Reactions to story from Welcome to CenterNetworks - The New Standard In Web Technology News and Opinions

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  Old school content has value...again

  http://www.beyondvc.com/2008/05/old-school-cont.html
  106 days ago in BeyondVC · Authority: 101

  Every day it seems we are reading about the power of social networking to transform the Internet and how we communicate online and also consume and discover new content. While that is true and clearly changing the consumption habits of online users,
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  The Funny and Money Friday Daily Links

  http://www.wallstreetfighter.com/2008/05/funny-and-money-fri...
  105 days ago in WallStreetFighter · Authority: 393

  I can't believe I didn't think of this and why did it take so long to be invented An interesting look at the holdings of hedge funds in Q1 I really need to move to Homewood IL T. Boone Pickens puts a $2 Billion dollar bet on wind energy Think 1% doesn't
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  BREAKING: CBS Acquiring CNET For $1.8 Billion; 44.6 Percent Premium

  http://arcelay.vox.com/library/post/breaking-cbs-acquiring-c...
  106 days ago in The Arcelay's / iPhone Blog & CES 2008 · Authority: 25

  BREAKING: CBS Acquiring CNET For $1.8 Billion; 44.6 Percent Premium    CBS (NYSE: CBS) is acquiring CNET (NSDQ: CNET) for $1.8 billion in cash.  The purchase price comes to $11.50 per share, representing a 44.6 percent premium over last night's closing
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  Breaking: CBS to Acquire CNET for $1.8 Billio

  http://vitaminbriefcase.tumblr.com/post/34923621
  102 days ago in Vitamin Briefcase · Authority: 29

  Breaking: CBS to Acquire CNET for $1.8 Billio: I’m not sure CBS have thought this one through…
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  The Drill Down 041 - Don’t Stand On Ceremony

  http://thedrilldown.com/2008/05/19/the-drill-down-041-dont-s...
  102 days ago in The Drill Down · Authority: 80

  This week we all make ourselves at home over dinner and a few juicy tech stories. CBS buys Cnet, Condé Nast buys Ars Technica, Google squashes Anonymous, and Carl Icahn makes a play for Yahoo. Show Links CBS to Acquire CNET for $1.8 Billion Condé Nast/Wired Acquires Ars Technica Dear Yahoo: You’re Fired Hackers try to spur epileptic seizures WorldWide Telescope MPAA Demands $15 Million from The Pirate Bay Google kills Anonymous AdSense account The DocStoc document of the week Social Media & Blogging - Get more documents
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  Manic Monday XXXIX: Rated “R” for Pirated Material…

  http://wiredforgadgets.com/?p=1006
  102 days ago in Wired For Gadgets · Authority: 1

  Good Morning once again. As it is Monday, you know what that means: Manic Monday. • Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 is now available. Fixes bugs, improves this, etc. • Google kills Anonymous AdSense account. For shame. • Michael Jackson, the Village People, UB40 and more are now going after the Pirate Bay. • Asus says they are going to embed Linux into all motherboards. Sweet. • CBS is to Acquire CNET for $1.8 Billion. It’s G4techTV all over again… • Comcast Lied to FCC, Blocks BitTorrent Traffic 24/7. Shame, shame… • The Pirate Bay Enters List of 100 Most Popular Webites. Interesting… • Brits Want Microsoft Office 2007 Expelled From Classrooms. I can’t blame them. • With the new Fedora 9, you can run the entire thing off of a Flash Drive. That’s this weeks Manic Monday. I’ll be sure to post everyday this week. Things are getting better, which means I can get back on track. Enjoy!
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  4 Strategic Alternatives for YHOO

  http://www.apogee-web-consulting.com/blogger/2008/05/4-strat...
  102 days ago in Apogee Weblog · Authority: 4

