The year was 2000, it was summertime. I was sitting on a terrace of a restaurant in Little Italy. At the time, I was working at a search company. We had 5M uniques, Google [probabaly] didn’t. The rest, as they say, is history.
Sitting across me were two executives from the company I would be joining shortly, in September 2000, and which I left in December 2005, after the acquisition thereof of News Corporation.
They had started an online magazine. Squarely in their bull’s eye was Maxim Magazine. Chatting about the nuances of the search and publishing trade, we were talking about competition. I had Google to consider, they had Maxim, GQ, Esquire and the like. They also had TheMan.com, who had just raised $17M from Boston-based Highland Capital. TheMan.com’s CEO had worked for Lycos’ Bob Davis, who was heading Highland.
Every penny count. Every inch mattered.
From Google’s oncoming charge, the topic shifted to their competition: Maxim mainly. Dennis Publishing, founded by legendary British publisher Felix Dennis, had launched Maxim magazine in 1995 and crushed his competition. There was no reason to suggest that he would not duplicate his feat online. By 1999, the company launched MaximOnline.com, because some company had beaten them to the punch for Maxim.com. That must have sucked for Dennis.
“I notice they don’t have Maxim.com,” I said to one of the executives who sat in front of me.
He wasn’t just any executive, he was the founder CEO, “I know, it’s a good thing,” he replied.
“Very good thing, for you,” I figured. At the time, Search.com was believed to be worth more than Google.com (by name alone), today the opposite is true. You can’t exactly trademark generic names…
I joined them months later and slowly but surely, we ate at Maxim’s dominance online, until early 2001 when we overtook them and became the largest player in the space. I always figured that over time, they could overtake us. That might explain why my comrades sold out somewhat prematurely in early 2005.
Between 2000 and 2005, I always made it a habit of checking Maxim.com (which was registered by someone else). I stopped doing so once I left the industry.
And now, suddenly, I was just surfing the Web and saw a Google Ad Sense text link clearly for Maxim magazine, but promoting the url Maxim.com.
I clicked on it and for a split second was salivating at the chance of blasting Maxim’s mismanagement of their online strategy [once again].
“Why, for the love of all things holy,” I thought, “would you promote the url of your brand but that you don’t own, when clearly so many people see a url and either check it later, or simply type it in directly into a browser?”
In the split second that separated the click and the redirect… I was impressed: lo and behold, sometime between then and now, Felix Dennis made a decision to get serious about the Web and buy Maxim.com.
A Whois lookup suggests it was done recently: Record created on 25-Jun-2006.
Hmm… I could be wrong (probably), but would that explain the spike in the graph below:
Smart move, old man, smart move. Thank God you didn’t do it earlier, when I cared about the men’s online publishing industry…
For added pleasure, check out - in red - my boys and I crush Maxim:
Yeah, I know, a picture is worth a thousand freaking words. How you like them apples, Mr. Felix?
Disclosure: I now hate my former comrades.
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WatchMojo NewsletterJust a week after Yahoo! China’s President resigned, it appears that Google’s top ad man has left the company.
Johnny Chou, who is also sometimes known by his Chinese name Zhou Shaoning, left to pursue a “new career path.”
Google has about a 25% share of the China market, down from 33% at the end of 2005. Baidu, meanwhile, has 62%, up from 52% last year, according to data from China Internet Network Information Center.
To see where we think Yahoo!’s former President might end up (read MySpace China), click here.
Read more about Google’s ad man decision here.
By now the secret is out of the bag: Microsoft first sought to conquer bloggers, from the elite at Gizmodo and Engadget to the smaller bloggers out there, hoping that by winning over the early adopters and buzz builders, it would create a spillover effect onto mainstream media. Of course, it also tried to influence bloggers by censoring those who would not be positive.
Did the overall strategy succeed?
Well, while MSFT states that it will sell 1M Zune units by June, 2006, which is not too bad by many reports, the fact is that as the fifth digital music player - trailing Apple, Sandisk, Creative - it surely missed the target - of giving Apple a run for its money - by a mile.
Rumor is that not only did MSFT unleashed a charm offensive with bloggers, but it also failed to court the traditional (online and offline) press as much as it should.
