Refinance Dot Com Style
Exclude if you will the whole subprime mortgage mess and think back to a more sane, structured, and controlled lending environment, one without the exuberance and lack of standards. It might be hard, especially if you...
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Thanks for Nothing
A few hours after we hit send on last week's Confidential and around the same time Media Breakaway announced the results of their arbitration with MySpace, a new chapter of another ongoing drama began, one that...
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Microsoft Bails. World Yawns. Much Written.
The on again, off again drama of Microsoft's potential acquisition of Yahoo came to a close this past weekend, for now at least. This first chapter or perhaps conclusion of a story, took just north of three months to unfold.
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Conflict of Interest
When Google purchased DoubleClick, no one really believed the deal wouldn't go through, but had you listened to the noise, which ranged from regulatory scrutiny to legal action by its competitors, it seemed anything...
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Microsoft Yahoo Acquisition Update
Let's say that you run a nice company, a well-known company that has done well by most accounts, having grown from just an idea to one of the best brands in its field. You took this company public before the dot com crash, and...
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Much Ado About Yahoo - Part 2
Just imagine a year from now, looking back on what was written about Yahoo-Microsoft. Imagine in three years. Will it become the next AOL-TimeWarner or perhaps the next Daimler-Chrysler? In Part 1 of our week 1...
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Much Ado About Yahoo - Part 1
This Tuesday was special and happens once every four years. They call it Super Tuesday, perhaps because of the super long lines and super confusion that takes place as people in 24 states cast their vote on a...
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Online Media Mergers & Acquisitions Activity in 2007
In 2007, there were 615 merger, acquisition and capital raise transactions in the online sector of media.
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Check, please!
Woody Allen once remarked that nobody wants to join a group that wants them. That is, people don’t often want what anyone can have; they want what not everyone can get.
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Ballmer Clarifies Microsoft/Facebook Deal
In a firm declaration, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer asserted that the company “didn’t make a mistake” when it invested $240 million in a 1.6% stake in Facebook
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King of Traffix
If you attend Affiliate Summit, you should have come across a company called Hot Rocket Marketing and their affiliate network RocketProfit.com. Then again, given their low key demeanor, you might not have. At Affiliate...
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Mergers and Acquisitions - What Does it all Mean?
In the latest major acquisition announcement to rock the industry Yahoo revealed that it will acquire BlueLithium for roughly $300 million in cash. Yahoo said its purchase of the three-year-old company will allow it to accelerate its...
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Blue is the new Black
Pretend for a second that you just got back from vacation and didn't happen to see the flurry of blog posts on Tuesday afternoon and articles yesterday. That way the answer to this question won't come quite as easily. Even if you do...
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MySpace Will Enter E-Commerce Game With eBay?
CEO and cofounder of the social networking giant MySpace, Chris DeWolfe, said firmly that "We will at some point offer user-generated e-commerce transactions. So if you're on your site and you have a line of T-shirts you have...
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Long-Term Fundamentals
When companies get purchased for hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars, it gets us fired up and hungry. Lucky, we operate in an industry where we can actually do something...
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Guide to Taking Money
Those doing lead generation occupy an enviable space. It's a business that has faired well during the ad recovery, and despite some hiccups that arose as a New Century imploded, more verticals than not have an...
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Five in Five
It began with a bang and finished with a boom. Five weeks, five companies, and more than $10 billion spent in the largest wave of consolidation in recent history, if not ever, in the Internet advertising space. And, for better or worse, it...
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Microsoft Getting Soft?
First Yahoo invests in Right Media. Next, Google buys Doubleclick. Then, Yahoo scoops up the remainder of Right Media. And now, Microsoft could buy 24/7 Real Media?? Before we even begin to fathom why they might do...
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Dodgeball Founders Quit Google
Back in 2005, Google acquired Dodgeball, a mobile social networking service that allows users to send messages to the service containing their whereabouts, which are then relayed to selected friends to let them know...
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Microsoft Leads the Grumbling
As expected, Microsoft wasted little time voicing its opinion of Google’s latest monster $3.1 billion acquisition of advertising network DoubleClick. However, they are not alone.
