Saying NO to $1.6 Billion has its consequences. YouTube is being courted heavily. Tons of murmers in the blogosphere and even on WSJ, NYT, etc.. The question that YouTube needs to ask itself is whether it can possibly go at it alone? 50 Million users sharing and watching video – that is the basic business
Google got MySpace, but Microsoft gets FaceBook. We know why Microsoft went after FaceBook, but why did FaceBook say yes? Facebook COO Owen Van Natta says that Microsoft’s technology and approach are a better fit because they are newer to online advertising than Google and Yahoo and its technology doesn’t have to be “retrofitted” to
Wow, IBM is on the role. Today, they bought ISS for $1.3 billion. ISS is a leading security software company. IBM’s other deals this month include MRO for $740 million; FileNet for $1.6 billion; and Webify for an undisclosed amount. I just did a piece on IBM’s acquisition spree, but since then, they have added
Actually, Washington Post just did. Jeff Burkett writes: washingtonpost.com BlogRoll Program Launched. Jeff’s instincts are right. There are bloggers with high quality content who would be willing to share ad revenues with the Post in exchange for serious traffic. Steve Rubel applauds the effort, and offers some suggestions on how to go beyond a wimpy
There are a number of articles on YouTube today: TechCrunch, GigaOm, PaidContent, along with a comparison from LightReading on video sharing sites. The business model question on YouTube continues to come up, people assuming that they will eventually monetize the eyeballs. YouTube could also become the empowering engine for VideoSharing for various sites like TimeWarner,
A smart little acquisition occured today. AOL bought an Instant Messaging service that powers, among others, MySpace. Userplane licenses its technology to more than 100,000 sites. I really like plays like this that power thousands of web sites. Photobucket is an example of a similar play, that acts as a repository for photos that can
Nial Kennedy, popular blogger and web 2.0 geek has just decided to quit Microsoft, after four months of working there. Reason? Frustration! No doubt, Microsoft has become a slow coach. They can neither hire talent, nor retain talent. But. Look at Nial Kennedy’s resume. He doesn’t stick around anywhere for very long. Certainly not long
Google + MySpace = ~ 1 Billion Dollar deal. MySpace already makes $350 Million a year in revenues, but a Google deal will add a great deal of structure to their advertising. Of course, this just pushed the valuations of FaceBook and YouTube up another notch as well. Some exits are in the wings for