Last week we looked at 5Min’s history on the one-year anniversary of its sale to AOL. Today we mark the five-year anniversary of Google’s acquisition of YouTube, announced October 9, 2006. continue reading...
In segment 1, we shift our focus away from the debacle at AOL and look at Yahoo!’s own soap opera by expanding on a couple of articles I published on TechCrunch, namely why and how Yahoo! could make a run to Hulu and Yahoo!’s options. We cover a lot, and in there I go over a lot of numbers explaining the financial engineering, so I included the numbers below. Watch the video below (and scroll down to get the financial engineering math) continue reading...
24/7 Wall Street has an interesting run down of the 25 most valuable blogs. Like all lists, it’s entertaining. I disagree big most of the rankings but agree that Gawker Media is clearly the #1 blog-based publishing company, at least in the Western world (I am sure there must be very valuable Asian, European and South American blog empires).
More interestingly, the list is a mish-mash of technology, celebrity, finance, etc., blogs… which I think makes the list a bit noisy. While I understand diversification makes sense, lumping different publications together in a list, just because they happen to be powered by blogging software, is a bit odd. That’s basically like having a list of sites powered by a given CMS… who cares? continue reading...
Scripps is one of my favorite media companies.
Admittedly, Scripps is one of the many sources of inspiration when I came up with WatchMojo.com’s programming and editorial strategy (re: HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, Fine Living). Other influences are Discovery Networks (Travel and History Channel), Viacom (VH1, MTV), etc., so admittedly, it’s varied. continue reading...
You do not need a CFA to realize that Yahoo! is an undervalued company. Yes, the company once synonymous with the World Wide Web is now facing numerous challenges, but between investments in Alibaba, Yahoo! Japan, a myriad of recently acquired US-based properties (Flickr, Delicious, etc.), the company is worth more than $32B.
But, tell that to Wall Street investors and analysts who keep pegging Yahoo!’s growth (or lack thereof) to Google’s and end up favoring the search leader. continue reading...
Reader question:
I am researching an online video article and based on your blog I would like to ask you a question or two about online video company valuations. continue reading...
A few years ago, I joined a search engine called Mamma.com. This was before Google was omnipresent and monetizing every click you and I generated. At the same time, another company in my neck of the woods, called Zero Knowledge, raised something like $90M in VC. ZK’s mission was simple: to make users anonymous as they surfed the Web. The software made surfing the web slow and tedious, and then 9/11 killed the privilege of surfing anonymously on many sites. I’m pretty sure ZK went on to have a successful story as it repositioned itself… but:
More importantly, the mere premise that users valued privacy and anonymity was blown to smithereens as we left morsels of our information across a myriad of websites around the Web. continue reading...
A couple of weeks ago I asked if News Corp. was planning to spin off some of its assets, notably to unlock value and to fund further acquisitions. But in light of Facebook’s massive implied valuation, the idea is sure to gather steam within Rupert Murdoch’s inner circle:
If Facebook is worth $15 billion, then MySpace is worth $65 billion. continue reading...
The title of this post, Of VCs and Men, is a play on John Steinbeck’s book, Of Mice and Men.
For the record, it does not suggest that VCs are rats, au contraire, it implies that they’re caught in a rat race against one another to find the best entrepreneurs, products, companies and markets… and because of that, sometimes, some of them tend to act, well, less than gentleman-like. continue reading...
The following applies to any company in the search space that works in direct navigation, parked URL and what.
I am using Marchex because they’re publicly traded and the data is available… but technically it would also work for NameMedia, too. Bear in mind, these companies would scoff at my suggestion because they are cash generating machines, but: continue reading...
