Company A registers a URL with a misspelled domain name: Socializr.com.
Company B comes along, launches similar business, with the domain name spelled correctly: Socializer.com.
No comment. More on Mashable.com.
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WatchMojo NewsletterBarry Diller vs. Rupert Murdoch.
Rupert Murdoch vs. Sumner Redstone.
Sumner Redstone vs. Tom Cruise.
Tom Cruise vs. Sanity…
All right, we’ll stop there before Xenu gets upset.
A very interesting denouement is unfolding in the battle of the media moguls. When accomplished, wealthy and connected media moguls like Michael Eisner or Tom Freston left their respective fiefdoms, conventional wisdom suggested that they simply reappear shortly thereafter under a new corporate flag and crest.
But, the shifting of user’s attention and marketing dollars to the Web has changed plans. Today Paid Content reports that Tom Freston’s latest investment - coming on the heels of his investment in Veoh - is a company named Firefly3. No word yet on what they do.
Freston, of course, was the legendary MTV executive who led Viacom during a great run, but who was thanked of his services by Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone, arguably for letting MySpace slip through Redstone’s fingers and into Rupert Murdoch’s.
Veoh, it should be noted, counts not just Freston as backers, but also the former Lord of Mickey Mouse’s house Michael Eisner.
Eisner, hasn’t stopped at Veoh and counts at least half a dozen digital media assets in his Corante mini-empire (though growing every day).
And what to say about former MTV and AOL boss Robert “Bob” Pittman who now runs Pilot Group, owners of Daily Candy and the popular StereoGum music blog, amongst other properties.
We’re seeing a rapid change in the media mogul landscape, because in addition to all of these folks, a new breed of new, new media mogul aspirations are spawning younger chieftains with deep pockets and long ambitions.
Namely:
Richard Rosenblatt’s Demand Media: armed with $200M in venture capital, Rosenblatt was doing user generated content before the term was coined, and more recently he was brought in by the Intermix board after it canned Intermix, aka eUniverse founder Brad Greenspan.
Greenspan, not to be outdone, owns a myriad of sites too, including LiveVideo (disclaimer: a WatchMojo.com video syndication partner), as well as video search engine Flurl.com and many others. In fact, his Vidilife got a glowing review after MySpace blew up but before YouTube became synonymous with funny videos (disclaimer: YouTube, too, is a WatchMojo.com syndication partner). I guess I should add one more headache inducing disclaimer: our MetaMojo.com video search engine is technically a competitor of Flurl.com, though Flurl.com technically should be indexing our videos - hey, as I say, it’s a cooperation and not a competition…
The list continues: former AOL CEO Jon Miller, who was replaced by Time Warner with NBC executive Randy Falco is in the mix too now, with General Atlantic backing he and former Fox Interactive Media CEO Ross Levinsohn’s new Velocity Fund… though that one has yet to make any investments…
It’s very interesting that traditional media and old, new media chieftains are all rapidly stepping on young entrepreneurs’ turfs by rolling up a myriad of web assets (Valleywag) in the quest for new media moguldum.
Related:
Or… maybe, we can just publish some clips in Mandarin. Yeah, that might be more prudent…
Anyway, WatchMojo.com’s already produced and published clips in Spanish and French, along with the thousands of English ones, but over the next few weeks and months, we’ll be unveiling and releasing a barrage of multi-lingual clips, here is one sample, in Mandarin.
More on our global ambitions coming soon.
Microsoft is showing a tremendous amount of foresight and ingenuity by offering MSFT Office 2007 to students for a gargantuan 91% discount, $60. Yep, that’s right. I had to cross-check this a few ways, but it’s true.
Here is the press release, here is the site. The promotion is called The Ultimate Steal, I am not sure if that’s a play on words, but indeed, it is a helluva steal. I sent a link to my younger brother, who just started college. The program was piloted in Australia and is now open to residents of the USA, Canada, the UK.
As such, I don’t think this was a direct result of Google/CapGemini’s recent deal, but it’s a direct result of the trend that Google has unleashed and MSFT is today showing that it won’t stand still.
