the market for you -- obsessive compulsive disorder when it comes to the next three months' worth of results.

(Disclosure: I own AMZN shares as of 11-8-06.)

How in the world is Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) holding on to its stock price? Who is supporting these outrageous figures? Why is there no profit taking? Do investors think it's going higher still, without the profits to back it up? Are investors buying CEO Jeffrey P. Bezos's mystic ethos?

For starters the shares are controlled by surprisingly few entities. If I am reading the data correctly, Jeffrey Bezos owns 101,198,359 shares as of October 27, 2006. Legg Mason Inc. holds another 98,122,167shares and TCW, Inc. controls another 26,971,084 shares, both as of June 30, 2006. That means that approximately 60% of the shares are held by three entities.

Looking still further, insiders control 25.22% of the outstanding shares and institutions control 73.20% for a total of 98.42% which means individual investors own only 1.58% of the outstanding shares. For comparison Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) insiders and Institutions control 87.45%, leaving individual investors with 12.55%. Seems the small guy remains at the mercy of the big players and will likely be left without a seat when the music stops. With a price to earnings ratio hovering between 54 and 56 lately there is not much room for error (actually none) so the the true believers better be right.

Am I the only one bewildered at Amazon's stock price. I don't think so.

Another concern brewing: Are increasing marketing expenditures cutting into profits?

The latest from Business Week provides some insight into Jeff Bezos's gamble on becoming a platform player. Just because Bezos chooses to gamble does not mean the individual investor should. After all, he is gambling with your money -- especially when you consider the inflated stock price.

Someone once told me about a person new to the investment world who got a hot tip on a stock that was trading at a good price with strong market possibilities. He asked his broker to buy 500 shares. The stock went up, so he bought another 500 shares. It continued to rise in price and he felt he had really got a good tip and wanted to take full advantage of it before it made a major move so he bought 4,000 more shares. Sure enough the stock popped the very next day. His confidence beaming, he called his broker to buy another 5,000 shares -- doubling his position. His broker tried to discourage him telling him there were no sure things but he insisted and his broker reluctantly increased his position to 10,000 shares. By the end of the week he was up 200%. Not wanting to let his greed get the best of him he decided he had made enough so he called his broker and asked him to sell out his position. The broker replied, "to whom? You're the only one buying."

If so many Amazon shares are in the hands of Legg Mason and it decides to take some profits, who will they sell to? Jeff Bezos has often proven to be insightful and inspirational, but I would keep my eye on a seat just in case that music stops.

Interested in reading more? Check out my other posts for Bloggingstocks here.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for Design and Research of an architecture & planning firm.

After reading the current cover of BusinessWeek, which features Amazon.com, I want to follow-up this piece from last week and delve a little more into the vision Jeff Bezos has for Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN).

Amazon CEO Bezos (who in this man's opinion strikes an uncanny resemblance to actor Kevin Spacey) has often been misunderstood by the marketplace. After all, he guided the company through the dot-com mess five years ago and the company became profitable after years of waiting almost to the quarter which Bezos predicted. Can he see the future?

Soon Amazon will be selling computer power and storage services as commodities for small businesses, in addition to its gargantuan online retail operation that is the largest in the world. While Amazon is in the business of "managing complexity," just how far can this company stretch itself as it sells almost everything under the sun while providing logistics infrastructure for other business enterprises?

Perhaps Bezos is creating the next competitor for his own company. He doesn't seem to care, as if to say "bring it on." There's a madman at work here, but he's got an impressive track record, unlike many analysts, and of course the world will be watching. Amazon, in my opinion, is trying to become as ubiquitous as Google, but in its own way. We'll see if it gets there.

(Disclosure: I own AMZN shares as of 11-6-06)

With Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) getting into almost every category of the selling business imaginable, can the largest online-only retailer continue the growth that CEO Jeff Bezos has trumpeted from the company's very start? In the last full week, starting on October 24th when the retailer said that lower technology spending and content would make for improved operating profits very soon, AMZN shares spiked 18%. Wow -- such a nebulous statement results in an 18% stock price spike? Every company should say this and watch its shares go nuts I guess.

But this sentiment sits a little bowlegged when Amazon.com reports that it will be selling infrastructure services like data storage and computer processing logistics among CDs and stuffed bears. Don't those things cost, ahem, money in terms of technology spending? Or, did Amazon simply bulk up its data centers and other features in the near-past and now hopes to capitalize on these recent building efforts by also offering new services to smaller businesses and third-party sellers?

As Doug McIntyre notes, Amazon believes that since it has spent 11 years building a huge web infrastructure for itself and its merchants, it could share its knowledge. At what time does Amazon.com stop trying to be the "Google" of the web commerce arena and curtails cost outlays that have questionable return in the future? That's a question for AMZN investors to ponder -- at what point is too much, too much?

[Disclosure: I own AMZN shares as of 11-3-06]

Selling things online appears to be a great idea for a business. In fact, it's a fun model: we are all so excited about the many opportunities for new businesses to thrive online. In the case of some major Internet companies, we have bid up the stocks to very high levels. But history tells us that we have done so at our own peril.

