Informatica An Even More Attractive Target For Oracle

The data integration market is attracting big-name players. Last year, Dell acquired Boomi, a SaaS integration leader, and IBM acquired Cast Iron, a cloud computing integration company. Although Oracle hasn’t made any purchases recently, the market remains abuzz with rumors that Informatica may be at the top of its list. As I have mentioned earlier, this would be a move that would benefit Oracle significantly by helping it build on its in-house data quality, profiling, or metadata solutions.

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Online Travel Looks To Asia, Mobile Apps, Social Media

Asia is expected to be a high-growth market for the travel industry. According to the World Trade Organization, the global tourism industry will add 66 million jobs by 2020, of which 50 million jobs will be in Asia. Rising income levels and an expanding middle class will help to fuel this growth. In China, for instance, each of its 1.3 billion people takes one trip per year, and the country expects to see that figure quadruple by 2015. For online travel players, there is even better news. According to PhoCusWright, only 2% of travel is booked online in China. iResearch predicts that 30% of Chinese air tickets will be sold online by 2013. India too has seen a tremendous growth in online bookings, which grew at a compounded rate of 80% annually to $6 billion in 2010 from $295 million in 2005. >>>

Move, ZipRealty, Trulia, Zillow Need To Monetize Traffic Better

Despite the unemployment rate being at 8.9%, its lowest level since April 2009, the housing market does not seem to be making a quick recovery. According to the National Association of Realtors, the median U.S. home price fell to $158,800, its lowest since 2002, in January. The median price has fallen 13% since June. Foreclosed homes continued to add to the inventory, pushing prices downward. According to Lender Processing Services Inc., the foreclosure inventory in the country rose to a record 2.2 million in January. Housing starts are also being impacted. According to Commerce Department data, housing starts in the country were at their slowest pace since April 2009, and building permits slumped to a record low. Beginning home construction fell 22.5% to a 479,000 annual rate, making it the biggest reduction since March 1984.

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Ancestry.com, A Year After Its IPO

Founded in 1983 as a publishing house, Ancestry.com (NASDAQ:ACOM) has become the world’s largest online community of people interested in their family histories. Over the past three years, the site’s more than 1.4 million registered users have created 22 million family trees with over 2 billion profiles and 52 million photographs, scanned documents, and written stories and have access to a growing pool of 6 billion historical records.

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Comcast, Viacom Shuffling Their Business Mix

It seems that it was only analysts who were worried about cord-cutters disrupting the cable providers’ business. Last quarter’s results from cable services provider Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) show that cord-cutting was a reaction to the recession. The improving economy is assuaging worries about cord-cutting as customers have been sticking with their cable providers and cable companies’ multi-service offerings keeping households engaged.

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Is Twitter’s Valuation Justified?

There has been a surge in the valuations of social networking companies. In a recent investment deal Facebook, which is estimated to have sales of nearly $2 billion in 2010, was valued at $65 billion. And in a recent auction of Twitter’s shares, investors valued the company at $7.7 billion. Twitter, which kicked off its monetization last year, is estimated to have generated just $45 million in revenue in 2010. Are such high valuations justified? >>>

WebMD’s Top 10 Mobile Health Apps

The widespread use of digital media by online health marketers is a point of concern in a complaint by consumer and privacy watchdog groups to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The commission has been asked to investigate regarding “unfair and deceptive advertising practices” available to consumers online. The group is concerned that while digital marketing is providing consumers with medical information, it is also engaging in activities that “threaten privacy, raise questions about the fair presentation of independent information, and advance the sales of prescription drugs and over-the-counter products.”

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LivingSocial Growing In Travel

BIA/Kelsey estimates that the U.S. “deal-a-day” market will reach $4 billion over the next four years. The researcher pegs the U.S. market to be worth $873 million in 2010. Further, according to the report, 178 cities in the U.S. are served by the various deal-a-day companies. These offers reach more than 102 million people in the country. Hitwise’s comparison statistics on group buying show that Groupon commands 79% of the U.S. market in group buying, and LivingSocial is a distant second with an 8% share.

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Can Facebook Justify A $65 Billion Valuation?

If Facebook, the social Web phenomenon, needed any more popularity, it got it through the Oscar-nominated movie, The Social Network. Based on the controversy surrounding Facebook’s founders, which arose from the claim that the concept was a rip-off of another social networking idea, Harvard Connection, the movie received eight Academy Award nominations, including one for best picture. The movie went on to win three Oscars, including one for best adapted screenplay. Meanwhile, Facebook has continued to grow and now has 600 million registered users. To ensure that these users remain engaged, the company is evaluating new models.

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A Peek Inside Zyngaville

According to eMarketer, social gaming revenues in the U.S. are expected to increase 28% over the year to $1.1 billion in 2011 driven by sales of virtual goods and advertising spending. Revenues from virtual good sales are projected to grow 28% over the year to $653 million and advertising revenues at 60% over the year to $192 million. Lead generation offers, the virtual currency incentives offered by marketers to players to sign up for social games, will grow at a modest 10% over the year to $248 million. Twenty-seven percent of Web surfers, or 62 million Internet users, in the United States are projected to play at least one game on a social network each month, compared with 53 million Web surfers last year. The forecast bodes well for the online social gaming developer, Zynga.

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