In our top 10 predictions of 2009 we said that unceremoniously, Google will start to kill a lot of products which launched to much fanfare but never crossed over to mainstream appeal.
We read off Tech Crunch that Lively is axed.
What’s Lively? Exactly.
But the fact remains: big, medium and small-sized firms are going to start cutting faster, bigger and bolder than we’ve ever seen. Think about it: two of the biggest segments of ad spending - carmakers and financials - are currently castrated.
Sure, the carmaker CEOs will fly down to Washington to panhandle via their private jets, but they won’t be spending on advertising… Google is already 50% down from its all time high, to ensure it won’t lose another 50%, Google will actually lead the charge and cut more than ever… which is a mistake, because with its massive $10B+ cash hoard, it could galvanize the Web and make it its own…
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WatchMojo NewsletterJust yesterday I said we’re on our path towards a deflationary environment, today Paul Kedrosky points to a graph on Bloomberg that does seem to suggest that:
It’s been a year already since Tech Crunch held its first Crunchies.
That, my friends, is where Michael Arrington had his John McCain moment as he sat on a panel that was being moderated by CNET’s Dan Farber: “The fundamentals of the economy are strong”. Those were not his precise words… it was more like “we have a strong economy” and there were certainly some murmurs in the audience.
Well… it’s back. What kind of year has it been since last year?
The S&P 500, widely considered the broadest snapshot of corporate America, slipped 6.12 percent to 806.58; and the Dow gave up 5.07 percent to 7,997.28. Both closed at their lowest levels since March 2003.
The financial crisis has already wiped out $6.69 trillion of value from the S&P 500 since its October 2007 high, and many fear more is to come. Stocks have traded with high volatility in the past few months, with the major indexes soaring only to plunge an hour later as the market looks for a bottom.
“I don’t know what the catalyst is going to be where we turn the corner and people start buying stocks wholeheartedly again,” said Jon Biele, head of capital markets at Cowen & Co. “People got out of the way. The financial situation hasn’t changed.”
The selling on the New York Stock Exchange was staggering — only 158 companies that trade there finished the day positive while 2,943 declined.
Read more. It would be interesting to see what has happened to some of the winners from last year… or not.
Automakers have always been some of the biggest marketers around. Obviously this year it’s a bit different: it’s hard to blow billions on advertising when you head to Washington - and corporate jets, mind you - and ask for a $25B bailout (”it’s a loan”). Today they’re emailing clients and getting them to do their bidding.
But this begs the question: if the media did not historically rely on the billions in advertising dollars that carmakers generally spend, would they be more harsh? I don’t know. But it’s a good question to ask.
In fact, I think they are hoping that their billions in ad spend will at least silence the critics. I would imagine “thought leaders” to come out against this, with guns blazing, but the tone from writers and journalists is actually quite calm or non-existent, it seems that it’s the unexpected who are doling out the criticism. For example, former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (whose father was a politician in Michigan!) came out against any bailout. Bye-bye Michigan’s electoral votes, by the way, come 2012. But the truth is I respect him more for it: the bailout is a bad idea much like the financial bailout was a bad idea.
Meanwhile, we pause for this announcement from our sponsors:
This message has been brought to you by the Socialist States of America, bailing out one industry at a time.
What is it with Yahoo! First the MSFT buyout got people excited, then came the news that it would not happen.
Then CEO Yang resigns, speculators got excited thinking that MSFT would acquire the company… until Steve “The Boom” Ballmer put that rumor to rest. The result?
PLAY
