Valleywag: weblogs Inc.

Jason Calacanis says ex-AOL CEO Jon Miller is the man for you, Yahoos

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:00:00 PDT

Before creating the world's most comprehensive list of videogame cheats, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis worked at AOL under then-CEO Jon Miller. Calacanis joined AOL only after it bought Weblogs Inc. from him for $25 million and since Miller led that acquisition, eventually invested in Mahalo and now sits on the company's board, Calacanis is naturally a little biased in his feelings toward Miller, whom Calacanis considers a mentor. Still, when we heard talk of Miller as a contender to be Yahoo's next CEO, we figured Calacanis's opinions would at least be entertainingly biased. Our email exchange:

Vallewag: What would you think of Jon Miller going to Yahoo?

Calacanis:

Jon Miller would be amazing for Yahoo because he is extremely good at building display advertising businesses and buying young startups. Remember, when they let him go he was coming off back to back 40%+ gain quarters in advertising revenue—second only to Google (and well ahead of Yahoo). His biggest strength at AOL—in my mind—was buying promising startups and giving them tons of support, no red tape, and breathing room. Yahoo needs new blood and a focus on display advertising, with Ross [Levinsohn, former CEO of Fox Interactive and Miller's partner at VC firm Velocity Interactive] at his side you would have a very potent operator and M&A team.

Yahoo's best strategy right now is probably to build display advertising while buying and growing promising startups. Yahoo needs growth, Jon and Ross are growth guys (i.e. MySpace, Advertising.com, Weblogs, Inc, etc). As a bonus you have hundreds of VP/SVP/EVP level executives out there who are loyal to Jon and Ross, so you might see a talent influx with them at the helm, and talent wins.

Valleywag: You think he'd take the job?

Calacanis:

Pro: It is the most challenging job in the space second to AOL

Pro: Having reinvented AOL this would be cake walk/much more pleasant.

Push: It would require a move from East to West coast—which is both a + and -

Pro: It would be a great way to show the folks at [Time Warner] who's the man
I'd say if he gets the call he would most likely take it... big opps like this come along once every 5-10 years.

What kind of house does AOL's money buy?

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:20:00 PDT

Jason Calacanis once told us that he has "all the money." He got it from selling Weblogs Inc. — home of Engadget and Autoblog, among others — to AOL for $25 million. Curious to see what kind of home that kind of money buys in Los Angeles? Check out Kara Swisher's video tour of Calacanis's guest "cottage." Watch out for the bulldogs.

Jason Calacanis happy, verging on desperate to meet you

Owen Thomas — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 15:32:40 PDT

Attention, bottom-feeding Gothamites! Weblogs Inc. cofounder Jason Calacanis is eager to bore you to tears over dinner about how great his new venture Mahalo is. (The short version: Remember Yahoo's Web directory from 12 years ago? That's basically Mahalo.) The buntrepreneur is stuffing his bulldog-cute, apple-cheeked face full of dim sum — oops, back to fatblogging! — at the Golden Unicorn at 7:30 p.m. tonight, notes Silicon Alley Insider.

What happens when blogs fail? At AOL's Weblogs ...

Owen Thomas — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:42:00 PDT

What happens when blogs fail? At AOL's Weblogs Inc., three cancelled health blogs have disappeared entirely — not even on Weblogs' list of retired blogs. [TechCrunch]

Discovery splashes a green $10 million on TreeHugger

Owen Thomas — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 11:13:23 PDT

Blogs continue to sell — but blog valuations are staying modest. Discovery Communications, the cable-and-online media company, has bought enviro blog TreeHugger for a reported $10 million. With nearly 2 million unique visitors, that means Discovery paid a very modest $5 per "eyeball" — the unpleasant online-advertising slang for a reader. Contrast that to the bubbly hopes of GigaOm's Om Malik back in 2005, when he wrote about the "return of monetized eyeballs" for Business 2.0. (Full disclosure: I helped him crunch the numbers for that story.)

If anything, TreeHugger's sale marks a steady downward trend from the frothy days of 2004 and 2005, when the $519 million deal Dow Jones struck to acquire MarketWatch and the $25 million sale of Jason Calacanis's Weblogs Inc. to AOL sparked hopes of pricier blog buyouts to come. But they didn't materialize.

Instead, today, blogs like TreeHugger are evaluated more like conventional media properties, based on audience size, advertising, and growth rates, not eyeballs alone. And, of course, strategic fit matters. Discovery's TV viewers are naturally drawn to green blogs. Better for Discovery to own those blogs than let its cable audience drift away to them.

(Update: Valleywag is owned by Gawker Media, and Gawker's publisher, Nick Denton, is an investor in and advisor to TreeHugger.)