  Now that YHOO and MSFT are talking again, perhaps this scenario isn't so unlikely: The wording of today's YHOO press release is peculiar: Yahoo! has confirmed with Microsoft that it is not interested in pursuing an acquisition of all of Yahoo! at this time. Yahoo! and its Board of Directors continue to consider a number of value maximizing strategic alternatives for Yahoo!, and we remain open to pursuing any transaction which is in the best interest of our stockholders. Yahoo!'s Board of Directors will evaluate each of our alternatives, including any Microsoft proposal, consistent with its fiduciary duties, with a focus on maximizing stockholder value.Stockholders interested in the long term might not want a deal with a company like Microsoft, or Google, for that matter. Short term, a deal might seem appealing but remember when Yahoo outsourced organic search to Google? Why make the same mistake with paid search? (BTW, why are so many eager to see YHOO outsource paid search?) Instead, I propose these 4 strategic alternatives for YHOO stockholders (none of these are new* but now seems like a good time to restate these options): Buy the search.com domain from CNET CBS Allow pure search advertising (no search syndication) via Yahoo! Search Marketing Build a domain parking distribution channel separate from pure search advertising Continue to innovate the core, organic search productThese strategic alternatives basically come down to improving the quantity and/or quality of search traffic. Improving those will have the side effect of attracting more advertisers, which will lead to a network effect. Part of the reason search advertising is so effective is because paid search ads are, in essence, content. Search ads *are* search results. Having a larger pool of advertisers will lead to higher quality ads which will improve the search results. That will, in turn, attract more searchers. That will attract more search advertisers. And so on... Options #1 and #3 probably deserve their own posts. Options #2 and #4 have been covered.* Regarding #1, Yahoo knows how many people search for search.com on their system. Imagine how many people go directly to search.com rather than look it up on a search engine. People who navigate directly to search.com are looking to, well, search. What about people who go to yahoo.com? Where do they want to go today? Google is synonymous with search. Yahoo is not. YHOO should buy search.com and rebrand search.yahoo.com as search.com, powered by Yahoo! It might sound too simple, but getting people to switch from google.com to search.com will be much easier than getting them to switch from google.com to search.yahoo.com. People have become accustomed to going to "www dot [insert name here] dot com" or, more lately, to simply "[insert name here] dot com" rather than a subdomain like search.yahoo.com. Plus, search.com could be used to brand Yahoo's search engine. Think about how effectively domains like hotels.com have become brands as well as domain names. Yahoo needs a search brand. Google *is* a search brand. A domain name like search.com could become that Yahoo brand name synonymous with search. If YHOO implements #2 (pure search advertising), that could pave the way for #3 (pure domain advertising). Clearly, they'd have to change the sausage ingredients. If they were willing to do so, however, this could lead to a PPC advertising option more effective than search advertising. Think about that for a minute. As Google advertisers are starting to realize they're paying for garbage traffic via the AdSense for Domains product, YHOO could create a brand new alternative to search advertising by separating domain ads from their sponsored search product and keeping it clean (only generic keyword domain names). Now, that's a strategic alternative I'd support! *Previous YHOO Suggestions on Apogee Weblog: YHOO + MSFT = Overture 2.0?Yahoo! Makes a Tasty MoveYahoo! Should NOT Be For SaleWhat Should the New Yahoo! CEO Do First?Apogee Tags: yhoo, yahoo, search marketing, ppc advertising, microsoft, msft
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  Big botnet, Firefox 3 RC1, Asimo conducts symphony, Naptv

  http://chaseandsam.com/2008/05/big-botnet-firefox-3-rc1-asim...
  104 days ago in ChaseandSam.com » · Authority: 12

  Srizbi botnet now accounts for close to half of all spam! The “great makeup mines of Peru”. Firefox 3 release candidate 1 now available for download. the price of SPAM has gone up! (and you thought gas was expensive HP has its eye on the teens with a Fall line of PC products (did anyone ask a teen?) Fake Codec in AOL serving up a Trojan…. Be careful! Google Translate has added 10 more languages! (now it’s easier than ever to communicate with your Polish friends… just lay off the jokes okay? ;)Are you having the Windows XP SP3 reboot problem? Here’s some tips on how to solve it. World’s smallest helicopter (for humans). Cell phone myths debunked CBS acquired Cnet for 1.8 billion this week. Some links from Uncle Monster: Robot Asimo conducts Detroit symphony Multi-tasking while driving may be beyond the capacity of our brain. For the ultra-lazy: Naptv retro iPhone dialer DIY Gaming Notebook Sky-high dining! How to get kids to eat their meats and veggies. From Ubuntu John: Ubuntu Newsletter number 91 And finally, a joke from Ken Keller: COMPUTER TROUBLE!!! I was having trouble with my computer. So I called Eric, the 11 year old next door, whose bedroom looks like Mission Control and asked him to come over. Eric clicked a couple of buttons and solved the problem. As he was walking away, I called after him, “So, what was wrong?” He replied, “It was an ID ten T error.” I didn’t want to appear stupid, but nonetheless inquired, “An, ID ten T error? What’s that? In case I need to fix it again.” Eric grinned…. “Haven’t you ever heard of an ID ten T error before?” “No,” I replied. “Write it down,” he said, “and I think you’ll figure it out.” So I wrote down: I D 1 0 T. I used to like Eric. ShareThis
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  Yahoo’s Fired, CNET & Ars Technica Sell

  http://www.jeremyprivett.com/blog/archives/yahoos-fired-cnet...
  104 days ago in Jeremy’s Blog · Authority: 1

