Continue reading Facebook COO friends Disney board

Facebook COO friends Disney board originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Google powers 72% of all U.S. web searches in February

Google powers 72% of all U.S. web searches in February originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s shares closed down at $381 Monday. That is against an all-time high of over $747. They may have much further to fall.

According to Thomson/First Call, analysts expect Google's revenue for the calendar fourth quarter to rise 32% and EPS to go from $4.43 last year to $5.30 in the quarter that ends in December.

Google's stock price early this year was fueled by a 51% increase in revenue in Q4 2007. EPS per diluted share rose from $3.29 to $3.79.

Can Google grow well over 30% again in the teeth of a recession that could badly hurt many of the companies large and small who use Google's AdSense marketing program to drive business? In the current credit crisis, Google could be hurt much more than many investors imagine. There is already talk that companies that cannot get credit may miss payrolls and begin layoffs. That would certainly curtail marketing and spending for the holiday season.

If the present liquidity crisis gets worse, many companies will badly need cash just to keep their doors open. That makes finding money for advertising tough. Could Google's revenue growth rate fall below 20%? Or 15%? It is easier to imagine that with each passing day.

Google last traded below $300 in October 2005. The economy was OK then.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Google (GOOG): Back to $300 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

When Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) bought RSS company Feedburner, experts seemed to think it made a good match with the search companies big blog business, Blogger. Most people who keep blogs use RSS as a way to get their content out. Google could offer a platform for blogging with Blogger, selling ads with AdSense, and distributing content with FeedBurner.

The system has one flaw. Google did not set up a system for selling ads in Feedburner so that consumers looking at a site's RSS feed would also see targeted ads next to the headlines. It was a break in the system which made it incomplete in terms of helping blogs drive profits.

Google has fixed that. According to Alley Insider, "for content publishers who have long feared RSS as a monetization-killer, AdSense for feeds somewhat levels the playing field." The trouble with running blogs or other small websites is the lack of ways to bring in revenue. Google is offering a partial solution to that.

Of course, since Google keeps a large portion of the AdSense for Feedburner revenue, the huge tech company is looking after its own interests.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com and author of the Ten Stocks Under $10 Newsletter.

Google finds a new way to make money originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 31 May 2008 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Is Google destructive to small businesses? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Though we still don't know exactly what happened, IncrediMail (NASDAQ: MAIL) announced today that it has been re-instated by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) as an AdSense Online customer. As a reminder, about two weeks ago, in a shocking announcement, IncrediMail was let go by Google as an AdSense customer. In response, IncrediMail stock has gotten crushed. Though Q1 '08 is sure to be bad, as AdSense is a major revenue driver for the Israeli company, I would expect them to get back on track moving forward.

"We are pleased to be able to resolve this setback so quickly and in such a positive way," said Yaron Adler, IncrediMail's CEO. "Google's co-operation in re-instating our account, together with the feedback we've received from other search engine companies, makes us more optimistic than ever regarding the potential of the search business to drive our results, validating our long-term growth strategies."

While I think that there are still problems at the internet firm, after what it did to get shut down in the first place, at current levels the stock actually looks attractive.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has no positions in any stock mentioned as of 1/21/08

IncrediMail back in favor with Google originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 21 Jan 2008 09:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

News that Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has decided to stop the AdSense partnership with the Israeli Incredimail (NASDAQ: MAIL) has sent Incredimail stock tumbling. The company said that Google is disabling ads to search result pages displayed through the Incredimail account, and in addition that the Company's AdSense account has been disabled. In 2006 and 2007, search revenues powered by Google's AdSense program made a significant contribution to the Company's results.

There is no reason for this move yet and I shudder to think what happened to cause Google to cancel the program. Incredimail stock has been under pressure since the company announced it was going to focus resources on the top line to grow revenues, at the potential expense of short-term profitability. While this is a short-term setback for the internet company, I am sure that it will quickly announce a new partnership. With the stock under $5, this may be the bottom. This is a very interesting company with a cool product. The company still has cash of more than $20 million and the stock has a market-cap of less than $40 million. Keep in mind too that both revenue streams continue to grow. It may yet turn out to be an Incredible story.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer's fund has no positions in any stock mentioned as of 1/11/08.

Google cuts off Incredimail originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Shares sold short in Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) fell 14.1 million shares in September to 83 million. It seems that the shorts knew enough to get out ahead of good news.

