Filed under: Business, Internet, Search

Have you ever been so impressed with the coffee/beer/waitstaff somewhere that you wanted to tell the world? PlaceShout is a website designed to allow you to give your favorite places a tiny World wide web shout out and help you find new places in your area that are worth a visit.

Traditional review sites that have lengthy reviews of establishments. But PlaceShout is all about brevity, with a maximum review length of 100 characters. You can navigate the site by searching for a particular item: For instance: “Coffee in San Francisco” or you can view areas by map and look for reputable establishments near you.

When you pull up a particular location’s rap sheet you can see everything that has ever been stated about them. Much like comments on Digg, comments on the site can be given a thumbs up or a thumbs down. A particular comments amount of votes determines what order it is seen on a places review sheet. For instance if someone states the grilled cheese at Earls Sandwich shop is the bomb, and you think its the worst thing to ever be put on sliced bread you can give their comment a thumbs down and move it down on the list.

PlaceShout is a relatively new kid on the block, so there’s not an overwhelming amount of reviews out there to peruse for a lot of cities, you can currently add reviews however for anywhere. The cities with the most reviews are Ann Arbor, MI at 260 and San Francisco with 234.

If you want to check out reviews of places in your area some good similar sites to check out are JudysBook, InsiderPages, and Yelp.

[via EmilyChang]

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One of my current, and most-read posts, started me thinking: When something goes wrong with a residential real estate buy, who steps up to take the blame? Increasingly, the answer to that question seems to be ”no one.”

Last week, I wrote this post, about a couple suing their real estate agent after allegedly overpaying for their house. The couple claimed that their agent should have known that they were paying too much, and should have warned them against it.

The case is complicated. And it’s not clear whether the agent really did do anything wrong. But in a news story about the case, an expert witness for the agent did say something that bothered me: The witness stated that it was the couple’s duty to make sure they weren’t overpaying for their house, not the agent’s.

My question: Why? Why is the agent receiving a commission check from the sale of the house if the agent — who was representing the buyers in this transaction, not the sellers — if he wasn’t willing to make sure his clients weren’t spending too much money? Isn’t this the least amount of service we want from a real estate agent?

Unfortunately, this dodging of accountability seems to be rather common in the residential real estate business. I have my own example. My wife and I bought a nice tiny home in a suburb of Chicago about two years ago. Unfortunately, during heavy rain storms, our basement leaks, a lot. This wasn’t disclosed to us when we bought the home.

Who’s to blame? The sellers, sure, unless, by some astonishing coincidence the same basement that’s already flooded three times for me in two years never flooded once for them in 8-plus years. But what about our home inspector? We paid him to search the house for just this sort of thing before we bought. Unfortunately, when we called the inspector he denied accountability: He inspected our home during a dry time of the year. How was he supposed to know the basement leaked? Sounds lame to me, but that’s his excuse.

Next we tried our real estate attorney. Maybe he could help us retrieve some dollars from the sellers. He couldn’t. Trying to prove that the sellers knew the basement leaked would be too expensive and time-consuming, and there was no certainty that we’d win our case.

So there you’ve it: We’re stuck with a leaky basement that we’ve to pay to fix ourselves. The sellers who more than likely didn’t disclose the problem and the home inspector who didn’t find it are sailing along.

Where’s the accountability? Maybe if there was more of it, the general public wouldn’t have such a dim view of real estate professionals.

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Filed under: Deals, Press releases, Israel

The news today the Israeli defense company Elbit Systems (NASDAQ: ESLT) signed a $40 million deal with the Royal Netherlands Army (RNLA) isn’t just the latest in a string of new deals for Elbit, but could help the company penetrate the NATO countries as well.

Elbit Systems will supply systems to the RNLA’s ground forces that’ll include enhanced tactical personal (ETCs), incorporating tactical communication devices, and data communication software. The systems will be installed in more then 1,800 of the RNLA’s automobiles, including tanks, armoured automobiles, and others. The project involves extensive cooperation with the Netherlands MoD’s C2 Support Centre.

Commenting on the deal, Bezhalel Machlis, Corporate VP & General Manager Land Systems & C4I Division, Elbit Systems said: “Winning the tender to supply Battlefield Management Systems to the Netherlands MoD constitutes another step in establishing our position as leader in the C4I fast growing and developing market. Elbit Systems’ BMS systems are in use this day by over 20 militaries worldwide and we view this contract awarded by the Netherlands MoD, a leading country in NATO, as a springboard to potential future business in this market.”

Elbit has been signing deals all over the place, but if they can crack NATO member countries defense budgets, this stock will soar higher.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has a position and is long ESLT. He has no positions in any other stock mentioned as of 1/27/08

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Filed under: Deals, Press releases, Israel

The news this day the Israeli defense company Elbit Systems (NASDAQ: ESLT) signed a $40 million deal with the Royal Netherlands Army (RNLA) isn’t just the latest in a string of new deals for Elbit, but could help the company penetrate the NATO countries as well.

Elbit Systems will supply systems to the RNLA’s ground forces that’ll include enhanced tactical computers (ETCs), incorporating tactical communication devices, and data communication software. The systems will be installed in more then 1,800 of the RNLA’s cars, including tanks, armoured automobiles, and others. The project involves extensive cooperation with the Netherlands MoD’s C2 Support Centre.

Commenting on the deal, Bezhalel Machlis, Corporate VP & General Manager Land Systems & C4I Division, Elbit Systems said: “Winning the tender to supply Battlefield Management Systems to the Netherlands MoD constitutes another step in establishing our position as leader in the C4I fast growing and developing market. Elbit Systems’ BMS systems are in use this day by over 20 militaries worldwide and we view this contract awarded by the Netherlands MoD, a leading country in NATO, as a springboard to potential future business in this market.”

Elbit has been signing deals all over the place, but if they can crack NATO member countries defense budgets, this stock will soar higher.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has a position and is long ESLT. He has no positions in any other stock mentioned as of 1/27/08

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Filed under: Deals, Personal finance

HJ Heinz Co. (NYSE: HNZ) should have really strong sales this week leading up to Sunday’s Super Bowl. With more interest this year than in any Super Bowl in recent memory, with the two storylines of the Patriots trying to run the table, and a New York team in the big game, not only should Television ratings skyrocket, but I would expect the number of Super Bowl parties to be up as well. Clearly that’ll benefit the condiment maker.

Heinz is trading toward the bottom of its 52-week range and sports a yield of over 3%. What makes this even more interesting is that investing guru Nelson Peltz owns a share. About two months ago, Peltz filed a prospectus for the $750 million initial public offering of a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Due to the ways SPACs are set up, he’ll need to make some kind of acquisition, and that deal might just be Heinz.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has no position in any stock mentioned as of 1/27/08

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