Deal Radar 2008: Federated Media Needs to Focus

I was recently at a dinner party where a venture capitalist asked me about Federated Media, and whether his firm should invest in the company. Federated, if you haven’t yet figured this out, is on the funding trail at the moment, trying to raise money.

Bill Gates Trashing

NY Times has an article: Many Are Already at Work on Fulfilling Gates’s Vision, to which one reader comments: :: bill gates has *never* done anything new in his life – he has *stolen* everything he built his company on. this is once again a gates lie. yes he made a lot of money from

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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: Trulia Can Consolidate Real Estate

It is raining cats and dogs. Electricity was out this morning and we just got it back. I am very behind in everything, including my writing. But here we go … Yesterday, we discussed the Kayak-Sidestep roll-up deal, and its implications on Google. Trulia is a real estate vertical search engine that could be a

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Vertical Ad Networks: A Trend to Watch for 2008

I talked about Audience Fragmentation and the Rise of Ad Networks recently. At the moment, the Ad Networks are in the business of amassing large volumes of fragmented traffic, and offering a channel to advertisers to access the publishers who own this traffic. Expect, in 2008, a trend towards these “mass” Ad Networks gradually becoming

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Web 3.0 & NYT (Part 5)

Conclusion NYT is working on organizing its online business on the basis of key verticals, which will allow it to extend its popular classifieds sections like auto, jobs, real estate, travel, and entertainment, increase user engagement and aid in monetization of the sites. The partnership with Monster to build its online recruitment product offering is

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Web 3.0 & NYT (Part 4)

Acquisition Targets NYT has been making small investments and acquisitions in the online space for the past few years, tipping its toes into the online waters. The Company’s biggest acquisition in this space has been About.com in March 2005, which has been paying off handsomely. The Company has partnered with Monster which now powers the

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Web 3.0 & NYT (Part 3)

Web 3.0 Framework discussion Context Some NYT sites have very good contextual nuances. If you want to know how much calories you are taking in when you are having your favorite chocolate ice-cream or how much calories you have burned by jogging for 15 minutes in the morning or if you are looking for some

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