So far this year, Microsoft's stock has been flat, but over the last three days it has moved up more than 3% on news that it had released its Halo 3 video game and that it is in talks to buy part of social network Facebook.

The enthusiasm about Halo may be well-placed. In the company's last fiscal year, its devices business lost $1.9 billion on $6.1 billion in revenue. The previous year was not any better. The world's largest software company needs a catalyst to drive sales of its Xbox 360, and Halo 3 may well do that.

The Facebook deal has also drawn a great deal of attention. Rival Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is building a large advertising platform using its own search inventory combined with impressions that it gets from its AdSense network. To expand that business, it is buying DoubleClick and has a deal to sell ads on social network leader MySpace. AOL is making moves in the same business. It owns Advertising.com, the largest ad network, and has just bought behavior targeting company Tacoda.

That leaves Microsoft sitting well behind its rivals. A deal with Facebook could help expand a network around its portal, MSN. Online services lost $732 million last year.

It may be that the company is facing up to its online and devices problems. That could be good news.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Short interest in Microsoft (MSFT) falls ahead of Halo 3 release originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 26 Sep 2007 09:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google (GOOG) gets CNN exclusive ad pact originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Paid-search giant Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has been sued by AMR Corp.'s (NYSE: AMR) American Airlines over an advertising dispute, according to the Associated Press. The suit alleges that Google would sell American Airlines-trademarked keywords to rival airlines. In doing so, Google obviously managed to seriously offend the management at American.

It's interesting that Google refused to settle with American before the case went to court. It proves that Google is aware of these practices and feels they can justify them.

I'd assume that Google refused to settle based on a previous legal decision -- this one related to Geico, a segment of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A). This case was very similar to American's. Geico was angry because other insurance companies had been allowed to purchase advertising under the term "Geico," a trademark of the company. In this case, the judge decided that Google's procedures were actually legal.

Despite the popularity of Google's search engine, one has to wonder if advertisers or publishers are ever going to seriously put their feet down against Google's practices. Google collects more than half of the AdSense program's revenues for itself and remains incredibly secretive, even to its best publishers. As this case displays, Google also has controversial practices with advertising customers -- practices that could come back and haunt this company in the future.

I'd argue that the company's earnings multiple of 40 and powerful growth estimates from analysts don't reflect the potential risks involved in the company's sometimes-deceptive practices.

Disclosure: Kevin Kelly is long Berkshire Hathaway (B).

Google (GOOG) sued by American Airlines originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 18 Aug 2007 09:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This week, a startup company -- adap.tv -- raised $10 million from Redpoint Ventures and Gemini Israel Funds.

The company is trying to get a piece of the growing ad market for video. Hey, with the huge success of Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube, it seems like a pretty good idea, right?

The founder of the company, Amir Ashkenazi, does have a lot of credibility. After all, he's the former cofounder of Shopping.com, which sold out to eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY).

But does his new venture really have a chance? I talked to Chase Norlin, who is the CEO of Pixsy, which is a search engine for multimedia. According to him:

"Adap.tv looks a lot like ScanScout, and a variety of other startups looking to become the next 'Adsense for Video.' That space is starting to feel a little crowded to me, not to mention the fact that Google hasn't even entered this market yet. Also, expect the major ad networks and online advertising companies to offer competitive products here as well. I'm sure adap.tv's technology is interesting, but that's not what matters in the online ad space. What matters is publisher reach and a large pool of advertisers to provide solid monetization. That's why companies like ValueClick continue to get stronger despite their non-groundbreaking technology: their advertiser and publisher pool continues to grow and the bigger they get the harder they become to displace."

And, to see more recent venture capital deals, click here.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

adap.tv gets $10 million to take on Google originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Nielsen/NetRatings has decided that the total amount of time that consumers spend on a website is more important than the number of page views or unique visitors that the site has.

According to The Washington Post, the new rankings favor Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) AOL, and Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) MSN to some extent because they have substantial e-mail and instant messaging traffic. AOL moves to the head of the list because it had 25 billion minutes spent on its sites in the U.S. during May. Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is poor at 7 billion minutes.

But the new ratings system is substantially flawed if what you really care about is how much revenue a site generates. Time spent on instant messaging is not like time spent on search, which is also not like time spent on watching a video. AOL may have more time spent than Google, but the search engine's advertising model is based on targeted text ads attached to search results. It is hard to argue with the AdSense model since it generates more revenue than any competing system.

