Not Bullish on eBay

I said earlier upon Meg Whitman’s departure that eBay has a bounce back opportunity ahead. As their new CEO, John Donahoe, announced Q1 results today, they exceeded market expectations on all counts. Q1 revenues of $2.19 billion and EPS of $0.42 were higher than analysts’ views of $2.08 billion revenue with $0.39 EPS.

Vertical Ad Networks: Evolution

Another big funding round in the vertical ad network world: FM raises between $40 and $50M from Oak Investment Partners. Valuation: $200 Million; 2007 Revenue: $25 Million; 2008 Revenue Forecast: $60 Million. Not bad!

Deal Radar 2008: Yelp

Yelp is a popular site where users review trendy and not-so-trendy local businesses in their city. Yelp users can write reviews, read reviews, discuss topics and share their opinions and experiences with others on an endless list of topics such as restaurants, stores, hairstylists and real estate brokers. Started in 2004 in San Francisco, the

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What’s WRONG With Publishing (Really)?

Why am I down on the publishing world? It’s starting to make little sense why I would write something that while widely read could be given out in a “cleverer” format. Doing a book with a major corporation just starts to seem…odd, given the proclivities in which I do everything else now. With that far-reaching statement, and by means of explaining my thought process, here is why publishing, as the kids say, needs to man up and change itself.

Deal Radar 2008: Glam Media’s Fashion Forays

Glam Media is a women-focused distributed media network that represents and packages content from over 400 sources including fashion blogs, websites and magazines. Along with Glam.com, its flagship, it brings together content relevant to women while giving advertisers an efficient access to fragmented inventory. It is one of the companies we covered earlier in Women

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Deal Radar 2008: Adify’s Market Taking Time to Develop

Adify is a vertical advertising platform co-founded by Russ Fradin with former Flycast co-founders, Larry Braitman and Richard Thompson. I interviewed Adify’s CEO, Russ Fradin in 2007.

Forbes Column 08: The Next VMWare

Here’s my Forbes piece, The Next VMWare. Related readings:

Media Industry Worth Watching in 2008

2007 was a not a pleasant year for the Media Industry. Most of the Media stocks including IAC, Walt Disney, News Corp. and Time Warner have undergone correction between 10% to 40%. Except Walt Disney, all other stocks are trading close to at their 52-week lows. Most of the companies have reported below the Street’s

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