The YHOO/MSFT deal took 2 painful months to get to an endgame that we called some time ago: MSFT would acquire YHOO, and it would ultimately pay $35/share or $50B in all (see that here).
But now, we ask, then what?
2008 was sizing up to be the year of the micro deals… and there will continue to be many deals in the $10-99M range. But with YHOO/MSFT hooking up, you have to expect a flood of bigger deals in the $100-999M range, if not more, way more.
We’ve already seen deals such as the $850M acquisition of Bebo by AOL, but once MSFT buys YHOO, AOL itself will be in play. As will IAC (the web division amongst the five new smaller derivatives of the former IAC monster).
The truth is we’re in a great era of consolidation; the carmakers merged like never before at the turn of the 20th century (1800s to 1900s). As Tim Bernes-Lee voiced this week, the Web is in its infancy and web companies are young and will merge to gain the kind of traction they need to really get shareholders attention as growth rates fall and investors will need more than the promise of tomorrow to bid prices higher.
Expect small deals by these companies, for sure, but expect a lot of $1B-plus deals, too. 2008 might be the year of the micro deal… but beyond that, we’re about to enter a dizzying period where multi-billion dollar deals become de rigueur as companies gobble and get gobbled.
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WatchMojo NewsletterI’m not the type to summarize things in 100 words or simple steps, but reading Valleywag’s take on Fortune’s piece about Larry Page, founder of Google, I would say in this era of business and communications, success is actually a factor of three things:
1- Build/Create
2- Market to Stand out
3- Sell to make money.
If you can do those three things, you’re laughing. It’s quite simple but difficult at the same time.
Here are a couple of ads we created for one of our sponsors:
These are some funny viral ads we did for our client, Student Universe, enjoy:
Suggestions welcome.
Well, isn’t this ironic?
A VC that I spoke to in 2006 (and passed on WatchMojo.com, only to invest in one of our competitors) is looking for a CEO for one of their portfolio companies.
So who gets a call today from the headhunters? Me.
Yeah, that’s pretty ironic. The only thing I was thinking is, I have a CEO gig already, and a good one. Better yet, I can finally have my pick of VCs from VCs in our sector, why on earth would I parachute into a company with too many VCs, in search for a strategy and a clue?
In the meantime, for CEOs who have a clue, check out the highest paid CEOs in tech here.
Life’s ironic, folks, I tell you that… and to borrow an expression from the Portuguese, we’ll settle the tab at the end of the evening (or something to that effect).
Something I’ve been saying forever:
- TV-centric media companies look at online video as cannibalistic, but reluctantly get into it.
- Print-centric media companies look at online video as incremental, and see it as salvation and retribution for missing out on Web 1.0 media opportunities, which were largely text-based, and which were as cannibalistic to them as online video is to TV-centric media companies.
I’m not alone in thinking that, Time agrees. Enjoy this video on Time Warner:
PLAY
