BW was the last business magazine I canceled, or should I say, did not renew.
But before me stands a $23 offer for 26 issues. That’s a cheap tab. I am thinking of signing up. Is print making a comeback?
No. But here’s the truth: most blogs suck and a lot of print media - while absurdly outdated and largely fluffy - have content that most blogs and new media sources have yet to match. Come on bloggers, if you want that $23 from me you have to step it up, not regurgitate crap.
Bartender, hold that $20 martini, I’m getting some Business Week.
But this begs the question: is BW better off asking me - a 30 year old C-level executive - for $23 or should it somehow get an advertiser to pay that $23 for this little commercial exchange. Think about it… there’s a lot more value for BW (or any print magazine) to get advertisers engaged in what just took place.
But then again, I think print should be free (man, we’ve covered every topic, haven’t we?).
On that note, bartender, hit me again.
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WatchMojo NewsletterGoing into Google’s conference call, expectations were as follows:
Google ended up
- Hitting revenue exactly in line with consensus at $5.2 billion (or up 42%).
- Beating net revenue with $3.7 billion.
- Its non-GAAP EPS of $4.84 blows away consensus of $4.52.
All in all this was a better than expected report from Google, which explains why the stock is up nearly $80… but the fact remains: Google owes a big thank you to a weak USD.
From Google’s earnings report:
International Revenues - Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $2.65 billion, representing 51% of total revenues in the first quarter of 2008, compared to 47% in the first quarter of 2007 and 48% in the fourth quarter of 2007. Had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the fourth quarter of 2007 through the first quarter of 2008, our revenues in the first quarter of 2008 would have been $18 million lower. Had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the first quarter of 2007 through the first quarter of 2008, our revenues in the first quarter of 2008 would have been $202 million lower.
Perhaps the only people happier than GOOG shareholders are new employees… of which Google added plenty of:
On a worldwide basis, Google employed 19,156 full-time employees as of March 31, 2008, up from 16,805 full-time employees as of December 31, 2007. Of the 2,351 employees added in the first quarter of 2008, approximately 1,500 were associated with DoubleClick. Since the close of the acquisition, Google has conducted a review of its ongoing headcount requirements and approximately 10% of the DoubleClick workforce was laid off in the U.S. in early April.
I could be wrong, but most of these staffers had under-water options and today’s dinger out of the park will bring smiles back to Mountain View… and slow down the exodus of talent. We covered this factor some time ago in Google’s Share Pric and Employee Morale under Pressure.
More live analysis and goodness from SAI.
I am neither a Google Bull nor Bear, they’re the Internet bellwether so for that reason alone, a healthy Google is good for everyone involved.
However, while Google crushed the ball and is now up 11% (or $50!), I wonder, how much of that surprise came from a strengthened global business (thus higher revenue when converted to the girlie greenback?).
Moreover, Google now has nearly 20,000 employees… that’s a lot of people!
Anyway, read more here.
Facebook has the opportunity to become something huge… hugely profitable and enormously valuable. Its ad platform was launched with some hiccups… and now comes a potentially greater obstacle: a lawsuit against one of the early adopters of the program. From Mediapost:
A Texas resident has filed a federal lawsuit against Blockbuster for participating in Facebook’s Beacon program, which tells members about their friends’ e-commerce activity. In the lawsuit, quietly filed last week, Dallas County resident Cathryn Elaine Harris claims that Blockbuster violated the federal Videotape Privacy Protection Act by sharing information about her movie rentals and sales with Facebook without first obtaining her written consent.
Harris is seeking class-action status, and is asking for at least $2,500 for each violation of the statute, a 1988 law passed after a newspaper obtained the video rental records of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.
When Facebook launched Beacon last November, the platform told members about their friends’ e-commerce activity at Blockbuster and other sites. Initially, the program operated by default, meaning that unless members opted out, their rental information was sent to other Facebook users as part of Facebook’s ad program. Harris alleges that this type of ad violated the federal video privacy law.
See our comments on Facebook’s challenge in:
- Why Social Media and Beacon Are Doomed to Fail and What Facebook Should Do.
- Facebook OS: Be Careful What You Ask For.
I am one… so take this with a grain of salt. Via PaidContent, commenting on the latest $5M Series A round, Lonely Girl’s CEO says:
“We’ve always wanted to stay independent and produce interactive shows that we could put our hearts and souls into, and sometime last fall we realized that raising money would give us the ability to remain independent and produce amazing shows on our terms.”
As Rafat Ali comments: Remain independent and venture capital? Truer words have…
Indeed. Getting VC money is the easiest way to lose independence… that’s like getting married and then saying:
“I can’t wait to start playing the field and doing whatever I want late at night, drinking Scotch in the morning and snorting coke off of a hooker’s ass by midday”
People… what are you thinking? Video advertising (which is what will finance all of this) remains embryonic, the sooner you raise excess capital, the sooner you will have outsized expectations… it’s one thing to set big goals for yourself and your company… but when outside investors with too much time on their hands have outsized expectations… it’s your ass that’s on the line. Anyway, I am hoping that they leveraged their sponsorships and profitability to get great terms from the VCs.
Check out funding for content plays, below:
When Brightcove raised $80M, I presume they did so by stressing how much each one of their units would be worth down the road:
- The consumer site would take on YouTube, which commanded a $1.65B exit.
- The ad network would stand tall in the video space… given how much Doubleclick, 24/7 RealMedia, Blue Lithium et al. had sold for in the display ad network business… this figure could be huge.
- Its paid video business could be enormous too, especially when you considered how big the paid video market was to be, according to well-paid and in-the-know analysts.
- Last but not least, its advanced services for big publishers (WSJ, TheStreet, for example) would be cash cows with recurring payments… a division that would generate annuity-like revenue streams in perpetuity.
Investors must have been stoked. But, the actual story has unfolded quite differently. Brightcove has shuttered its consumer site, gotten out of the ad network business and instead partnered with Tremor Media, and today it announced what I’ve been saying for some time: no one wants to pay for content, especially for videos… and they will be ceasing those operations, too.
You better hope that 4th unit goes long, and gets big… because otherwise it will be very hard to get investors any semblance of a positive return, let alone a decent IRR. Bear in mind: Maven sold for a $160M exit off $30M in investment… so even if Brightcove crushes the ball… how much upside is there after $80M invested?
Anyway, we wish them well… but this just goes to show that raising too much money too early is usually the death knell of a company. Mind you, I doubt Brightcove is anywhere near troubled mode… in fact, I presume this means you can expect a Series Q round soon for an additional $50M or so.
Could the company at least acquire a bunch of similar players and ramp up that way? Maybe… I doubt it though.
More content funding news:
EQAL - not to be confused with DECA - raised $5M from Spark Capital, Ron Conway, Marc Andreessen, “Survivor” producer Conrad Riggs and former Google exec Georges Harik as investors.
The company is best known for “lonelygirl15″ and “Kate Modern” and is said to be profitable (thanks to low costs) and a sponsorship deal from News Corp.’s FOX… On the one hand I totally understand raising funds, but by the same token, I wonder why raise money when you have low costs and are in the black with sponsors like FOX.
Oh well… part of the greater trend of 2008 being the year where digital media and web video content gets more and more funding.
Related:
- 2008: Rise of Digital Media / Content Funds
Here’s our interview with Lonely Girl’s Alexandra Dreyfuss, here:
