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aol
The three letters Marc Andreessen can't bear to type
Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen, left bored by running a social-networking startup, has much time on his hands to write excellent analyses of the tech industry. His blog post on why Microsoft-Yahoo might fall apart seems prescient in the wake of that deal's failure. But there's one odd thing about his writeup. Read this passage:Big mergers and acquisitions, particularly among public companies, particularly among public companies that have large shares of their respective markets, can take a year or more between the day the deal is signed and announced, to the day the deal is actually executed and closed. During that year plus, all kinds of things can happen that could cause the deal to fall apart.More »
online video
Obscene iTunes profit margins finally win Hollywood's heart
Steve Jobs has finally wooed all the major studios, including Fox, Warner Bros., Sony, Paramount and Universal, to sell movie downloads on the day DVDs are released. On Friday, you'll be able to wait a while as American Gangster downloads over your crappy American broadband connection for $14.99. And it will be delivered in lower quality than standard DVDs, without any of those annoying extra features. But it will have Apple's DRM installed with every copy! What finally brought Hollywood to the table? More »
venture capital
Time Warner follows Bebo buy with Meebo stake, rhyming dictionary in hand
Instant messaging service Meebo will today announce $25 million in funding from JAFCO Ventures, KTB Ventures and Time Warner, which spent $850 million to buy social network Bebo in March. Meebo founder Seth Sternberg only began looking for more funding that same month, hiring Montgomery & Co and hoping to raise $25 million to $30 million to set the company's value at $250 million. Today's funding round values the company at $200 million, the WSJ reports. Last year, funding valued Meebo at $90 million. But the real question is, how exactly does anyone expect to make money with instant messaging?
Time Warner spins off cable division
"A complete structural separation of Time Warner Cable, under the right circumstances, is in the best interests of both companies' shareholders," Time Warner CEO Jeffrey L. Bewkes said in a statement this morning. The company will now rest much of its hopes on AOL's online advertising business. Yes, the one that grew 1 percent last year. [NYT]
"A complete structural separation of Time Warner Cable, under the right circumstances, is in the best interests of both companies' shareholders," Time Warner CEO Jeffrey L. Bewkes said in a statement this morning. The company will now rest much of its hopes on AOL's online advertising business. Yes, the one that grew 1 percent last year. [NYT]
earnings
AOL ad business grows 1 percent in a year
Whispers on Wall Street predicted Time Warner would today report AOL ad revenues down 30 percent since last year, SAI reports. Didn't happen, but hold the cartwheels. AOL only grew 1 percent since the same quarter last year. Paid search and AOL's ad networks, which place ad on third-party sites, drove the growth, while declining revenue on display ads on AOL properties kept it meager. That's an unprofitable equation. Popular publishers demand high guarantees before joining ad networks. This quarter, such "traffic aquisition costs" were a primary reason for underwhelming numbers.
online video
Someday, Warner Bros. plans to launch a Web video site
You might have missed it, but Warner Bros., the film studio, created a television network in the 1990s called "The WB." The network's biggest star was Katie Holmes, before she accepted the role of mother to L. Ron Hubbard's heir. Then in 2006, the studio pulled the plug — folding it into CBS's failed network, UPN, and calling the new redheaded stepchild The CW. Well, now the brothers are back with TheWB.com, "an online video Web site combining short original series with classic shows," reports the AP. As you can tell from the screenshot, it's not quite operational yet. Though you're free to join the The WB fan page on Facebook!
acquisitions
Bebo employees claim to welcome AOL bosses, but secretly fear them
Vested employees at social network Bebo, anticipating the massive stock-options payday they'll get when AOL finalizes its $850 million purchase of their employer, have been passing around stickers that read "I, for one, welcome our new AOL overlords." One was so excited that he sent it to Valleywag — and then rapidly thought better of it, fearing that this leak of sensitive information would somehow jeopardize the merger. Such typical Valley groupthink: Yes, little programmer, the fate of the entire company is riding on your shoulders! Loose lips sink acquisitions! More »
acquisitions
The battle for Yahoo
At MySpace headquarters in Beverly Hills, playbooks are stacked on desks as Rupert Murdoch's minions desperately try to make the numbers on a Yahoo deal work. Murdoch's News Corp. has joined forces with Microsoft in an effort to counter a deal with the mogul's old enemy, Time Warner. Google, which all old-line media companies fear, is approaching a bid with languorous rigor, running a small test of placing its ads on some Yahoo pages. It's all rather depressing. More »
1:00 PM on Thu Apr 10 2008
By Owen Thomas
2,256 views,
6 comments
Latest by Winston_Smith: Don't forget that MSFT has also made inroads into trad media integration. They had a JV TV channel with NBC. They pimp the big studio/network's content on XBOX Live and almost all of their MSN channels are co-produced by major more »
bad ideas
If not in traffic or revenues, where has Bebo leapt ahead of MySpace and Facebook? In turning its social network into a TV channel, says NewTeeVee's Liz Gannes. She credits Bebo president Joanna Shields with figuring out the LonelyGirl15 phenomenon in 2007 and hiring the show's creators. Thus was born KateModern, which has been seen some 30 million times, earning exactly $405,000. Expect more of that, the pro-Bebo argument goes, now that the company is tied up with media giant Time Warner. With 2,099 more hits like that, and the deal might pay off.
Time Warner shareholders, blame LonelyGirl15 for the $850 million Bebo buy
If not in traffic or revenues, where has Bebo leapt ahead of MySpace and Facebook? In turning its social network into a TV channel, says NewTeeVee's Liz Gannes. She credits Bebo president Joanna Shields with figuring out the LonelyGirl15 phenomenon in 2007 and hiring the show's creators. Thus was born KateModern, which has been seen some 30 million times, earning exactly $405,000. Expect more of that, the pro-Bebo argument goes, now that the company is tied up with media giant Time Warner. With 2,099 more hits like that, and the deal might pay off.
online video
Hulu videos open to all, with Time Warner and Viacom waiting in wings
Tomorrow, Hulu will finally open its doors to the wider public. Rumor has it Time Warner and Viacom soon plan to join the site, which is backed by NBC and News Corp., through nonexclusive distribution deals. CBS digital guru Quincy Smith, however, remains pessimistic: "If the Web is just another way to watch TV, I think I'm going to slit my wrists." Below, the best friend of former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel's daughter in the kind of short form clip Hulu hopes the public will take to. More »
yahoo
Ballmer considers raising offer $3.1 billion
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is reportedly considering changing the offer to buy Yahoo from half-cash and half-stock to all-cash, effectively raising the bid from $28.87 a share to the its original $31. That would up Yahoo's price tag from $41.5 billion back to $44.6 billion. Credit Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang for negotiating without really trying. Word has it his dalliances with Time Warner and News Corp. inspired the idea.
acquisitions
Yang goes back to Time Warner for an alternative
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes want an AOL-Yahoo merger that would give Time Warner a large minority stake in the new company. The idea is that joining Yahoo and AOL — which itself plans to add a dozen new sites in the next six months — would create the dominant online advertising company. OK, maybe. If you're not counting search. More »
IAC subsidiary CItySearch will share its reviews and other content over AOL sites such as AOL City Guide, AOL Local Search, and MapQuest. AOL will in return handle the serving of CitySearch ads. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. At least, not yet. [News.com]
rumormonger
Hulu lands Time Warner, Viacom deal still closing
Time Warner and Viacom video content will soon run on Hulu, the Web video joint venture from NBC Universal and News Corp. The Time Warner deal is done, while Viacom's is "not totally signed," a source tells us. Both deals are said to be nonexclusive. (A Hulu spokesbot autodialed us to relay the nitpick that the paperwork hasn't been signed yet. Whatever.) The news isn't a shock: Time Warner subsidiary AOL agreed to distribute Hulu at launch and before the site even had a name, Viacom executives have praised Hulu in concept. Just yesterday, MTV exec Van Toffler said, "We've been talking to [Hulu] since the beginning, and we like it a lot." Mostly because it's not YouTube, of course.
aol
Googlebaiting? Time Warner to drop AOL's dialup business
In an anticipated move, new Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said the company will further separate AOL from its declining ISP business. Bewkes said the move would "increase AOL's strategic options," which the WSJ took as a hint that he would consider selling pieces of AOL. Speculation names Google an interested buyer. Common sense does not.
New Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes just held his first earnings call since taking over the top spot back in January. And to celebrate? Layoffs! Time Warner, the parent of AOL, Time Inc., HBO, and Warner Bros., among others, will cut 75 today from its corporate offices — about 20 percent of the headquarters staff. Still, 75 is plenty enough for chuckles. [AdAge]
clips