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Done Deal. In the Wake of GOOG DCLK.
Two weeks ago, when it seemed that Microsoft might actually acquire DoubleClick, we wrote, upon learning of Google's interest in the billion dollar ad serving company, that DoubleClick would go to Google. A press release by...
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The Possible Importance of DoubleClick
DoubleClick has been the rumored apple of Microsoft’s eye since reports began popping up last week about a possible acquisition of the third-party ad firm. Things got even more interesting earlier this week when Google was...
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The Race to Buy DoubleClick
This past week, the Internet's version of an arms race launched. It started exactly a week ago with articles similar to that published in MediaPost stating, "Microsoft/DoubleClick Deal Seems Likely." Four days later, the likely deal...
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Optimize This - 40 Billion Impressions
"Way back" in July 2005, News Corp went from a company known for its not quite Fair and Balanced Fox News (yet home to the Simpsons and Family Guy) to an interactive powerhouse. They did this almost overnight with their tour de...
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AOL to See Shrinkage and Possible Acquisition
Jonathan Miller, CEO of AOL, indicated last weekend in an interview with German newspaper Die Welt that the company would most likely shrink for the next two years as it makes its transition from a paid-subscription Internet...
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Pixel Bling - The Embedded Culture
The purchase of YouTube is one of those Internet deals that will be remembered for years to come. It ranks up there with other landmark acquisitions such as Yahoo’s buying Overture, eBay buying PayPal, IAC buying...
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Just Don’t Call It GooTube
How would you spend one-point-six-five billion dollars? That’s the question the owners of YouTube now face after their most impressive sale to the mighty Google. It was less than one week ago, in the wee hours of the 6th, that...
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AOL and Userplane Have a Future Together
On Monday AOL announced that it had acquired Userplane, a provider of private chat and instant messaging software for online communities.
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Microsoft and Yahoo Open Up to Each Other
Numbers two and three in the instant messaging realm have finally made visible steps towards an alliance that they announced back in October. In what would appear to be a viable threat to AOL’s number one AIM, Microsoft’s...
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Publishers Clearing House Obtains Blingo
In a logical marriage of complements, sweepstakes and direct marketing giant Publishers Clearing House (PCH) announced its acquisition of Blingo, Inc., the hybrid offspring of a Google-powered search engine...
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“What If” Acquisitions - Future of Auto Buying/Selling
I think many of us dream about getting a new car; we listen to the radio and will pay attention to the deals and see both the national and regional advertisements. The problem with this is that I believe most people do not buy...
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SPOTLIGHT ON... Scott Mitchell from Think Partnership
interview with Scott Mitchell, CEO of Think Partnership find out:
- Why there have been many changes inside Think Partnership
- What their strategy is going forward
- What you need to do to be a good acquisition candidate
- How you can contact Scott directly
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What If mergers
Summer seems to bring with it more than just warmer weather. It also seems to bring with it increased activity in mergers and acquisitions. This time last year, we saw within a sixty day window deals that included Valueclick buying...
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VendareNetblue - Before they were one, Part 2
In Part 1 of this week’s Digital Trends we cover the history of Vendare, a company that went from tens of millions of dollars annually to breaking one-hundred million dollars four years later. The company grew through smart...
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VendareNetblue - Before they were one, Part 1
Almost reminiscent of movie releases where studios carefully plan out their launch dates to maximize their exposure, you can almost imagine the behind the scenes dialogue of this week’s Internet studio blockbuster. Last week...
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Datran Media Acquires Skylist
Datran Media, a database marketing services company has acquired Skylist, an e-mail service provider (ESP). This acquisition is another in a recent trend of database marketing firms investing their money in e-mail services...
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Microsoft and EBay: Doubtful
According to the New York Post, Microsoft has been involved in very covert talks with eBay about acquiring the giant online auction site. Discussions have cooled off recently because of the worries about anti-trust issues, but the Post...
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Valueclick / aQuantive
Last week, when the announcement of a merger between acquisition happy Think Partnership and iLeadMedia hit the wires, talks between two much larger companies considering a merger were breaking down. The potential merger...
