Twitter's a pretty lucky company. Few get two bytes at the hype apple in rapid succession, but this social media platform has found a way to make up for its disappointing announcement about its advertising model. According to VentureBeat, Twitter might unveil its long-awaited, heavily-hyped and possibly investor-satisfying corporate accounts. Next month, at its inaugural Chirp developer conference, we could finally see what might just be the foundation of Twitter's business model.

Continue reading Twitter May Chirp Its Commercial Accounts Next Month

Twitter May Chirp Its Commercial Accounts Next Month originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Twitter is on the prowl. Though it made its last acquisition more than a year ago, company founder Biz Stone said on Tuesday that it's looking to add to the stable. There aren't any specific targets yet -- at least none revealed -- and Twitter is keeping its options open. The likely pool of potential acquisitions consists of third-party Twitter application developers, which is largely responsible for the micro-blogging service's growth in popularity.

Stone, one of Twitter's founders, said at a Tel Aviv news conference, "As our attention is grabbed by some of these developers, we will take a hard look at them." This refers to companies that develop applications for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and Research in Motion's (RIMM) Blackberry. It also refers to developers for the Web and desktop, such as HootSuite and TweetDeck.

Continue reading Twitter to make acquisitions, generate revenue in 2010

Twitter to make acquisitions, generate revenue in 2010 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading FTC cracking down on tricky Internet advertising including bloggers

FTC cracking down on tricky Internet advertising including bloggers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Latest rumor has Yahoo firing 3,000 workers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The business model of The Huffington Post, the largest and most famous political blogging and opinion site, fell apart completely yesterday. According to Hitwise, Huffington's traffic grew by 21% from October 28 to November 4. It has been rising sharply over the last year as interest in the election picked up speed.

With the election over, Huffington's traffic is certain to drop sharply and all of the reporters and editors it has hired since the beginning of the year may not have much to do.

Traditional wisdom is that old media will have to cut costs to stay alive, but there are some very successful Internet properties that may have to cut more since their natural audiences are leaving them. Political sites may turn to business and lifestyle reporting, but those categories are already crowded.

The Wall Street Journal writes "History, however, indicates that news outlets that benefit significantly from an election suffer about the same amount when it's over, so the Web sites will expand now at their peril."

Looking at Huffington, audience measurement service Compete shows the political website's traffic up 711% for the year ending in September. That number probably got even more impressive last month. In September, Huffington had 5.3 million visitors. In 2008, that figure was never above one million.

With all of the audience that Huffington is almost certain to lose it will also part with most of its advertising. And, with that, the large staff it will not be able to afford.

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

What does Huffington do now? Cut costs originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

New evidence shows that online advertisers are building their search engine marketing and moving away from big display ad investments. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Faced with a slowing economy, advertisers are sticking to what they view as the safest way to reach online customers directly: the plain text ads that appear on search-result pages."

To state the obvious, the news seems to be bad for Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and AOL. These portals rely heavily on display ads for their revenue and have modest search income.

The data is much, much worse for newspapers. Companies like The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) are counting on online advertising to take the place of falling print revenue. A great deal of the advertising that runs at newspaper sites is retail and national display. Total ad revenue at The New York Times dropped more than 16% in July. Internet advertising was up less than 1%. Clearly, at that rate, online ads can do little to help that nation's big dailies.

The portals will struggle to keep their display growth intact. They have the lion's share of the market, so scale is on their side. They will almost certainly have the best chance of picking up the marketing dollars from the largest online advertisers. Even if the market keep slowing, their sales should be steady to modestly up.

Newspapers will not be so lucky.

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

Online ad trend get worse for Yahoo!, newpapers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports that BloggingStocks' parent -- Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) -- is almost done with the work of separating AOL's 8.7 million subscriber dial-up business from its advertising one. And Earthlink (NASDAQ: ELNK), with 3.3 million subscribers, appears to be the logical partner -- particularly if it's willing to pay more than the $2 billion to $3 billion the Journal estimates its worth.

