Deal Radar 2008: Zillow

Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, founders of Expedia, launched Zillow, a real estimate site in Feb 2005. Zillow is known for providing free home valuations called Zestimates, which are somewhat accurate. Zillow also provides house specs, graphing, mapping, and analysis tools. Zillow launched Smart Search along with enhanced Neighborhood Pages that makes it easier for

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Deal Radar 2008: LinkedIn Should Roll-Up Jobs

LinkedIn is a professional business networking site founded by Reid Hoffman in 2003. It allows members to showcase their profiles and caters to the age 25-65 professionals demographic. It generates revenues via subscriptions and advertising. Recruiters use the site to tap talent, and is LinkedIn’s primary revenue generating segment. In 2003, LinkedIn secured $4.7 million

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This Week’s Posts

In case you have missed them, I started two series coverages this week which will each continue for several weeks: Trend Radar 2008 and Deal Radar 2008. I also addressed a question that is on a lot of minds right now: Is Google Invincible? And in the Technology Stocks series, we covered Apple, RIM, PALM,

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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

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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

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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

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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

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