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  2008 05-16 MediaBytes: YAHOO - ICAHN - CBS - CNET - BLACKBERRY - WPP - IAC - ASK - DICTIONARY

  http://www.shellypalmermedia.com/2008/05/16/2008-05-16-media...
  69 days ago in MediaBytes With Shelly Palmer - Technology, Media and Entertainment News and Opinions · Authority: 111

  YAHOO Chairman ROY BOSTOCK sent CARL ICAHN a letter Thursday that said Icahns perspective on the botched MICROSOFT deal reflects a significant misunderstanding of the facts about the Microsoft proposal. Bostock repeated that Yahoo remained open to a
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  Revenge of the Nerds (Comeuppance of Tech Media)

  http://www.flacksrevenge.com/2008/05/revenge-of-the.html
  64 days ago in Flack's Revenge · Authority: 28

  The downward death spiral of the tech trade media has been much discussed. I blogged about it last summer, when we explored social media's impact on tech journalism on the Fusion PR blog. But could the fact that major media now apparently see the geeks as the cool kids on the online block help the tech Phoenix rise from the ashes? It is no secret that the tech crowd were amongst the first to flock to (and build beau coup traffic for) online media and blogs. Now, as major media want to do a better of getting their online swerves on, some of these properties look like hot commodities. This was evidenced by the CBS acquisition of C|Net to the tune of $1.8B last week (see the Wired story: Big Payday for Web 2.0). Also, there was a good article in NY Times yesterday by David Carr about Conde Nast's various forays into social and online tech media (including Wired.com and the Ars Technica blog). As I said back then, in an editorial in the Bulldog Reporter: The democratizing effect of social media is available to all, including traditional media. Although fortunes will shift and new business models may be needed, it would be a mistake to underestimate the ability of the professionals to master these tools and shore up, if not strengthen, their franchises. Similarly, PR professionals also need to adapt to news ways of communicating. We need to become as agile as traditional media are finding they need to be, and adept at communicating in different styles and formats. The prize will go to the tech media and journalists (and tech PR folks) who can adapt to the online world. Indeed, it was great to get an update about IDG and its now online-only InfoWorld brand, again via a recent NY Times article, this one by Steve Lohr. Apparently both IDG and InfoWorld are thriving and growing online. Who knows, perhaps IDG will be the next acquisition target.
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  News Bytes: May 15-19

  http://digitalmedianews.blogspot.com/2008/05/news-bytes-may-...
  65 days ago in Digital Media News · No authority yet