When AOL announced two years ago that it was going to get out of the Internet access business and focus on advertising, I wondered how it would come up with the roughly $2 billion it would lose from the plan to give away all of AOL's content and services to subscribers who don't use AOL for dial-up access. The plan was to replace that cash flow with advertising sales. But the most recently available comparison shows that AOL's revenue has declined 43% from $1.981 billion in Q1 2006 to $1.128 billion in Q1 2008. A 64% drop in subscription revenues to $559 million was not offset by the 41% increase in advertising revenues to $552 million.

Still, I think the idea of combining AOL's shrinking dial-up business unit with Earthlink could benefit Time Warner and yield some cost savings that would boost Earthlink's cash flow.

Continue reading Will Time Warner get $15 billion for a split-up AOL?

Will Time Warner get $15 billion for a split-up AOL? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Earnings preview: Google expected to shine once again originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Many Wall Street analysts thought that when Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) lost its bid for Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) that it would take the $45 billion it was going to spend and buy other online companies.

Think again. Microsoft's management says it is not so. According to the FT, "Steve Ballmer, chief executive, scotched talk that Microsoft would turn to a `plan B' of other acquisitions to boost its online presence." Ballmer feels that buying more internet companies will not improve its share of the search market. He is not simply after more pageviews.

The news is probably disappointing to several large online companies. AOL, Facebook, Monster (NASDAQ: MNST), and Digg might all have been part of a Microsoft plan to improve the size of its presence on the web.

The Microsoft comments send another message. Search is important. Display advertising is not. Search is an efficient way to make money. Display advertising's best growth years are behind it.

If Ballmer is right, the online world is about to go through a major upheaval.

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

Microsoft (MSFT) to give up on buying big web companies originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I read an interesting article over at CNBC about News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace asset. It seems that the social-networking site wants to do something about the fact that it won't succeed in booking $1 billion in net sales before the conclusion of the conglomerate's fiscal year. MySpace will undergo an aesthetic overhaul to make the site more appealing. As it is now, many users might find the site too busy and not so friendly in terms of navigation. The changes will take place over time, beginning this week and concluding in the fall.

The question on my mind now is, did News Corp. really need MySpace? Sure, the site has a heck of a lot of registered users, well over 100 million worldwide, but now people are wondering how effectively these users can be exploited in terms of generating economic value. The article mentioned the disappointing results so far from an advertising deal made with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) back in 2006, one which had a $900 million figure attached to it.

The problem here for News Corp. is that users are fickle and may eventually find another MySpace in the future (obviously, Facebook is an example of how social networking continues to evolve and how any big brand in this arena can be challenged at any time). That wouldn't be good for long-term growth. Another problem cited is the fact that active MySpace users just want to socialize with their friends and/or network; they don't care about the ads. There's a lot of truth to this claim, and it's a huge issue going forward.

Continue reading Will MySpace help or hurt News Corp. over the long haul?

Will MySpace help or hurt News Corp. over the long haul? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The United States of Google originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

One of the messages out of the Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) shareholder meeting was that management plans to make more money on huge video-sharing site YouTube. Without going into detail, the search company said it would bring out sets of software tools which would make it easier for marketers to use the site more effectively.

According to Reuters, Eric Schmidt, the company's CEO "said getting the video sharing site to make money is the Web search company's top priority for the year." It is a nice promise, but it is hard to see how it will work.

Unlike new video sites including Hulu, a premium content web destination used by the large media companies to showcase their video, most of the YouTube content is posted by the ordinary citizen. The clips are primarily short and of poor quality. For some time, one of the most popular videos on YouTube was "The Farting Preacher." That may not be the kind of content big marketers find appropriate to use to draw new customers.

YouTube's problem is not its size. It is the largest video site in the world, based on visitors. But, it is also a website based on a community of people who see its as a place to homestead with the own content. Advertisers may never be comfortable with that.

