SM: In the next 10 years, do you see LeapFrog morphing into more of an online company as opposed to a toy company? JK: I think we will be more of a content company, and by that virtue, I think we will be more online. SM: At some level these chips may not be necessary. [...]
I covered Monster (MNST) previously last July touching on how the company was expanding both vertically in the domestic front and on the international front. My main point then was whether Monster could expand enough internationally to get out of its sole reliance on the U.S. market and place hedge footprints in relevant geographies. Q3 [...]
Conclusion We have had a look at eBay’s business and verticals and discussed them from a Web 3.0 perspective over the last few days. eBay has been experiencing a slow down in its growth rate. Skype is struggling and the Company is working on better monetizing Skype. PayPal on the other hand has been doing [...]
SM: How would that work? The doctor’s office has to buy the Polycom suite? BH: The best example I have seen is Escorts Hospital in India. There, the population is not served well in rural areas. They have outreach clinics and they have our device in a regional center. People will come into the regional [...]
I have covered Shutterfly (Nasdaq: SFLY) a few times here already. I have had my eye on the company for a while, and have pegged it as an acquisition target for Yahoo, especially. Last week, amidst market doldrums, I managed to pick up a chunk of SFLY at a good price, and have already seen [...]
SM: Does this include the kids chatting with each other? JK: At launch we will not do that, and we are targeting that age range where today it is delicate. We have another product that is an expansion of our gaming line, where we are getting old enough kids that we will be able to [...]
SM: Yes, i remember, even in the 2001 timeframe the Polycom equipment was not that great. The pictures were horrible often. BH: If you run it on IP, it runs pretty darn good. However, 90% of the installations were on ISDN at that time. The technology shift to IP changes it all. Plus, we have [...]
Acquisition Strategy eBay acquired online ticket marketplace, StubHub for $307 million in May 2007. It also acquired social bookmarking discovery service, StumbleUpon, for $75 million. These are mostly acquisitions by eBay to strengthen its verticals and community features. Going forward we could see eBay making many more acquisitions to strengthen its key verticals, but also [...]