  JPM Tech Conference: CNET: CFO Zander Lurie On CBS Sale; Cross-Selling And Promotion; Scale; TV.com During a Q&A with analyst Imran Khan at the JPM Technology Conference, CNET CFO Zander Lurie had one major topic to discuss: the company’s recently announced planned $1.8 billion sale to CBS. -- What lead to the deal?: Lurie: Can’t say… back story will come out with the proxy in the next coming weeks (we’ll be curious to read that). But clearly: “We didn’t run a public auction.” -- Advantages: Cross promotion (radio, TV) and cross-selling. “Our pitch in the marketplace has always been premium demographics, premium content… where we have yet to crack the code is with non-endemics in many of our entertainment properties.” Scale matters when competing with sites like MSN or MySpace. This sounds very familiar. “This deal for CBS (NYSE: CBS) was not about synergies or cost cuts.” -- TV.com: Basically, there’s no plan yet on what to do with this valuable domain (just a pure guess: this domain will continue to go under-utilized, like so many other ultra-premium domains). “What CBS brings is some of the world’s premier content.” Interesting possibilities, said Lurie, include working with Hulu. The site will, obviously, have more access to broadcast and webisode content than it does now..more after the jump... Industry Moves: Glam; iCrossing; WPP; Big Fish; Joost -- iCrossing: Independent digital agency iCrossing elevated Don Scales to CEO, replacing founder Jeff Herzog. Scales has served as iCrossing’s president and COO for two years. Herzog, who founded iCrossing 10 years ago, will remain on the company’s board of directors, serving as vice chairman. -- WPP: Torrence Boone has been named CEO of Project Da Vinci, the global agency being built to service Dell Inc. Reporting to WPP’s CEO Martin Sorrell, Boone will oversee the agency’s marketing and brand equity. Previously, Boone served as president of Digitas Boston. Release. -- Big Fish Games: Game and software industries veteran Laurent De Segur has been promoted to CTO from VP of technology. Prior to joining Big Fish, he held senior engineering positions at Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN) and Expedia. -- Joost: Danny Passman and John Schultz have been appointed as global head of programming strategy and director of programming strategy, respectively. They will be responsible for creating programming strategies to boost viewership. Passman and Schultz come from Dailymotion, where they helped grow US traffic through content acquisition and curation. Carl Icahn Files Preliminary Yahoo Proxy: Share Purchases Started Monday After Withdrawn Bid So far, things aren’t going exactly as planned in Carl Icahn’s attempt to bring Microsoft and Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) together, nonetheless, the battle continues. In a just-filed preliminary proxy, Icahn introduces his proposed board nominees, urges shareholders to reject the Yahoo slate, and lays out the timeline of his Yahoo share purchases. It’s this last part that’s immediately most striking: Icahn’s purchases started Monday, May 5, the first trading day after Microsoft pulled its bid. Remember that on the day after Microsoft pulled its bid, Yahoo shares fell hard initially but rallied off of their laws. Obviously, there was very little time between Microsoft’s withdrawal and Icahn’s decision to go in for a move. The share purchases continued until May 14, which was the day after it was first reported that he was interested. Other highlights: -- Director pay: Fairly nominal: “In addition, upon our filing of a preliminary proxy statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC"), which indicates that the Icahn Entities intend to nominate you for election at the Annual Meeting, you will be paid $25,000 by the Icahn Entities.” -- No argument: Other than a generic plea to shareholders, the filing really doesn’t present much of an argument. There’s no lashing out at the board, not even for its rejection of Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT). Perhaps this will come with a later filing. Eight Former AOL Execs Hit With SEC Fraud Charges, Including Overstating Online Ad Revs By $1b Eight former executives at AOL (NYSE: TWX) have been accused of overstating online ad revenue by $1 billion and have been hit with fraud charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission, WSJ reports. The alleged scheme lasted from around mid-2000 to mid-2002. A suit has been filed in a Manhattan civil court against AOL Time Warner Chief Financial Officer John Michael Kelly; Joseph Ripp, former CFO of the company’s AOL division; Steven Rindner, a former senior executive in the company’s business affairs unit; and Mark Wovsaniker, former head of accounting policy. Four other former AOL execs have reached a settlement agreement with the SEC: former controller James MacGuidwin will return $2.1 million and pay a $300,000 penalty; David Colburn, the former head of the business affairs unit, has agreed to pay $3.2 million back and has accepted $750,000 penalty. The two others were not identified by name, but were part of the AOL’s business affairs unit. Apple Needs More Mobile Music; UMG Demanding Nokia-style Comes With Music Deal? Have the music labels found a way to get Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) to cave on some of their age-old requests as well as an interesting new one? The NYT’s Saul Hansell reports the Cupertino-based