2007 will go down as the year Facebook came into the limelight and mainstream, but where it counts, it was probably once again all about Google. If you’re keeping track, the stock started the year at $437 and now sits at $687. At one point, it crossed over $700 and hit $747… jumbo Boeing jets don’t soar that high. In terms of market cap, Google is now worth $215B, with $15B in annual sales for 2007, up from:
- 2002 revenues grew 409%
- 2003 revenues grew 234%
- 2004 revenues grew 118%
- 2005 revenues grew 92%
- 2006 revenues grew 70%.
At $10.6B in 2006 revenues, Google’s revenues would have grown roughly 50% in 2007. This is blazingly impressive. We’re not taking anything away from company du jour turned nightmare Facebook/Platform/Beacon etc., we’re just saying Google is in a league of its own.
How come? Let’s look at others:
Let’s face it:
- Yahoo! - whose stock I own - was basically in turnaround mode. They do some great things in the marketplace - like today’s deal in the Latin American mobile space - but they have some issues. Fantastic position in the broader context of where media, marketing and advertising is headed in the 21st century… but for the short term, it has issues.
- AOL basically imploded. When Time Warner lured Randy Falco and thanked Jon Miller for his service, you knew change was coming, but let’s face it, no one would have expected all of the turmoil and turnover there. All right, scratch the turnover part… AOL has a history of layoffs and this year was no surprise. AOL, long ago a walled garden, skipped over the free, ad-supported portal and is now, you guessed it, a network play.
- IAC imploded too. After years of dealmaking created a colossus and confusing structure, Barry “I’m the Decider” Diller dismantled the company to spin it off into 5 units. I actually like Diller’s ambition, the part in quotes comes from an interview he did for 60 Minutes on CBS.
Amazon.com and Apple are indeed Internet and technology companies who can be broadly lumped in the same category, but on HipMojo.com, our focus is mainly on online advertising… and the main players are Google, Yahoo!, AOL, IAC, and of course:
- Microsoft’s MSN continued to face challenges. The company’s Internet units are effectively losing money. I think MSN could do so much more, much more. Of course, with the $6B acquisition of aQuantive, I do expect much more from Microsoft, but what will that do for MSN.com/Live.com, I don’t know. Maybe a merger of web operations with Yahoo! That’s something I outlined previously, not sure if it will happen.
- CNET too had a crossroads kind of year. Are they going to gobble or be gobbled? CEO Neil Ashe said recently CNET was not “the site of the day but the media company of the future.” That is catchy as hell, now Ashe and his team have to deliver. CNET is really well positioned, and with credit facilities of over $200M - and the recent sale of Webshots - should make be in the market for deals. More importantly, they brought in more lifestyle-oriented talent to diversify away from tech. That should help them with advertisers. Ultimately however, will someone like MSFT or Yahoo! buy CNET, or will CNET be taken private? I think with a few key acquisitions, CNET has a bright future, but winning those deals won’t be easy because they don’t have the firepower than Yahoo!, MSFT, Google, IAC or Time Warner have.
Time Warner has long been seen in the new media camp by way of their disastrous AOL merger… but their offline cohorts are increasingly looking strong in the digital space.
In fact, the divide between traditional media and new media will fully blur in 2008. It started years ago, the climax might have come with News Corp.’s 2005 mega acquisitions Intermix - parent of MySpace - and IGN (my former employer after it bought my old company). News Corp. christened its web operations Fox Interactive Media, bought Scout.com, Photobucket, as well as Flektor and a few others. The reason why 2008 will fully blur the lines between old and new media is because Rupert Murdoch will take one of the world’s greatest financial brands - the Wall Street Journal - and create the strongest competitor to Yahoo! Finance thus far (if not surpass it outright).
CBS this year could have passed for the heir apparent to News Corp. thanks to their dealmaking bravado: Last.fm was a great addition to CBS Radio and Web assets. The company made small and large investments and made numerous acquisitions. CBS, of course, is coming across as the un-News Corp. in the way they’ve embraced the distribution over destination mantra.
Walt Disney continued to build a very profitable web operation… and Viacom is slowly but surely coming around, yesterday dropping Google/Doubleclick in favor of MSFT’s aQuantive.
GE’s NBC is experimenting, and frankly, thus far disappointing with what they are doing and not doing. Of course, Hulu, which they own 50%, has launched in beta and once it goes live should change our perception. But NBC’s iVillage unit is flagging, and that’s a shame, because the women’s online opportunity is a multi billion dollar opportunity and challengers Glam Media, Sugar Publishing and to various degrees, Scripps, are trying to steal iVillage’s lunch.
The next year will probably see more changes, but I wonder, who are the smaller named companies that you expect to make a difference next year?
Subscribe:
December 21st, 2007 at 5:07 pm
FWIW, Sugar isn’t really competing w/ NBC. In fact, NBC has invested in the company.
The demos of Sugar vs. iVillage are about ten years apart.
December 21st, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Thanks for the clarification Jimbo… but if young female audiences are on Sugar now… that means they’re not in iVillage, and over time, Sugar will launch new blogs and properties to serve audiences as they get older. But I get your point, thanks.
Moreover, I was not aware that NBC had invested in Sugar.