Yesterday I wrote that Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is overspending on growth and is thus overpriced, and concluded that the market has lost its collective sense once more. I raised numerous questions and received some thoughtful support in the comments. Since then, I have asked myself one more inescapable question which I pose today: What choice do they have?

From the inception of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos has argued that, in this particular business, "first mover status" is critical to its success. The market supported this thesis and we were off to the races. Amazon has been on a spending spree, growing its sales quarter after quarter. But Amazon is trapped. It must continue to grow at all costs. It has reported top line sales growth again in the latest quarter -- but very disappointing profits.

The truth is Amazon is just like a great big supermarket. That is what it wanted to be, the online supermarket to the world. I think Bezos has achieved his goal but there is a HUGE problem here: supermarkets have very low profit margins!

Amazon is following a questionable path with CEO Jeff Bezos playing the Piper and investors heading toward the cliff.

For years I have been down on Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) the stock, even though I buy things on the site perhaps once a month -- 80 percent of it books. I have never been able to accept its valuation. I like the service but can't rationalize the stock price.

It currently has a TTM (trailing twelve month) P/E (price to earnings) of 55.82, based on yesterday's close of $38.15 . Perhaps it should change its name to "Amazing.com" (which actually exists) based on its ability to convince investors that the stock is worth anything near this price.

For comparison, the P/E of Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is 60.55, eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) is 43.09, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)
is 33.29, Apple Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)is 35.75, Hansen Natural Corp. (NASDAQ: HANS) is 35.82 and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) is 19.21.

What is it about Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)? Tonight on MAD MONEY, Jim Cramer remarked how the company saw its profit slip over 30%, yet the stock gained over 10%. While it may be hard for most to understand such a mixed-up Street, Cramer said it makes sense if you think like a Mad Man -- like he does.

Cramer has been a hater of Amazon for a long time, he said. Why is it up? He thinks that so many were betting against it that they now HAVE to love the quarter, theorizing that a lot of the pop is short covering because they had 14% of the float short. Cramer said the company didn't change the long-term picture, but they spooked the shorts because of the near-term (which is another way of saying the Street is afraid Amazon.com might someday be good). Cramer said if you owned it you can go to the cash register and ring it.

But Cramer said he stands by his long-term prediction that Amazon.com is no good and he screamed "WE WILL BURY YOU!" He accused the company of "buying revenue" and predicted its stock will go lower. Cramer thinks Amazon's management is focused elsewhere, pointing out that Bezos is building a spaceport. He said the expansion into every aspect of retail isn't working because it is just too big. The stock is just too expensive, trading at twice its growth rate. He thinks he isn't wrong on Amazon, the longs just got lucky. He ended saying "If you ask me, you don't want to go near it."

AMZN traded up 12% to $37.68 in regular trading, but it fell 0.8% to $37.38 after Cramer slapped it.

Jon Ogg is a partner in 24/7 Wall St. LLC; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

37signals is one of the Web2.0 firms at the forefront. In fact, the company even has its own manifesto, called Getting Real. The book has sold more than 20,000 copies. I'm one of those customers – and, I have to say, the book is a great read. It's an excellent primer on how to build a successful Web-based business.

As for 37signals, it has a suite of collaboration software solutions. They are elegant, cool and useful. The company has been a tremendous innvoator, such as its open source efforts with Ruby on Rails. Also, the company has avoided the "free-is-good" mentality and actually charges for its wares.

Well, 37Signals received an investment from Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

Jason Fried, the founder of 37signals, had an interesting blog post on the investment. Besides money, 37signals wants the "wisdom of a very special entrepreneur who's been through what we're going through."

This is a smart move and should be a big benefit.

But this is something Amazon.com shareholders may not want to see. After all, the company had a horrible second quarter. Perhaps the first piece of advice to 37signals should be: focus.

Is the just-released Google Checkout going to be a severe threat to that fancy-laden Internet retailer we all know as Amazon.com? Not by a long shot in my opinion, which differs from this blog viewpoint in a pretty large way. No, I know why some stories and headlines are written, and that is to gain eyes reading them, at all costs. But, I fundamentally do not think Google Checkout is a direct competitor to Amazon.com at all. Let me explain.

The tight control that Amazon.com has over the entire shopping experience, in my experience, is second to none. There is not a retailer on the face of the planet that I have dealt with, online or offline, that serves up the incredible array of products and services that Amazon.com does with such customer splendor. Not only are the prices incredible and the shipping free (in most of my cases), but the customer service, attention to every single detail of the customer experience, and even the post-sale follow-up put Amazon.com in a class by itself. There simply is no equal, and it I sound like an Amazon.com fanboy, it's because I am. They *get* it, and I'm very hard to please as a shopper. Amazon.com reminds me of Apple, another company that *gets it* in regards to the end-to-end customer solution.

Now, with that said, I think Google Checkout will allow the millions of vendors and merchants on the Google AdWords train to make purchases incredibly easy and fast with a single, unified checkout system. This will increased the conversion rate easily within that universe. Browsers will become shoppers, and at a more steady and increasing rate. But, with Amazon.com having a huge first-mover advantage here, it's going to be incredibly difficult for Google Checkout to dent Amazon's hold on Internet retail anytime soon, just as it's going to be hard for Yahoo! and Microsoft to dent Google's Internet search dominance.