God bless competition…
Memo to Record Labels: this is how you fight piracy.
While the blogosphere’s been having a philosophical orgasm pontificating (P.O.P) between the merits - and future odds of success - of LinkedIn and Facebook, I think a better question is: who will win between LinkedIn and TheLadders.
For the record, I am guilty of that P.O.P myself… but let’s take a step back and examine the two firms that we think are closer comparables: TheLadders and LinkedIn. Admittedly, TheLadders is more of a traditional job board whereas LinkedIn is a professional network, but they target a similar audience.
What is TheLadders?
We are the world’s largest community catering exclusively to the $100k+ job market.
TheLadders.com offers online job search resources and content for the $100k+ job seekers and recruiters. Our specialized job search engines are an invaluable asset to top-earning job seekers in Sales, Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, Law, Technology, Operations, and all other $100k+ fields.
I’d say the audience is even more high-end and upscale than LinkedIn’s, since many junior employees turn to LinkedIn as well. Both companies seem to be doing well. LinkedIn seems more advanced in terms of revenues and it has been eyeing an IPO in 2008.
Of course, being based on the West Coast and founded by uber-networker Reid Hoffman (who rejected my LinkedIn invite… what does that say?), LinkedIn is getting a lot more media and blogger love, but TheLadders does seem to have a far more vertical appeal. Moreover, being based in New York City, I’d say it’s more corporate in nature whereas LinkedIn seems to be lacking profiles in more traditional fields like corporate marketing and finance gigs… In other words, LinkedIn might be the place to turn to for startups, new media and technology outfits, whereas TheLadders would have more traditional business and gigs.
In fact:
Headquartered in New York, TheLadders.com, Inc. is a privately held company offering online recruiting resources to recruiters and job seekers in the $100k+ employment market. Ex-HotJobs.com executive Marc Cenedella founded TheLadders.com in 2003 to address the unique job seeking and recruiting requirements in this underserved market sector. Investors in TheLadders.com include leading venture capital firm Matrix Partners and prominent private investors such as Kevin Ryan, former CEO, DoubleClick; Tom Matlack, Megunticook Management; and Robert Chefitz, NJTC Venture Fund.
I don’t know which company will prove to be more successful, obviously LinkedIn casts a far wider net, but that might prove to be one reason an exit is more obvious for TheLadders, whose business model is - like LinkedIn’s - powered through subscriptions:
Motivated job seekers pay $30 per month to access hand-picked $100k+ postings in their field of specialty; thus streamlining their job search. Employers, meanwhile, post openings at no charge, and are able to reach highly-qualified applicants more easily. TheLadders.com’s fee to job seekers discourages unqualified candidates, while at the same time building a loyal community of serious $100k+ job seekers.
The following is not a knock at either company, but rather a commentary of the state of investors’ moods and appetites: both companies lack a really strong online advertising revenue strategy: LinkedIn generates some ad revenue, Ladders, I presume, absolutely none. That reality means that LinkedIn will have some difficulty getting public investors really excited because investors are advertising-revenue-obsessed. Will it kill its IPO prospects? No. Will it affect it? Yes.
As per TheLadders, it’s probably way too premature to be thinking IPO, but I think an acquisition is very likely and probably. Companies that might be interested include the usual suspects (some of these, obviously, would also look to LinkedIn, but LinkedIn might be too pricey for some of the buyers given its low exposure to online advertising revenue):
- Yahoo! (who could mesh it well with Hotjobs and cover the other end of the professional spectrum after it launched a social network for college students to answer to Facebook rejecting its offer).
- Interactive Corp. has a myriad of businesses and either site would be a good fit, though again, Barry Diller is not a fan of overpaying for assets…
- New York Times is actually pretty strong online, especially for a traditional newspaper company. As it sees its classifieds business getting decimated by Craig “Pol Pot” Newmark (in the eyes of news barrons, of course, we personally love Craig) both online and offline, something like TheLadders (or LinkedIn for that matter) would be a solid fit. In the same vein, Washington Post, Gannett also would be in the running.