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Fox Gets More Web 2.0
Using some of their $2 billion in acquisition resources, News Corporation’s Fox Interactive Media (FIM) segment purchased two relatively new Web 2.0 companies named Newroo and kSolo.com. Both sites focus on user-generated...
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Ad Pepper Acquires Crystal Contextual Ad Technology
On March 16, Ad Pepper Media acquired contextual targeting technology provider Crystal Reference Systems for cash and stock worth up to $3.5 million.
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A Tale Of Two Acquisitions
Direct Response wasn’t the only company in the news this week because of an acquisition. In what could be construed as a case of one-upmanship, Think Partnership, the parent company of competitor affiliate network solutions
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Direct Response Sold
When it comes to affiliate marketing solutions, two pairs of companies get mentioned more often than any others. One is Commission Junction and Linkshare, the other Direct Response and KowaBunga. ValueClick snapped...
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Google Set to Acquire dMarc
On Tuesday, Google announced that it will pay $102 million up front for dMarc Broadcasting Inc., a radio advertising firm. An additional $1.14 billion will be paid over the next three years if specified revenue and ad performance targets are met. This...
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Et Tu, AOL?
On December 21, 2005, AOL signed and closed a deal to acquire video search startup Truveo Inc. The exact financial figures of the deal were not revealed, but AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said it was the largest since their $435 million cash acquisition of...
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AOOOOOOL
By now, almost everybody outside the Internet world has heard of Google. Similarly, thanks to its first mover status and ubiquitous blanketing of American mailboxes and retail outlets with CD-ROMs, you’ll be hard pressed to find someone that hasn’t heard of...
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Finding The Sweet Spot Part 2: Sky Is The Limit
A company’s financials are an affect of their business. In Part 1 located here, we laid the groundwork for our discussion on understanding and evaluating why certain companies attain the size they do. The result was a set of criteria, that when...
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Finding The Sweet Spot Part 1
The sweet spot for selling right now seems to lie right around a half a billion dollars. More companies than not have sold for less, much less, but there is something about that $500 million number that has many companies saying “I do.” This includes companies...
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Yahoo! Teams With Movable Type
Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo! has teamed with Six Apart, creator of Movable Type, the most popular software used to generate professional blogs. The announcement made on Sunday asserted that Yahoo! is now the preferred supplier of Movable Type for...
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MTV Gets the URGE to Team With Microsoft
On Tuesday, MTV Networks announced that it had partnered with Microsoft to develop an online music service that will be called URGE. It will be integrated into the next version of the Windows Media Player, and will be launched in 2006. A statement...
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Microsoft and MCI Join the VoIP Fray
Microsoft’s MSN and MCI announced on Monday that they have teamed up to form a global computer-to-phone service. Users will be able to make calls for as little as 2.3 cents per minute, which is lower than the best MCI rate...
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Microsoft, Time Warner Reportedly Close To Deal
The Wall Street Journal reported early on Tuesday morning that Microsoft and Time Warner were close to a deal that would form an online search and advertising partnership between the two companies. The deal would put the collaboration in contention with Google...
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A Giant In The Making
Could a company that generates per year what a similar company does per month, one whose market cap equals that bigger company’s quarterly revenues, be considered the “next” iteration of it? That appears to be the question that CGI Holdings Corp...
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Google Possibly Courting Riya
There is speculation on the Web that Google is in talks with recently-launched Silicon Valley company Riya to acquire the company for about $40 million. Riya is a Redwood City, California-based startup that allows people to search their digital photos...
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The Ownership of Traffic
The first half of A Crash Course on the Digital Marketing Vendor Landscape, the basis to last week’s two part Digital Marketing 101, focused on the different types of internet advertising and the companies that operate in them. The second half...
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Trends Report - Following the Money, an Investment Recap, Part Two
Part One of Trends Report recapped six major investments, including five content driven sites totaling more than $2 billion in transaction prices. Four of those deals occurred in a span of less than four months. Yet, as impressive as that...
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Trends Report - Following the Money, an Investment Recap, Part One
It’s hard to say when it happened, but it did. Our industry, once the unwanted offspring of the media world, operates in obscurity no longer; investors and members of the “real” world look upon it and those of us in the trenches with admiration. We now...