AOL's "minutes" were 3.5 times Google's minutes during May, but a metric that has nothing to do with revenue creation is not much of a metric at all.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Nielsen's new internet ratings draw debate originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has purchased RSS feed leader FeedBurner. Terms were not disclosed, but the cost was rumored to be about $100 million. The company provides feeds for about 400,000 customers, many of them blogs. It will be a good fit with Google's Blogger platform, which is widely used.

More menacing for Google's competition is the fact that Google will control the largest banner ad serving company, DoubleClick, the premier search text ad business, AdSense, and, with FeedBurner, the largest RSS advertising platform. Firms, including AOL and The Wall Street Journal, participate in the FeedBurner advertising network. Advertising is sold by channels like "business" and "news' with feeds from the appropriate sites banded together.

Once again, it is surprising that Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) were not buyers. The price of the company was not so high as to be out of reach.

Google's M&A seems to be as good as its search tools.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Google buys FeedBurner, adds to advertising arsenal originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 02 Jun 2007 11:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Several sources have confirmed that Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is in the closing stages of buying RSS management company FeedBurner. The start-up's traffic has increased over 200% in the past year, according to Hitwise. The company describes its business as Web-based tools to help bloggers, podcasters, and commercial publishers promote, deliver, and profit from their content on the Web.

Websites and blogs use FeedBurner to track RSS feeds and traffic to their sites. Google will pay about $100 million for the company.

The RSS feed business is one that has yet to be monetized, but FeedBurner does have a nascent advertising program. With the use of Google's Adsense program, this revenue could almost certainly be pushed up sharply.

Because FeedBurner is an important source of traffic and data for blogs, it also fits well into the Google Blogger platform, which is used to create millions of blogs. Many of these blogs use Adsense to get their revenue. With Feedburner, Google will have "one-stop shopping" that will offer RSS feeds, audience data, and advertising.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) could have used FeedBurner to enhance their relationship with the blog and RSS communities, but that's another story.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Google's planned purchase of Feedburner could add new revenue originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 24 May 2007 08:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google is not Yahoo! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 20 Apr 2007 08:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Peter Lynch used the term diworsification to describe companies that diversify into industries they know nothing about. Examples included Coca Cola Co.'s (NYSE: KO) investment in shrimp farms and, perhaps, Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) foray into television and television advertising, radio advertising, According to the New York Times:

Google may one day rock the television and radio advertising markets. But its TV plans have yet to take shape, and its other efforts to extend its dominance over online advertising into offline media like newspapers and radio are inching along. The early results are mixed, suggesting that Google's successful transition from online kingpin to credible player in traditional media is far from assured.

Google may be an exception to the diworsification rule, as the company believes that the technology that has made its advertising products like AdSense so successful could revolutionize ad sales in the traditional media. It still begs the question though: With all the growth in Google's core businesses, why venture off into something with which the company has so little experience? While it may work for Google, it tends not to as successful companies that venture off into new industries usually fail.

Google selling off-line ads -- diworsification? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 30 Mar 2007 15:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I guess journalism schools should teach it: whenever you're doing a story about anything, take a look and see what's happening on eBay.  I didn't do that when I wrote last week's post Click Fraud Worsening?, which noted that a recent study found that more merchants were pulling back on their keyword advertising out of concerns over click fraud.  But a Blogging Stocks reader named Joe did take a look around eBay, and what he found is quite remarkable.

See for yourself. Head over to eBay, search for "Adsense clicks", and as of this morning you'll find more than a dozen auctions offering everything from "5 Google Adsense Ads Clicks Hits Each day for 5 Days" (BuyItNow for $1.99) to  "1000 Adsense hits clicks website marketing traffic.  Adsense clicks delivered within 10 days. Different IP's" (12 bids, up to $31) to "Unique: Guaranteed Unlimited Legal Adsense Clicks - Extremely Simple" ($9.99). 

Continue reading Click Fraud for sale on eBay

Click Fraud for sale on eBay originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 10 Jul 2006 11:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Does Google need an ombudsman? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 06 Jul 2006 15:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

eBay launching contextual Ad network originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MySpace and Yahoo! text ads: not friends originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 02 May 2006 14:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.