company is deep in “active” negotiations with major music labels to increase the range and inventory of music content available on the iPhone. Specifically, Apple wants to increase its ringtone inventory and to start selling ringback tones. It’s also hoping to hammer out an agreement on whether it can sell songs directly from the iTunes store to iPhones, via the operator’s network. But the music labels have their own list of requests, and are seeing this as their best opportunity to get Apple to relent on some of their eternal demands. What do the labels want? For a start, they want more money on over-the-air downloads. iPhone users currently “sideload” music on to their phones—that is they download it first to their PC, and from there upload it to their mobile. But with 3G versions, they’ll be able to download directly to their devices over their carrier’s network. The labels believe this service should command a higher price than web downloads, which should be wholesale for $0.70 each. They also want more flexibility on charging different tracks at different prices, rather than the $0.99 price that Apple sells all iTunes songs for. This has been a sticking point in the past, even before the iPhone’s arrival. The labels have long argued that hits should be priced higher than $0.99, and older songs for less. The biggest demand comes from Universal Music Group which apparently wants Apple to do a similar deal to what the label has done with Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and its forthcoming “Comes With Music Service.” UMG wants Apple to consider bundling the iPhone with the right to download any song from a label for a certain period of time. No shock here that neither can agree on the price of such a service, with what Apple wants to pay far lower than what the labels think its worth. This of course raises the question once again--have the labels really stuck it to Nokia with their Comes with Music service, and how deeply will the Finnish handset maker have to subsidize it? Hansell’s source expects the other points to be hammered out in time for Steve Job’s speech at Apple’s developers conference on June 9, but for this one to carry on for some time. SAG: Ask Actors Before Posting Clips Online The Screen Actors Guild is holding firm on its major demand of asking for actors consent for clips of their film and TV work to be posted online by the media companies. The clip issue has emerged as a key point in SAG’s negotiations with AMPTP, reports Variety, set to resume May 28, or earlier, should the AFTRA primetime talks conclude quickly. In this video posted on SAG’s website, national exec director Doug Allen took up the cause of clips, and took issue with AMPTP’s proposal that they be allowed to be distribute such clips online—with payment but without consent required—and stressed that actors have had the right of refusal in traditional media for 50 years. “We think that’s a real problem, and we suspect that the membership will agree with us,” he said of the issue. The consent issue is also crossing into old media, where SAG is demanding that actors approve any product integration into their scenes, again a point of contention with producers. Plenty of work for IP lawyers if SAG gets its way… Comcast Interactive Capital Invests in CDN GridNetworks NCTA brings in a slew of announcements, and this funding one: Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) is continuing its backtracking and cozying up to P2P providers, and has now invested in GridNetworks (GN), a Seattle-based P2P video content delivery network. The amount was not disclosed..last year the company raised $9.5 million first round led by Panorama Capital. GN will also work with Comcast on various applications. GridNetworks provides its GridCasting service for HD video delivery through broadband connections, using a variation of the traditional P2P distribution. CEO Tony Naughtin was formerly at Internap (NSDQ: INAP) while CTO Jeff Payne was the architect of the Real Broadcast Network at RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK). As for Comcast’s rationale, said Tony Werner, Comcast CTO: “We are interested in the application of P2P concepts in a manner that puts the quality of the consumer experience first, and enables lawful distribution of copyrighted content while also efficiently utilizing the network.” Industry Moves: Scripps; Seacrest -- Scripps: Lisa Choi Owens has joined as SVP-online partnerships and distribution, reporting to Deanna Brown, president of the interactive group. In her new role, Owens will continue to grow a distribution web for Scripps’ (NYSE: SSP) lifestyle content and oversee strategic framework. Most recently, she served as VP-new media business development for FUSE Networks. -- Ryan Seacrest Productions: Tony Novia has been tapped as SVP-new media development, reports Variety. In this capacity, Novia will oversee digital strategy and business development as well as manage brand integration with advertisers. He was most recently VP-content t uVu Mobile and had previously worked in the music industry as VP-international at Universal Motown/Universal Republic and SVP at Radio & Records. Microsoft Needs To Do Something. But Combining Facebook With Yahoo Search Ain’t It. As Microsoft toys with Yahoo over the possibility of a resumed deal to buy only its search business, is it also thinking of throwing Facebook into the mix? That’s the latest rumor making the