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More on the LOCM Patent Situation

Posted on Friday, Aug 3rd

Here’s a must-read analysis of the patent by Marty Himmelstein, formerly from Vicinity. Marty also wrote to me privately: “Hi Sramana – I read your post on local.com today. As I tried to make the case in my post, the Local.com patent is fatally flawed. First, the copious prior art makes the patent irrelevant. I

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Place and Location Services Growth Fuels Navteq

Posted on Thursday, Aug 2nd

If you’re ever stuck in a big US city in never-ending traffic – which is perfectly commonplace these days – trying to figure out how soon you can reach your client’s office downtown, trust Navteq’s (NYSE: NVT) GPS maps to effortlessly guide you to your destination. Sounds too simple? The truth is it is. If

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Local Search Bonanza Stirs Patent Investigation

Posted on Wednesday, Aug 1st

Last year in Feb the Kelsey Group made the eye-catching forecast that the global online local search market is set to explode from $3.4 billion in 2005 to $13 billion in 2010. This put the growth rate at a handsome 30.4% over the next 4-5 years. Interestingly, the same report was emphatic that the classified

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Murdoch Gets Dow Jones, Now What?

Posted on Tuesday, Jul 31st

As expected, Rupert Murdoch has successfully negotiated for himself a position in the Business and Finance vertical with a crown jewel brand, The Wall Street Journal. Here’s my previous analysis on why this deal is a good one. I really like News Corp’s verticalization strategy. James Altucher asked Jim Cramer, “What’s the one thing the

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Google’s AdSense Revenues Vulnerable

Posted on Friday, Jul 27th

How much is AdSense’s share in Google’s business? To find an answer we scanned Google’s balance sheet and cash-flow statement for the past year including those of the last quarter (Q2-06/2007). Predictably, there is no indication of AdSense’s figures. Analysts however maintain that the figure hovers between 37%-44%. A somewhat clearer picture emerges in the

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Did Digg Just Dump FM?

Posted on Thursday, Jul 26th

Digg has announced a deal with Microsoft. In a big win, Microsoft will manage their ad inventory as exclusive provider of banner, display and paid search advertising, replacing Federated Media and Google. FM will continue to provide other types of advertising on Digg, including integrated campaigns and sponsorships. What are we seeing here? Is FM

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Rediff’s Acquisition Prospects

Posted on Monday, Jul 16th

Rediff (Nasdaq: REDF) is reported to be in acquisition discussions with Google and Yahoo. The company’s stock moved up to an all-time high of $27.50 per share on July 12 from $17.94 on July 5. The trading volume increased to more than a million shares from an average of 50,000 share a day, and has

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Happily Bootstrapping: Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu (Part 4)

Posted on Friday, Jul 13th

AdventNet provides a safety zone from which to launch Zoho, which is why I was looking to gain an understanding of the revenue and cash position of the company. While competition will be stiff from Google and Microsoft, as well as other CRM and group meeting companies, Zoho seems to have a unique philosophy of

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