  I know what you’re thinking: “You’re kidding, right?” (Okay, maybe that’s just what I thought.) In some cases, I wish that I was … So Long … And Thanks for All the Fish Yahoo responded to the letter from Carl Icahn, but I think this is the lead out before the final nail goes into the coffin. Microsoft has said they’ve moved on, though? What happens if this new board of directors can’t get the software giant to bite? I think Dvorak put it best. This squad looks like a great bunch of sellouts. If Yahoo can’t fend off Icahn, it’s game over. If Icahn does manage this take over, selling out to Microsoft might actually be the best case scenario. Can anyone spot the irony in that sentence? So, we’re looking at the possibility of Yahoo being sold to Microsoft where the clash of culture and technology is sure to eventually doom all of Yahoo’s services … or Yahoo being cut up and sold to the highest bidders … which is sure to eventually doom all of Yahoo’s services. I can’t find the win in this situation, can you? Oh right, I’m not a Yahoo shareholder … maybe I should be. I feel really sorry for some of the more prominent members of the PHP Community who are currently employed at Yahoo. I can’t imagine that they would have any trouble finding a new home, if they decide to leave after whatever ends up happening. Maybe everything will settle down and nothing will happen, then they’ll get to just keep their jobs in peace. Who knows? Let’s pick on CNET for a while … How much is your soul worth? CNET says theirs is worth 1.8 Billion. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this one, yet. CNET covers a lot of technology news. CBS is a major broadcasting company. While this could mean a lot of worthwhile tech coverage could make it onto any of the CBS TV Networks, which would be very cool, the transaction still feels dirty. It feels like a mainstream media buyout of something tech enthusiasts hold dear to them. What if CBS kills CNET? CNET Networks includes the likes of CNET itself, ZDNet, and GameSpot. All of which are frequent reads of mine and plenty of people that I know. I think the best return on this acquisition would be if a lot of this content made it onto the CBS airwaves. Anybody know how likely that one is? I just hope this one has a happy ending. More tech and gaming content on TV is something I’m looking forward to. TechTV was great. The G4 deal was a disaster. G4 was better before the TechTV buyout. I can hardly stand anything on that channel, anymore. At least we have shows like This Week in Tech, Diggnation, Systm, and a few other cool shows from Revision3. I’m not sure I like the deal yet, but I can’t wait to see how it plays out. Wired Technica? I don’t know about you, but I always thought of Wired and Ars Technica as being rivals. Now, they’re practically siblings. In-laws, of course. It’s hard enough thinking of the two sites as related, at least add the “by marriage” (or massive monetary exchange, whatever) part to soften the blow a little. I’ll go ahead and stand right up to say that I don’t like this one. I dislike Wired and pretty much everything related to the site. Never been a fan. It might have a something to do with the fact that their website is an unmanageable piece of garbage that looks like a script vomited text onto a plain background. Or the writing style that just grates on my nerves everytime I (painfully) read an article there. I like Ars. I enjoy reading Ars. The writing style is appealing and the visual style of the site is a lot nicer and easy on the eyes. I just can’t imagine that level of sophistication being shacked up with the likes of Wired. Hopefully this one won’t change too much. If I start to see the level of quality at Ars drop off, I’m going to be highly disappointed. Slashdot has been disappointing me lately, too. With Digg getting less and less tech news (it’s all carbon copied from /., or Reddit at this point), it’s looking like I’m going to have to pick a new tech news site to keep tabs on, before too long. I’m really hoping to see happy endings from all of these different deals. The Yahoo issue is particularly interesting to me, because of Yahoo’s use of PHP. I think we’ll see some changes at all of these various sites in the coming months.
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  The Valuation of Blogs Vs Newspapers: No Wonder I’m So Depressed.

  http://johndotorgslashblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/17/the-valu...
  104 days ago in Media Junkie · Authority: 12

  The Valuation of Blogs Vs Newspapers: No Wonder I’m So Depressed. Posted in News, Online on May 17, 2008 by John It’s been a long couple of weeks since I last posted up anything, and tonnes of stuff have happened since, most notably Microsoft pulling out of its $44 billion deal to acquire Yahoo!. More recently, however, there’s been a couple of acquisitions of involving Digital Media companies all happening in the past three days, which also indirectly highlights how depressed the valuation of newspapers are. First off is the acquisition of CNET by CBS for $1.8 billion, a deal driven by CBS’s desire to mostly buy its way into online advertising. John Simons, an analyst for CNN Money, questions whether CBS paid too highly for its ticket into the world of lucrative online ad revenue: With its bold $1.8 billion purchase of CNET, CBS is making a play for ad dollars that are shifting to the Internet. But the company may be paying too much for a network of Web sites that won’t address the conglomerate’s main problem: an over-reliance on advertising dollars as a source of revenue. CBS management touted various “synergies” that the acquisition will unlock, but on the conference call with investors Thursday, executives offered few specifics. In a release, Moonves pointed out that the CNET deal would give the company exposure to the “fastest-growing advertising sector” - Internet advertising. The acquisition takes place against a backdrop of slower ad spending. Overall advertising outlays grew at their slowest pace in five years during the last quarter of 2007, and that pace is expected to continue, according to Bernstein Research. Internet advertising grew 27% during all of 2007 to $25.5 billion, according to research firm, International Data Corp. Even so, that $25.5 billion represents only 7% of all U.S. advertising. Then yesterday, Conde Nast announces its intention to purchase Ars Technica, a technology blog, for a rumoured valuation of $25million–a fact confirmed by the Wired blog yesterday (the purchase, not the price). I’m not sure how Ars Technica would fit into the Conde Nast family just yet, with its editorial staff not being integrated into Wired, as posited by TechCrunch. But Cripes, you think: $25 million for a blog isn’t too shabby is it? I liked one comment on TechCrunch that said: “I still can’t quite wrap my head around the valuations of blogs.”

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