Microsoft to Rescue the Yahoo Damsel in Distress

Yahoo!’s vulnerable situation was bound to bring out acquisition offers, and Microsoft has been sniffing at the company for a year (see the letter from Ballmer to Yang in the WSJ). I was hoping against hope that Private Equity would step up to the plate, recognizing the leverage opportunity, but it has not happened.

Vertical Travel Ad Network CEO Cree Lawson (Part 3)

SM: What was the market landscape like when you founded the company? CL: When we started Travel Ad Network, Google AdSense had just launched its textlink product and everything was about textlinks and performance advertising. No one talked about users; it was all about clicks. And the terms “branding” and “online” weren’t used in the

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Deal Radar 2008: Bill Me Later – Blessed by Amazon

Bill Me Later is a safe and convenient payment system that allows people to purchase on the phone or over the web. The service is in direct competition with eBay’s PayPal. It was recently judged as the sixth-fastest-growing U.S. firm by Inc. magazine. It has around 200 employees and is based in Baltimore. Bill Me

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Trend Radar 2008: Verticalization Everywhere

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know, I am a huge believer in verticalization of the web. In fact, my entire Web 3.0 thesis is based on this idea. In 2007, we saw the beginnings of verticalization. In 2008, I expect this trend to become rampant in all aspects of the

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Deal Radar 2008: Wize Ranks Products

We profiled Tom Patterson, CEO of Wize.com last year. The site compiles both expert and user reviews and inserts them into a scoring algorithm to rank products. The site’s proprietary WizeRank gives each product a 1 – 100 score, utilizing collective wisdom ferreted from all over the web.

IAC – Divided we stand

Interactive Corp. (NASDAQ: IACI) recently announced its decision to split its whole business into five separate listed entities. The stock has lost around 24% in 2007. The spin off will hopefully lead to value unlocking for shareholders. It will create 5 different entities – Interactive (including Ask.com, Match.com and Citysearch), Home Shopping Network, Ticketmaster, Interval

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Google is Unbeatable

Hah! This morning, the hilarity of Google’s incredibly accurate algorithmic ad matching system produced a new level of precision. It pushed this ad on my site:

Forbes Column 08: The Gap in Google’s Defenses

My Forbes column synthesizing the discussions we’ve had here recently, The Gap in Google’s Defenses.