- eBay or Amazon, both leaders in commerce and communities could easily see either site as an additional asset in their broader product line in the sense that it extends their product assortment into the lucrative job category.
- Monster, with a $4B market cap is clearly a strong fit…
- Salesforce.com, with a $5B market cap, would be an envelope-pushing, strategic buyer. It’s sounds odd, but hey, that’s why Mergers and Acquisitions gurus are paid the big bucks, right?
- In the same vein, MSFT should not be counted out, because it would give it a database of all “professionals that matter” - this would be cheaper than (forgive me for going there) Facebook but the user base it acquires is far more strategic and important to it defending its software business… and while either deal do little to meet their desire to bolster their online advertising business, who cares?
- Google is the least likely of buyers, but with +$10B in cash, the days of “we build from within” are long over. Google has bought YouTube (despite Google Video), Doubleclick, Feedburner etc. to get into markets fast… and in fact, as I write this, I realize this would be a smart hedge for Google which commands 99.9% of its revenue from online advertising in general and text links in specific. Of course, while we’re at it, Google might also look at Inside and SimplyHired. Jobster, too, comes to mind… despite some HR issues that popped up last year.
There are also many B2B information reselling companies, such as Thomson that could include TheLadders in its repertoire of legal and business information services.
Lastly, let’s not forget companies like GE’s NBC and News Corp. who will always want to get a call from bankers when digital assets are up for grabs.
With news of Facebook considering raising a mammoth round, and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman being an investor in Facebook, naturally a buyout of LinkedIn by Facebook is not out of the realm of possibility.
All to say, yes, we included practically everyone… but you can see that this market, too, is headed for consolidation over the next quarter and years.
When Facebook got MSFT to pony up and pay millions of dollars in guaranteed revenue in exchange for their search business, the immediate reaction was: “MSFT got market share”. Over time, as Facebook continued on its solo route, the reaction turned to “Facebook has revenues over $100M, so it can IPO”. When the IPO drumbeat got louder, that changed to “IPO? You do know that most of Facebook’s revenues come from 1 deal, MSFT, right?”
In other words, we recognize that business deals that seem good can turn to bad ones over time. We’re not saying that the Facebook/MSFT deal is bad for either side, we just wonder why companies do these business development deals that clearly impact corporate partnerships and acquisitions down the road.
For one, if my memory serves me correctly, it would only cost Facebook $10M to break the MSFT deal. Paltry, when you consider what Facebook would fetch in a deal. Heck, Mark Zuckerberg would be able to pay for that himself.
Today Yahoo! announced a deal with Bebo, in a deal that makes me scratch my head (disclaimer: long YHOO stock). Here’s why: social networking sites are notoriously tough to monetize. If Yahoo! is doing this deal, it’s essentially a me-too, herd mentality move because MSFT is in bed with Facebook and Google is in bed with both MySpace and Friendster (remember them?).
Yahoo! had shown an interest in buying Bebo, for a reported $1B, but that did not materialize. By signing this deal and getting (we presume) guaranteed revenue, then Bebo need not sell to Yahoo! In other words, they are reiterating that the cheapest form of equity is in fact sales.
For Yahoo!, it will be getting millions - if not billions - of impressions that will only pummel their click through rates (CTR) and in fact bring down their effective revenue per clicks (RPC, or CPC to advertisers).
After all, if Facebook was knocking CTR, CPC or revenue out of the park for MSFT, MSFT would have stepped up and paid a premium and bought Facebook by now. They have not.
So why would Yahoo! do this?
Well, let’s face it, no one really cares about CTRs and CPCs so long as total, aggregate revenue goes up, and with a rapidly growing Bebo and a hot UK ad market, then this deal is probably about that for Yahoo! Boosting exposure in Europe and the UK and trying to make up the massive revenue gap between itself and Google.