rounds. Asked about it in Japan, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg danced around the question by stressing his desire for Facebook to remain independent, but declined to comment specifically on whether a sale to Microsoft was in the works. Presumably, though, he wouldn’t be in Japan if any deal was imminent. The only thing that is safe to assume right now is that Microsoft’s corp. dev. guys are talking to everybody else’s corp. dev. guys about any number of combinations or partnerships. This is not the first time a rumor has surfaced that Microsoft wants to buy Facebook. After Microsoft walked away from Yahoo the first time, there was chatter that Facebook might be an alternative. What is different about this rumor is that it contemplates a combination of Yahoo’s search business with Facebook. Robert Scoble lays out his conspiracy theory about how such a combo would spell the end of the open Web. Scoble points out that stuff on Facebook is not very searchable, but if Microsoft owned both Yahoo’s search engine and Facebook, it could expose all of that social data to Yahoo’s search engine (while keeping it hidden from Google’s). That would give Yahoo’s search engine a leg up on social relevancy and people search, and thus give it a competitive advantage over Google in that area. There are a few problems with this theory. 1. If opening up Facebook to search really does confer some sort of competitive advantage, there is nothing stopping Microsoft from negotiating a much cheaper technology deal with Facebook to allow its search engine to spider the social network. It doesn’t need to buy Facebook for $15 billion to $20 billion to do that. 2. It doesn’t need to buy Yahoo’ search engine to do that either. Microsoft has its own search engine. If combining search and Facebook really is a game-changer, it would be a (much-needed) game-changer for Microsoft search as well. 3. Making Facebook more searchable in and of itself is not a game-changer. Social data exists in many other places as well (MySpace, Bebo, Orkut, Hi5, Twitter, FreindFeed, Plaxo, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, etc.). If indexing this social data will make search more relevant, it needs to be done across the Web, not just on Facebook. No one deal will solve this search issue. 4. Combining Yahoo’s search engine with Facebook does not solve Facebook’s biggest problem: making money from (mostly display) ads on Facebook. Microsoft is not doing such a great job selling display ads on Facebook already, and the new deal being talked about between it and Yahoo would not include Yahoo’s display advertising business. Arguably, putting together Facebook with Yahoo’s display advertising business would make a stronger combination (assuming that Yahoo has a better shot at figuring out how to monetize social-network ad inventory than Microsoft). Still, what this discussion highlights is that buying Yahoo’s search business on its own might not do it for Microsoft without combining it with some other move. Microsoft needs to close a deal (any deal) with Yahoo first, though, before it can start moving around other chess pieces. As far as Facebook goes, keep an eye on Zuckerberg. If negotiations with Microsoft get serious, he’ll fly home in a hurry. Can New Hires Fix Joost’s Content Issues? Web TV company Joost has made two hires to help where it is sorely lacking — content. Danny Passman is the company’s new global head of programming strategy and John Schultz is now the director of programming strategy. Both were previously at vid sharing site Dailymotion. It’s been a shaky 2008 for Joost. It fired its CTO in January, experienced “unprecedented” downtime in March due to server migration issues, and in April the company laid off staff to realign its workforce. But the company’s biggest issue continues to be its lack of good content. And by good enough, we mean so good that you’ll download an application for it rather than watch it on the web. Research: Kids Influence Parents Over TV Kids these days are wielding more power over how video and televised entertainment are being pumped into their homes, according to new research from Motorola. The company studied the influence and behaviors of the Millennial generation (young adults ages 16 - 27), and the results are not surprising: They want HD content when they want it, wherever they want it. Some highlights from the Motorola study include: 71 percent of Millennials influence parental decisions about cable, DSL or satellite services. 62 percent have influence over purchasing an HDTV set and programming package. Nearly 50 percent of DVR-owning Millennials use it for half of their TV watching. 84 percent are interested in TV and movie content on demand. 