Deal Radar 2008: TheFind

We profiled Siva Kumar, CEO of TheFind.com, a discovery shopping search engine last year. This is yet another vertical search engine optimized for visual merchandising oriented lifestyle products. In July 2007, TheFind raised $15 million in a third round of funding from Bain Capital Ventures, Ignition, Lightspeed and Redpoint. It had previously raised $11 million

Read Full Article »

Time Warner’s Restructuring

Time Warner’s (NYSE: TWX) shares have gone nowhere during the past five years and shareholders have been crying for radical action. The Company has appointed Jeff Bewkes as the new CEO. He is expected to turnaround the entertainment conglomerate by taking some tough decisions. Here’s what I think Time Warner should do.

News Corp. Charging Ahead

News Corp. has certainly been the most bold and dramatic dealmaker of 2007. Murdoch gets it. WSJ print revenues were up 7% in October and online revenues were up 30%. I have already discussed, why the WSJ acquisition is a good one, and suggested that the WSJ should go free. This week, Bear Sterns Analyst

Read Full Article »

Deal Radar 2008: Kayak Consolidates Travel

As we have discussed, Online Travel is a large category, and active in entrepreneurship. Web 1.0 produced giant companies (Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline), and in Web 2.0 we have a couple of vertical search engines that are pulling ahead. Kayak, the world’s largest travel search engine, receives more than 6 million unique visitors per month.

Read Full Article »

Web 3.0 & Google (Part 5)

Conclusion Google is a global technology leader focused on providing people access to information. The Company’s website is a top Internet destination and its brand name is one of the most recognized. Google generates revenues by delivering relevant online advertising to its users, mainly through sponsored search ads. The Company is a clear leader in

Read Full Article »

Web 3.0 & Google (Part 4)

Acquisition Strategy Google has made several acquisitions this year. The key acquisitions were Adscape, Trendalyzer, Marratech, FeedBurner, PeakStream, GrandCentral, Postini and Jaiku. Google is yet to complete its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick Inc., a global leader in digital marketing technology and services. Google’s acquisition strategy is different from most other companies. Google has mostly

Read Full Article »

Web 3.0 & Google (Part 3)

Web 3.0 Framework discussion Below is a quick overview of the Web 3.0 framework for the Google sites. This is, in fact, an interesting analysis, since Google’s horizontal approach is pretty much against the grain of the vertical nature of my Web 3.0 framework.

Web 3.0 & Google (Part 2)

Vertical Strategy Google has adamantly maintained that a magically simple, clean User Interface is part of its key to world domination. This year, however, we have started seeing a clear trend towards verticalization of the web. In fact, my entire Web 3.0 thesis is based on verticalization, and Vertical Search, in particular, is a key

Read Full Article »