Case in point, an eternity after the thump felt on the blogosphere, mainstream media starts its Zune coverage (or so it feels). Today I come across Fortune’s Zune vs. iPod head-to-head. Fortune is good at getting a lot of online-intended articles up very quickly. Why is this up on its main page [only] now? Is that Fortune’s fault or rather, Microsoft’s?
Is this a case of too little too late? Maybe. But much like it did with operating softwares, productivity systems and the all-encompassing Internet Explorer browser, Microsoft gets credit for showing up to a party late and being the last to stand; or at least amongst the last standing.
These days, most writers have a “must buy ASAP” mentality when it comes to fixing problems or emerging opportunities. So it was refreshing to see Giga Om’s Robert Young show some common sense with his assessment of whether or not Yahoo! should pull the trigger on Facebook or not. Read his analysis here. In a nutshell, he advises Yahoo! to clone and not buy Facebook because Yahoo! is a natural at social media. He is right, if Facebook was a company that could be acquired for less than $30M (like Delicio.us), then it might make sense, but for Yahoo! to dilute that much for a company like Facebook, as a Yahoo! shareholder, I am not personally convinced.
To read our previous concern with having a bloke like Mark Zuckerberg under Yahoo!’s bureaucracy, click here (Scroll down to #7 for that).
We’re limiting our choices amongst the old guard: CBS, Walt Disney, News Corp., Viacom and Time Warner.
It was a tight race: but in the end, it was a race between two firms: Walt Disney and News Corp. One is represented by a friendly mouse, the other, Rupert Murdoch. I’d usually place bets on the Australian Octogenarian, but you just never know in the whacky world of media.
While CBS, Viacom and Time Warner wabbled more than anything else. Ironically, Viacom was supposed to be the growth stock after Sumner Redstone spun it off from CBS. Yet, CBS outperformed Viacom, which was the worst stock of all. Not surprisingly, this led to the dismissal of Viacom’s boss Tom Freston. Redstone replaced Freston with dealmaker Philippe Dauman. Time will tell if the move was wise. CBS too saw some changes. Its digital unit saw the hiring of dealmaker Quincy Smith, a M&A specialist. Les Moonves continued to be at the helm of the parent company. As per Time Warner, the company continued to turn things around, powered by the promise of its AOL division. There, Jon Miller was shown the door aburptly, while Randy Falco, an experienced ad man from NBC was brought it.
On the other hand, Disney and News Corp. led the charge, with stock increases of 30% this year. Between the two, Disney had the more impressive year: its fiscal year ends on September 30 and it boasted a fourth quarter earnings increase of 89% compared to the prior-year period. The growth came from Studio Entertainment, Parks and Resorts, and Media Networks. For the year, EPS increased 34%, reflecting growth at each operating segment.
“Disney had a spectacular year, posting record revenues, record net income, and record cash flow,” said Bob Iger, president and chief executive officer of the Walt Disney Company. “It is a result of the incredible creativity at our company.”
What makes this twice as impressive is that it came on the heels of a major management change at the top. We’re not saying that Michael Eisner could not have delivered similar results, we’re just saying that usually when a new man comes on top, there is so much room for nightmare scenarios.
More impressive, the company is predicting solid growth in 2007 as well.
As per News Corp., whose fiscal year ends June 30th, we give Rupert Murdoch a lot of credit for trusting Ross Levinsohn to spend $1.2B on IGN and MySpace, the latter went on to triple in size and generate much buzz and excitement, much of which explains the 30% spike in share price this year. But the fact remains that the acquisitions did not really trickle down to the bottom line. They might in the future, but there is no guarantee. Murdoch is so content with his digital assets that he seems to have closed the tap, so to speak. In fact, when Murcdoch boasted that MySpace would fetch $6B in a sale, he could have been talking about the spike in News Corp. value since the beginning of the year. Of course, this - and a UBS report - suggested that FIM’s assets are worth more separate than combined. For that, click here.