83 percent want to be able to download TV from a DVR to their mobile players. Again, the results of the study aren’t surprising. Modern TV setups are complex, so its natural to lean on the guidance from your connected child. Additionally, this generation was the first to get a taste of consuming content on its own terms. Just wait until the post-Millenials, who have never known anything but on-demand, start making the decisions. MICROSOFT is looking to revive a deal with YAHOO. However, the transaction is likely not be a total acquisition, rather a deal that could bring Microsoft search ads alongside Yahoo’s search results. The deal could be a way for Microsoft to break further into the search ads business, which GOOGLE currently dominates. A similar Google-Yahoo deal has been on-and-off the table recently, but with the two companies comprising nearly 80% of the search ads business, a deal is likely not to pass FCC regulation. A Microsoft-Yahoo search ads deal could help Microsoft disrupt Google’s ad dominance, while expanding its own presence online and bolstering Yahoo’s cash flow. The saga continues. The AOL-BEBO acquisition for $850 million is now official, two months after the deal became public. AOL announced that it will unite Bebo with AIM, ICQ and other AOL community initiatives to form PEOPLE NETWORKS. AOL’s PLATFORM-A will run the advertising for the venture, which YAHOO, who holds the advertising rights for Bebo in the UK, Ireland and Australia, had hoped to acquire. Yahoo’s international ad contract will expire in 2009 and is not expected to be renewed, in favor of Platform-A. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that ELECTRONIC ARTS may extend its bid for TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE another four weeks after their previous bid expired Friday. EA’s offer of $25.74/share has been on the table for a month, yet Take-Two shareholders are holding out for a higher price. Take-Two’s stock is currently at $27.10, a number contributed to the massive initial success of Grand Theft Auto 4. Amid reports that MICROSOFT is in talks to acquire FACEBOOK, CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized the social network’s independence. While Microsoft owns a $240 million share in Facebook and has the exclusive third party rights to advertising on the social network, Zuckerberg remained steadfast in his vision of an independent Facebook. After recently taking on a $100 million in debt to help finance a server upgrade, it is unlikely that the social network will sell out any time soon, in favor of building its IPO. YAHOO Chairman ROY BOSTOCK sent CARL ICAHN a letter Thursday that said Icahn’s perspective on the botched MICROSOFT deal “reflects a significant misunderstanding of the facts about the Microsoft proposal.” However, Bostock reiterated that Yahoo remained open to a deal for the right price. While Icahn is apparently moving ahead with a proxy fight, there is still no word from Redmond as to whether or not Microsoft is still interested in acquiring Yahoo. CBS is purchasing CNET for $1.8 billion. According to CEO Les Moonves, the all cash deal will help bolster CBS’s online presence, while expanding its scope to both audiences and advertisers. The acquisition is the biggest since CBS split from VIACOM INC. two years ago and includes online properties CNET, Download.com, GameSpot, TV.com, BNET, Chow, ZDNet and News.com. RIM announced that the first BlackBerry touchscreen will be available exclusively via VERIZON. Dubbed “Thunder”, the touchscreen handset will debut in the third quarter and is the next logical step for RIM in combating APPLE’s iPhone. The big question remains whether or not BlackBerry’s considerable business clientele will flock to a touchscreen phone, as many have stated the keypad is the reason they’ve stuck with the BlackBerry. YAHOO and the WPP will announce a new online advertising partnership today. The deal will make it easier for agencies within the WPP to purchase web ads. Like the potential GOOGLE Search Ads deal, the WPP deal is another way for Yahoo to inflate its cash flow. IAC will purchase LEXICO, who owns Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com, in order to boost its Ask.com property. The undisclosed deal will help reinforce Ask’s content, as well as drive up traffic for the site. The deal is significant as it comes at a time when IAC is spinning off other ventures and making Ask.com its flagship brand. After attracting 141.1 million unique visitors in April, GOOGLE is now officially the most popular web site in the U.S.. Yahoo formerly held the top spot due to its wide portfolio of sites but has now been soundly ousted by Google, the Internet’s new top dog. VERIZON wireless will be running LiMO, a LINUX based operating system, on their next generation media-rich mobile phones. The decision is a crushing blow to GOOGLE, whose ANDROID system Verizon was also considering. The recent announcement comes after Google sent a letter to the FCC questioning Verizon’s dedication to keeping their 700 MHz of wireless spectrum open source. Of course, due to the open source agreement, Verizon’s phones will have to be Android compatible. The Android system debuted six months ago but no solid plans to introduce Android-based phones have yet surfaced. COMCAST will acquire the social networking site PLAXO. Comcast paid $175 million for the social networking site, which they hope will widen their scope. Comcast has recently expanded its online presence to include FANDANGO and FANCAST, while growing Comcast.net into an entertainment destination. Look for Comcast to keep growing as they diversify away from cable and internet. TIME WARNER’S Turner Networks (TNT, TBS, Tru-TV) are offering contextual ad buys for advertisers. The new ad system would run on a platform called TVinContext, which has the ability to place an ads on top of correlating scenes in Television shows. As an example, the Network previewed an ad for allergy medication which correlated to a scene in “Hutch” where Will Smith has an allergic reaction.
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  A Week in the Rearview - week ending 5/16/08