We started the Crazy Post of the Day last week, then stopped, we’re bringing back today (no sense in forcing a winner if nothing really stands out), but today we got a good one, all in one line, from Tech Crunch:
I love Wikia - CEO Gil Penchina, a former eBay executive, says he works harder than anyone in Silicon Valley at building his startup. I routinely point out to him that his startup doesn’t actually do anything - their wiki software is based on the open source MediaWiki project, Google, Looksmart and FM Publishing handle all the revenue via ad sales, and their users create every drop of content on the site. All he has to do is make sure the lights stay on.
That’s crazy. See previous Crazy Posts of the Day here (#2 remains tops, all time, hands down).
This past weekend, I asked is TheStreet.com for sale? [Three days later, AlleyInsider echoed the same sentiment].
Today, I was browsing through stocks I’ve been keeping an eye on and noticed TheStreet.com was trading below $10. A nine dollar stock? It was above $13 just months ago. At the time, I was looking potentially at making a large investment in the company. That never materialized. Today, it’s a $290M company, with $50M in cash and no debt, it’s enterprise value is a palatable $240M. I think TheStreet.com will leverage its balance sheet, continue to make more and more acquisitions and eventually be taken off the market. What price? Who knows. So don’t take this as investment advice…
Today I noticed that CNET, too, is trading below its 52-week Low and High range. The stock is just above $7. CNET’s market cap is a respectable, cool $1B. CNET too is both buyer and seller.
But CNET and TheStreet.com are both mid-sized ($100M-$1B) Internet companies that will become part of the wave of consolidation we are seeing, and will continue to see. Here is why:
Four years ago, eBay’s CFO Rajiv Dutta mentioned that seasonality was creeping into the Web. In other words, Internet would still outpace traditional media but that it would not grow year-over-year with no seasonality impacts. According to their earnings call, Dutta added:
In fact, chief financial officer Rajiv Dutta said eBay is likely to see more seasonal shifts in business going forward, with stronger-than-usual fourth quarters.
“We are seeing increased seasonality,” he noted. And in response to strong holiday sales, “we also expect to see increased competition” from other online companies and traditional retailers.
In all fairness, my memory suggested this was only a couple of years ago, but a quick search for “Rajiv Dutta eBay CFO seasonality” brought up the result from 2003. All to say, the Web presents massive growth opportunities for startups, examples are rampant:
- WatchMojo.com relaunched our site and in the 3 weeks since doing so, our streams have gone up 74%!
- Our streams on our syndication network are growing 30% per month and these have 200-500 clips out of our library of 2,500-4000 clips!
- One of the site I consult, FileFactory.com, is an Alexa Top 300 web property and it’s only been around for 2 years!
- MySpace anyone? How about Facebook?
But, these are all young companies. For the Internet bellwethers, which include:
- Commerce: Amazon, eBay, IAC
- Content and Communications: Yahoo!, AOL, etc.
growth will become harder and harder to attain. Sure, international opportunities are grandiose, but this is still very speculative. We have started publishing clips in Mandarin; I’ll be the first to admit this is to showcase what we can do, and will do, but we don’t mortgage our future on that. Ditto with wireless.
Point is, the main way major web companies like Yahoo! and company will grow is through investment. I am not saying that TheStreet and or CNET will become solutions to what ails some of these companies. It is certainly better for some of these companies to invest in smaller, easier-to-integrate assets. Doing the incubator thing does not work: large companies are just not good at incubating from within. Take Google’s plethora of failed products. Yahoo! Ditto. Microsoft? Yeah, right.
But, ultimately, there are simply too many mid to large companies fighting for growth and invariably, you will see a much larger wave of consolidation coming very soon. It’s not so much that large companies feel that they must buy the small and mid ones, it’s that - like we saw with ad networks - a domino effect will cause such consolidation, example: News Corp., buys Dow Jones (WSJ/Barron’s), then GE/NBC buys TheStreet.com (for example), and so on, so forth.
Again, don’t take it from me, learn from history. In 1900, there were hundreds of carmakers in the US. In 2000, there were 3 major ones (2 if consider Chrysler being part of a German one).
Related:
- If I had a billion dollars, arguing, that with a $1B, I could create a company worth $3B in one year.
- Rupert Murdoch’s Shopping List, looking at some of the companies that are on many shopping lists.
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