A few years ago, we published a list of companies who ruled the Internet each year, from 1994-2007. Then, we forgot to update it for 2008-2010. On this week’s HipMojo show, we run down the list and picked a company for 2008, 2009, and 2010… and then open it up for you to suggest companies for 2011. Vote for the company of the Year below in the Comments, feel free to vote for the company you work for, but explain WHY, what was the one thing or many things that made the company stand out from the noise? continue reading...

After raising $50M on a $500M valuation, Slide “cashes in” at $182M.  Google is the greater fool, I presume.  I haven’t been too kind to Slide back in the day.  See some of the posts here.

Also, after shelling out $102M for XFire, Viacom unloads it, for far less. continue reading...

Back in October 2006, a few days before Google acquired YouTube, I wrote a post called YouTube is wildy profitable, no doubts about it, it was probably the first I published on this blog that got a lot of attention.  Anyway, I had no proof that YouTube was actually profitable or for that matter generating material revenues, but the point was: it could be in a very strong state despite the alleged hosting fees, which we now know through peering arrangements can be contained.

However, with Viacom and Google disclosing numerous documents, it turns out, that while not profitable (after all expenses), YouTube was indeed generating revenues which covered most of their expenses as early as August 2006.  You knew that if Google was willing to pay $1.65B for a company that was 18 months old, it wasn’t doing so simply for the promise, but still, that is quite impressive. I guess what Steve Chen and Chad Hurley knew then was that at that pace, YouTube’s growth would ensure that its costs would far exceed its revenues in the short term, and a sale to Google would make that concern evaporate. continue reading...

Viacom and YouTube disclose a whole lot of documents.  To summarize:

- Viacom says that YouTube is essentially “Napster in Video” and the precedent is for them to be shut down. continue reading...

The following 8-video Decade Rewind 2000s series is a pretty impressive display of creativity and execution from the WatchMojo.com team, a 2000s decade recap and review where we rewind the events of the past 10 years in the Auto industry, Business & Technology, Entertainment, Fashion, Music, Politics, Science & Space and Video Games.  continue reading...

If you like M&A, great article from NY Times on how Comcast courted and convinced GE to sell NBC.

Comcast had also undertaken an internal review to consider where the company could grow by acquisition. It considered buying another cable company, a mobile phone company or even Facebook. At one point, it considered acquiring Viacom, which owns several cable networks but is unencumbered by a broadcast network, but Sumner M. Redstone, the controlling shareholder in Viacom, was not interested in selling. continue reading...

Viacom - still mired in a $1B lawsuit against Google/YouTube - believes it has cracked the online video ad code:

Want to make Web video watchers and Web video advertisers happy? Do it with a short ad at the beginning of the clip, and then another ad that pops up while the clip is running. continue reading...

In November 2007, we published a piece called Online Video Distribution: The Race for #3 is On…

Hulu wasn’t even around, so #1 was YouTube and #2 was MySpace TV.  Then came the usual suspects: Metacafe, DailyMotion, Break and Veoh. continue reading...

Do we need a stimulus for advertising?  Former MTV and AOL executive Bob Pittman makes the case for YES:

The government’s stimulus plan won’t work as planned if we don’t get consumers spending again. But in the nearly $800 billion package, there is one thing missing that would surely help accomplish this: advertising. To get people spending again, and the economy moving, the government needs to provide help for businesses in America to advertise their products and services. continue reading...

It’s easy to call MTV’s decision to restrict third party websites from embedding videos as a media company thinking within the box, but that’s unfair.

Last year, many criticized the WSJ for not canning the paid subscription strategy, but then as the ad market tanked (along with the economy), preserving the $120M paid business proved to be a wise move, especially with competitor NYT itching to find a paid content strategy. continue reading...