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Digital Thoughts - Boom Times
When they opened their doors in 1997, Amazon made $147,000. By the end of 1998, they earned $600,000 rising to $1.6 billion by 1999. At the end of 2000, Amazon generated $2.7 billion in revenues. During the boom years, Amazon managed to go from nothing...
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Trends Report - One Exit, One Entry
Twenty-three months ago ValueClick made a move that consolidated the affiliate marketing space by picking up Commission Junction. The deal, worth approximately $58 million, left many people wondering why ValueClick would choose to purchase another affiliate...
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Trends Report - Murdoch's Internet Empire
The well covered $580 million acquisition of Intermix last month established Rupert Murdoch as player in the online space. If Mr. Murdoch has his way, though, Intermix will represent just the beginning of his Internet Empire. He has publicly said that...
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Digital Thoughts - The Sleeping Giant
ConsumerInfo.com, MetaReward, Cheetahmail, LowerMyBills.com, ClassesUSA, and Affiliate Fuel all have something in common, and it isn’t email, CPA, or “dot com”. The answer is their now parent company, Experian. While Experian formally...
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Trends Report - A Polished Sneaker
Last week, I lamented the fact that no major acquisitions occurred. No sooner had those thoughts left the keypad then news of ClassesUSA’s sale to Experian became public. While Rupert Murdoch’s entry into the online space made headlines...
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Digital Thoughts - Part 2 - Music To Their Ears
During eUniverse’s ultimately turbulent fiscal year 2003, they acquired direct marketing focused Response Base, a company run by Chris DeWolfe, who along with the other co-founder of MySpace.com, Tom Anderson, had also worked at XDrive.com...
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Digital Thoughts - Part 1 - A, B, C, D, eUniverse
Less than a week after announcing that it had settled its spyware related trespassing lawsuit with Elliot Spitzer, Intermix Media again made headlines. This time, though, the headlines involved Intermix gaining a substantial amount of money as...
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Consolidation - A Giant Collapses
As the Online advertising industry grows dramatically and we see continuing articles of projections and growth, the question is are you aware of the immense changes that are occurring simultaneously at a pace almost to fast to track?
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Trens Report - Clash Of The Titans
Another week, another $100 million plus deal - that has certainly been the case the past two months regarding mergers and acquisitions activity in the Internet advertising related space. This week’s deal? Viacom, the parent company to MTV Networks...
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Trends - Supersized Internet
On Tuesday of this week, Google broke new ground - not by unveiling an innovative feature but by becoming the largest public media company, this in only ten months of having been listed on the NASDAQ. At $80 billion, Google’s market cap overtook long time...
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Trends - content, search and commerce
Arguably the biggest purchase impacting our space last year occurred in June when AOL announced its intent to purchase Advertising.com for north of $400 million. Two months prior, in March, another substantial acquisition took place. This one saw Ask Jeev
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Trends Report - Investment activity into our space
As anticipated, this year has brought no shortage of investment activity into our space. Just last week, for example CGI Holding Corp - not to be confused with the famous dot com bomb CMGI - d/b/a Think Partnership (AMEX: THX) announced its intent to acqu
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Trends Report
In 2004, some of the best known companies in our space received funding. Fastclick raised $75 million, Netblue another $20 million. With the online ad market so hot, it makes sense to expect that trend to continue.
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Digital Thoughts - Search Engine Space
This week’s Trends looks at the search engine space and ends by suggesting a shift in search is on the horizon. Search and the related pay per click advertising have been among the hottest industries on the net.
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Trends Report - Internet Advertising
Internet advertising still manages to capture at least one or two headlines daily. More importantly, the stories continue to paint upbeat forecasts for the industry.
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Digital Thoughts
Towards the end of 2004, people's minds were centered on the question of what 2005 will bring. It’s now 2005, but unfortunately it’s too soon to answer that question. What can be known though is how the industry fared in 2004. The answer as most people already know is that the industry fared quite well. Throughout the year, many reports tracked the progress of online ad spending.
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