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- May 6, 2009 (Computerworld) Twitter Inc. co-founder Biz Stone said today the company is not for sale despite reports that Apple Inc. is in late-stage negotiations to buy the microblogging site.
![[Post to Twitter]](http://tinycomb.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter-big4.png){kind=icon}
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- Once touted as the company taking on Amazon’s Kindle by developing an eReader app for the iPhone (Stanza), Lexcycle has now been acquired by well, Amazon. Stanza allows users to browse a library of around 100,000 books and periodicals for the iPhone, many of them in the ePub format — a widely accepted standard for e-books that Amazon has yet to support with its proprietary Kindle platform (Bits, NyTimes)
Lexcycle said, “We are not planning any changes in the Stanza application or user experience as a result of the acquisition. Customers will still be able to browse, buy, and read e-books from our many content partners.”
The Lexcycle team will join Amazon and help them lay the ground work for owning more platforms such as Android, Palm Pre and Windows Mobile devices. Amazon said Lexcycle is a smart, innovative company, and is looking forward to working with them.
Looking For A Job Or Need To Hire? Join The Thousands On TinyComb’s Job Board
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- Cisco Systems Inc, the company which should be buying Sun Micrososytems, has announced it will be buying buying Flip digital camcorder-maker, Pure Digital Technologies
- Cisco, the world’s largest maker of computer networking equipment said today it would pay $590 million in stock to purchase all of privately held Pure Digital’s shares.
- Cisco is attracted to Pure Digital’s pocket-sized Flip camcorder, which has sold more than 2 million units in the US, will help Cisco with their plans to diversify into the consumer market.
“This acquisition will take Cisco’s consumer business to the next level as the company … drives the next generation of entertainment and communication experiences,” Ned Hooper, senior vice president of Cisco’s corporate development and consumer groups, said in the statement.
- Cisco has $29 billion in cash to make the purchase, which is only a small piece of their plans to expand into other markets. What’s great about this potential acquisition is it gets Silicon Valley VC’s one of their first exits of the year. Pure Digital, based in San Francisco, is backed by venture capital investors including Sequoia Capital and Benchmark Capital. Of course.
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- In a depressing earnings call today with the NewsCorp team, Rupert Murdoch outlined the $6.4 billion loss. Murdoch said “the downturn is more severe and likely longer lasting than previously thought.” and “We are implementing rigorous cost-cutting across all operations and reducing head count where appropriate.”
- MySpace earnings fall underneath the Fox Interactive Media section, which also includes products like PhotoBucket. MySpace is thought to bring in the majority of the revenues coming in from FIM. Here is what they had to say on the issue: “Fox Interactive revenues: $226 million revenues. Down due to reduced subs at IGN. Search and advertising were simliar to a year ago. Costs were MySpace Music and international expansion”. The entire division lost $38million.
- I guess Murdoch and Sam Zell (purchased Tribune) were wrong to assume paper media is going to stay strong through the next 5 years. Cuts have already been made across the board, and there is no end in sight to how bad it will get.
Other must read NewsCorp/MySpace Articles:
LEAK: MySpace’s Recession Plan Is To Outsource
Michael Wolff: MySpace Users Are Doomed, Poor
MySpace MyAds Producing 160K A Day
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- Google earnings expected to be grim when they are released Thursday. According to the WSJ, U.S. search advertising spend fell 8% in the fourth quarter of 2008 from the same period in 2007, according to a new study from search advertising firm Efficient Frontier, whose search industry spending index was flat for most of 2008. The study — which covers an undisclosed portion of the $750 million in annual spending the company manages globally — marks the first quarter of negative annual growth for its index in the several years Efficient Frontier has been gathering such data, says James Beriker, president and CEO of the firm”.
- Sampling a search advertising firm may not predict the whole industry pie that includes Google, Yahoo and MSN, but if search marketers are seeing revenues drop, it should be a good sample of what is to come.
- Here are a few things that might throw off the numbers for Google.
- First, if market share had anything to do with it, Google’s has actually grown to 72% over last year’s 65%. That a direct result of more online search adoption, and could help to offset falling revenues. I said the same thing with Amazon, where the reason why they had such a big holiday season was a simple math problem.
- Second, Google has been pulling out all the stops this quarter to find new avenues to drive revenue. In September, Google began allowing beer and wine companies to advertise, and as of recently hard alcohol companies. In addition, they have begun monetizing Google Maps, casual games, mobile search, and more for the first time ever.
- Third, Google has always said that in a bad economy, many retailers and other advertisers flock to Google because it’s one of the few places to keep a close eye on your pennies. Between Google Analytics and conversion tracking, it’s unlike any other form of advertising. Holiday advertising spend showed this.
- Fourth, Android, Google’s mobile operating system is expected to pick up quickly this year and is expected to out sell the iPhone’s OS by 2010.
- To me, it’s not this 4th quarter that is worrisome. Between Google adding new ways to monetize different products, adding significant market share and branding themselves as ‘the place to go to advertise in a bad economy’, they will be fine. However, I think Q1 will see tougher times for the search giant. Q1 will see a Google that has squeezed out revenue from any potential products, no holiday season and a slowly growing online search adoption through the first 2 quarters. Here are a few more stats from the study:
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- “Advertisers who spend less than $50,000 on search ads cut their spending by 23% year-over-year, while advertisers that spend more than $200,000 on search per month cut spending by 9% during that time. Purchases by advertisers who spend between $50,000 and $200,000 were relatively flat.”
- “Finance and automotive advertising continued to deteriorate. Search-ad spending among financial advertisers fell 20% compared to the fourth quarter of 2007. Search spending from automotive advertisers declined 15% during that period.”
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