Roundup: Cisco's mixed results, Hitwise election site stats, and more

November 6, 2008 | Eric Eldon

Cisco does a little better than expected — Sales fell 9 percent in October, compared to a year earlier, the computer networking giant reported yesterday; the company expects sales to drop up to 10 percent this quarter versus the $9.8 billion a year ago. Yet “[i]n our opinion, the U.S. will be the first major country to recover,” chief executive John Chambers said. More at the New York Times.

Hitwise: Yahoo wins presidential election web site traffic — Check out the table, below.

New York City funds study on how to preserve NY media industry — It looks to me like one idea has already been implemented: Have New York-based media outlets give preferential coverage to New York-based digital media companies.

Satellite radio company Sirius XM tries to refinance debt — Meanwhile, Sirius star Howard Stern throws some stones through his glass house as he tries to make fun of web companies like Twitter and Facebook.

MySpace’s new self-serve ads may be making up to $50 million a month — That’s what TechCrunch is hearing.

Micro-market for comment plugins getting consolidated — Blog platform WordPress recently bought Intense Debate; now, comment-and-poll blog plugin JS-Kit has bought rival CoComment [Update: Alarm:clock reported this as a purchase. TechCrunch has more recently talked to the companies and they've clarified that its just a partnership].

Chip-maker AMD cuts 500 more jobs — More on CNET.

Range Fuels hires Shell vice president as chief executive — David C. Aldous comes on board as the company builds a big new cellulosic ethanol plant. Oil company executives are slowly leaking over to biofuels.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer can’t believe Google is pouring money into a project without a clear revenue stream — That project is mobile-focused operating system Android. (Ballmer photo via, unsurpisingly, Android Community.)

Google employees sued in Italy for YouTube video — The charges come even though the video in question — of, regrettably, a handicapped child being bullied — was quickly pulled. Incidentally, Italy’s prime minister, media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, is well-known for his media manipulation. This video seems like a great excuse for his government to try to clamp down on a site that is more open to free speech.