  http://blog.smart401k.com/?p=59
  67 days ago in The Smart401k Blog · Authority: 1

  In the headlines A look at some of the market movers over the past week HSBC (NYSE: HBC) started out the week announcing that bad debt expense for the first quarter wasn’t as bad as some had expected Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) fired back against Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone Investors were encouraged by a lackluster, but not terrible, report from MBIA (NYSE: MBI) Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) announced a $12 billion acquisition of EDS (NYSE: EDS) Wal-Mart’s (NYSE: WMT) earnings beat forecasts but its outlook didn’t encourage US retail sales painted a mixed picture US foreclosures are only getting worse ArcelorMittal (NYSE: MT) rode global demand to a favorable first quarter CBS (NYSE: CBS) announced that it is acquiring CNET (Nasdaq: CNET) for $1.8 billion Inflation in April was less than had been previously forecast Billionaire Carl Icahn has jumped into the Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) fray Macy’s (NYSE: M) is planning to open FAO Schwarz toy boutiques in 685 of its stores Commentary It’s not a stretch to say that it was a really good week for the markets. Not only were they up, up, and up, but they were notably docile. As I’ve said previously, in a recovery I’m looking for not only a market that’s moving up, but a reduction in the type of extreme volatility that suggests that nobody has any clue what’s going on. We had both this week, and it’s become a bit of a trend. It’s been nearly a month now since the last time the S&P 500 has moved more than 2% in a single day, and the S&P is up around 4% over that period. Back in mid-March, we hit a low on the S&P that put the index down just a hair over 20% — just barely enough for investors to really consider it a market downturn — from the intraday peak in mid-October of last year. Since then we’ve charged back around 13% and remain a bit under 10% from that October peak. The recovery may seem a bit hasty, after all, we’re still seeing anemic economic growth and weak consumer spending and it’s expected to get worse. But it’s important to keep in mind that the economy and the stock market are not one in the same. Stock prices began declining when economic growth was still robust, and, as it has happened in the past, they are expected to recover ahead of the economy. Looking ahead We’ve still got inflation, recession, oil prices, consumer spending, the housing market, and financial company write-downs — to name a few — that all have a lot of power to spook the market. And of course we don’t want to discount the unknown, because it’s actually the risks aren’t even on the radar now that will really put some fear into investors. Of course that’s not to say that investors will get spooked. Unless something really unexpected shows up or the credit market starts deteriorating at an accelerated pace, the market will likely drift flat-to-slightly-up until we start getting second quarter earnings reports. Many companies have said that they expect the second quarter will continue to be slow but that growth will pick back up in the back half of the year. Come second quarter earnings season we will start hearing from companies whether or not that will be the case, and afterwards we’ll certainly see a reaction from the market one way or the other. Not surprisingly, we continue to recommend that if you’re investing for the long term, your best bet is to tune out the day-to-day concerns of the stock market and financial press. Keeping a diversified portfolio of high quality funds and investing on a set schedule is a great way to earn attractive returns with little effort.
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  CNET and CBS - an act of desperation?

  http://extendance.com/pr-blog/archives/24-CNET-and-CBS-an-ac...
  68 days ago in Extendance: The IT Public Relations Blog · Authority: 3

  CNET and CBS - an act of desperation? Big Payday for Web 2.0 is an interesting blog from Wired about this week's Web 2.0 deals - as CBS bought CNET for $1.8 billion and Ask.com (owned by IAC) bought Lexico, parent company of Dictionary.com, for a reported $100 million, to name a couple of the deals. The blog suggests weak IPOs at the beginning of the year for Classmates.com, for example, may have pushed companies towards sales exits rather than IPOs. The surprise is that both buyers and sellers are in place. The need for strong online news and search remains strong, of course, and it's not just about Yahoo and Google. But is CBS buying at the right time or price, or is it a sign of an old media company getting nervous? My personal opinion is that it's better for old media companies to grow their own brand online, but CBS may feel they are a bit late in the game. A few commentators think this is a smart move, but most - particularly Douglas McIntyre at 24/7 WallStreet - seem to think it is one company that is going nowhere buying another company that is going nowhere. Posted by Adrian McDermott in News Media

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