News Corp.’s stock price was fueld mainly by the promise of tomorrow. Its income statement was nowhere near as glossy as Disney’s: News Corp.’s operating income rose by a paltry 9%, to $3.9B. It experienced sharp declines in its unpredictable film and TV business, but had nice gains in broadcast and cable television networks. Its book unit, HarperCollins, suffered a decline in earnings in the most recent quarter. It did sign a massive $900M online ad deal with search leader Google, but that won’t trickle in until next year. To see if Google might have overspent, click here.
Between the two though, News Corp., was more buzz and flash (thanks to MySpace), its film business did well but it did suffer a few intangible black eyes with the OJ Simpson brou-haha, frankly.
Disney, however, was off the radar in many ways but it delivered the most. It’s also well positioned for next year.
As such, our pick for Media Stock and Company of 2006: Disney.
Check out how the laggards fared: That’s Disney and News on top, with Time Warner, CBS and Viacom at the bottom.
Disclosure: News Corp. is involved in a litigation matter against me. But that notwithstanding, Disney’s performance earned it the top slot.
There are very few speeches, presentations that I would miss out anything for to attend. This was one of them: CEO Jim Buckmaster was talking to a bunch of analysts and his comments must have floored them.
UBS Analyst Ben Schachter: How will Craigslist maximize revenue?
Buckmaster: “That definitely is not part of the equation. It’s not part of the goal.”
UBS Analyst Ben Schachter: How did the site arrive at $10 for real estate listings
Buckmaster: “Ten dollars sounded like a nice round number.”
UBS Analyst Ben Schachter: Will you run Ad Sense?
Buckmaster: “We’ve had the numbers crunched for us. The numbers are quite staggering. But, no, the site wasn’t interested. No users have been requesting that we run text ads, so for us, that’s the end of the story. If users start calling out for text ads, we’ll listen.”
I think that represents my goal as an entrepreneur, build a company so you can run it exactly how you and your users want you to run it.
See our feature on Craigslist here.
Enjoy the article on Jim Buckmaster’s Q&A.
Yep, it’s true. The site that became synonymous with sex is now launching a parenting site. Well, what comes after sex? That’s right, parenthood.
Actually, this is very common of a lot of websites that are started up by people who have an interest in something (as opposed to VC-backed, with a management parachuted from Day 1). The site initially reflects the demographic and reality of the founder and team, and then as that team evolves in their personal life, so does the site.
At my old gig, we ran a men’s lifestyle online magazine. Having founded the company in our early 20s, the content reflected that. As we went from bachelors in our early 20s to guys with girlfriends in our mid 20s, the content and tone changed. So did the demographic.
We would always say that one demographic strives to reach - or position itself - in the nextm, higher bracket. So say we drove Honda’s, we’d aim for that Infiniti, proverbially speaking of course. And then as the mid 20-something began to settle down and get married, sell the company and have kids, suddenly the articles would talk about the finer things in life and what not.
My guess is that Nerve is going through just that.
Yes, I’m guessing. They could just have realized a profitable niche, but I doubt it.
I would love to see pre-rolls disappear. The fact is that viewers are already accustomed to getting a video before the content so guess what? They tune out! One of the most frequent comments we get on WatchMojo.com is that by virtue of not running pre-rolls, we throw our audience off because they are used to it.
The same happened to pop-ups, which became pop-unders; in the end, you see them less and less. Mind you, you see other rich media, but the fact remains that with video, the overall online video consumption is too small to make a real difference and the effectiveness of pre-rolls might dissipate to the point that once onine video is consumed by a greater number of people, viewers will demand something else.
Check out what the head buyer for GM had to say on the issue here.
This is an interesting find, from MediaPost:
Social sites are driving more than 6% of retail traffic, up from 2.9% in 2005. MySpace alone accounted for about one-third of that traffic.
The rationale is that more and more people are using their social network pages as their de facto portals. Maybe. But it could be that media properties are driving less traffic to e-commerce sites because their ad inventory is being picked up by brand advertisers. When was the last time a major media property reserved its marquee ad slot for an Amazon affiliate banner, for example?
So true. In our field, IM-ing is common place but I’d say if you were born after 1980, you probably rely and prefer on IM, before 1980, you probably favor email.
Read more here.
