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WatchMojo NewsletterGoogle is about to overtake the UK’s main commercial TV channels in the race for advertising revenue, a study says. \
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Limelight Networks competes with Akamai, the companies are CDN, content delivery networks. Akamai’s a market darling whose shares rose from $16 to $50 in a year. More importantly, it’s worth $7.3 billion in market cap.
Limelight’s secured $130 million in financing. That’s a lot of dough. But if it’s true that digital media delivery is in the early innings (it is) then surely there is room for competition. Not like there is no competition, Level 3 also plays in this space… there’s a lot of money out there and the so-called smart money is chasing CDNs… must be 1999 again after all? The company today announced that former Websidestory’s CEO is moving over to lead the company into an IPO in the next 6 months… and judging by Akamai’s rise in value, there is certainly a market for their services, and stock.
Here’s to competition in the space!
Another company that has crossed the $100 million in financing is MobiTV Inc. Its series C round of venture funding edged over the $100 million mark when Adobe Systems and Hearst Corp. gave an $30 million (Oak Investment Partners, Menlo Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and Gefinor Ventures also gave money). The Emeryville company sells digital television and radio for mobile devices. Where’s this money going? Phillip Alveda, MobiTV’s founder and CEO, said his company will spend the money on research and on growth. The company was founded in 1999.
No comment…
I guess that’s what you get for signing a goaltender Rick Dipietro to a 15-year old contract!
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The poor sap never had a chance.
Seattle-based aQuantive is my favorite services play on the rise of online advertising. While market darling and all-around powerhouse Google is a one-trick search machine and better positioned to capitalize on search; aQuantive is one of those companies that has its fingers in every segment of the industry. It’s Yahoo!’s answer in services and the agency world.
2006 third quarter results were:
Brian McAndrews, president and CEO of aQuantive commented, “The market for interactive marketing service and technology is robust. aQuantive achieved strong year-over-year growth domestically and internationally. With the investments we continue to make in technology, recruiting and training, sales and international expansion, we anticipate continued strong growth in the fourth quarter and 2007.”
“Yeah, really? Well shove it” is essentially what the stock market told McAndrews when it sent its stock down over $3 in after hours trading, or over 11%.
Mind you, the stock had no chance: it has risen nice and steadily from $20 in August to nearly $29 over the past quarter. I unloaded my shares at $26 not because I did not like the stock, but because from my experience in online advertising and with trading in these stocks, I know that Q3 is the weakest quarter and in aQuantive’s case, it would be hard to surpass fickle investors’ appetite after the stock run up.
What exasperated matters for AQNT is that Valueclick - a related company (VCLK is less of an agency play, more of a network play) - beat expectations and pushed up its guidance, sending the stock up quite a bit today. Naturally greedy investors thought aQuantive would pull the same feat, but it didn’t.
Nonetheless, a great company to invest in if the price slides further, and it might because the company failed to up guidance:
Accordingly, the Company reiterates its anticipation of full-year 2006 results as follows:
At the time of the writing, I do not own shares in aQuantive.
Mediapost reports:
Striking a blow against two of its far bigger rivals, Ask.com will replace MSN and Google as the natural search and sponsored listings provider on Lycos. Previously, MSN Windows Live powered organic search results and Google supplied sponsored search listings.
By partnering with Lycos, which had 25.7 million unique visitors in September, Ask.com will be able to boost its brand and expand its paid listings business. Lycos generates about 125 million search queries per month, according to internal company numbers.
Andew Moers, vice president for business development and syndication at Ask.com, called the deal “extremely important” because Lycos was a top 20 Web property.
In announcing third-quarter earnings on Tuesday, Ask.com parent IAC/InterActive Corp. reported that revenue in its search & media group–mainly Ask.com.–had grown 34 percent over last year. Ask.com in September garnered 5.8% of search queries, displacing AOL–which drew 5.6%–as the fourth most popular search engine. Google ranked first, with 45.1%, followed by Yahoo (28.1%) and Microsoft (11.9%), according to comScore.
Calling it a “blow” might be an overstatement because despite being a Top 20 property, Lycos is a shadow of what it once was. I wonder is the key metrics make it a property on the rise or on the decline.
Regardless, psychologically, this might be a bigger negative for MSFT than it is a positive for Ask.com, although with such a small share of the search engine industry market share, any inch helps Ask.com creep up against third place MSN Search, who commands an 11.9% market share compared to Ask’s 5.8%.
Market research firm eMarketer recently identified online video advertising as the fastest-growing online ad format. It predicts video ad spending will grow by 71 percent this year to $225 million, and to $640 million by 2007.
By 2010, video is forecast to make up 8 percent of the total online ad market.
For 2010 eMarketer had predicted US online advertising to reach $25 billion, so 8% of that is $2 billion. Morgan Stanley had boasted a more bullish estimate of $32 billion, 8% of that is $2.56 billion.
Another day, another player offering tools to buy, serve and track video ads. Today is aQuantive’s turn.
Read more about their foray.