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

Google (GOOG) wants more out of YouTube originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 09 May 2008 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Once again investors get left holding the bag.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) shareholders should breathe a sigh of relief for not overpaying for an internet search company, Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) where CEO Jerry Yang let his ego get in the way of handsome profits. Yang rejected the $47.5 billion offer that Microsoft put on the table. Why? Because he thought the company is worth more than $50 billion. As reported by the AP: "Clearly there's frustration," said Darren Chervitz, co-manager of the Jacob Internet Fund, which owns Yahoo stock. "I am not even sure if Yahoo cares about its shareholders because they didn't show much regard for shareholders' best interests in this process."

Yang actually thinks that a more sophisticated advertising platform is the secret sauce needed to produce a spike in revenue growth. Keep in mind that revenue grew by only 12% last year, and there is no indication that that number is going to be much higher in '08. Yang thinks that he will be able to grow revenue's by 25 percent in 2009 and 2010. Uh Huh!

I think that today's selloff in Yahoo stock will be an indication of what the public thinks of Yang's plan.

Could it be that in the long run he will be proved correct? I doubt it but only time will tell.

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 position in any stock mentioned, as of 5/5/08.

Yahoo CEO Yang sells out -- shareholders that is originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 05 May 2008 08:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Well that was fast -- in August 2004 Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) went public at $80 a share and the stock climbed as high as $742 in November 2007, an 828% rise. But since then it's lost 37% of its value and some executives have bailed. The New York Times reports that Google's VP of Engineering, Douglas Merrill, just bolted for a position as president digital at record company, EMI.

But this is not the first of its executive departures. Google has also lost the following:

• In March, Sheryl Sandberg, who was VP for global sales and operations, left to become chief operating officer at Facebook
• CFO George Reyes announced last August that he would retire. At the time, Google said it hoped to find a replacement for him by the end of the year but has yet to appoint a new CFO

Meanwhile, Sys-Con reports that Google's U.S. growth is slowing. In 2007 its click-through rate grew between 25% and 40% but in January 2008 click-through growth was flat and in February click-throughs grew a mere 3%. And it gets worse --plain old Google searches that have nothing to do with paid clicks are also down 5% or 6%. Google attributed the January slowdown to its attempts to improve the quality of clicks and tighten up on accidental clicks.

Continue reading Has Google peaked?

Has Google peaked? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 02 Apr 2008 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The collapse of Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock is the talk of internet investors. Wall Street is concerned that the number of people clicking on the search engine's ads is falling, perhaps due to the tough economy.

Google now has clearance to buy DoubleClick, which will get it into the huge display advertising market, but that segment of internet market is not growing very fast.

Google has one more card up its sleeve. The new program, called Ad Manager, will allow Google publishing partners to get potential revenue for ad space they have not been able to sell themselves. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Google is hoping that Ad Manager users will agree to carry some ads Google sells in ad spots on their Web sites they haven't filled themselves."

The display ad program is unlikely to yield much revenue for publishers or Google. The unsold display inventory on most sites is sold at extremely low rates. Most publishers sell their best spots to marketers who will pay a premium. Less desirable ad positions normally have very little value to advertisers because they run in places where users often don't see them.

Otherwise, it's a great idea.

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

To get back on top, Google (GOOG) creates new ad program originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The numbers are pretty impressive. In 2007, internet advertising grew 25% to $21 billion. But Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) may want to have another look at what it is offering for Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO).

According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), internet ad revenue grew 35% in 2006. Between a possible recession and the natural slowing of increases as the dollar base gets larger, overall dollars in this market may only grow 15% in 2008, especially if the recession is deep. That would devalue almost every media company that gets its revenue from internet ads.

Companies such as Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) have driven their stock prices by being able to deliver targeted ads, which are an efficient way to reach clients. Much of the buyout activity for ad-serving firms is to extend the scope of this business.

But, just as the M&A work is done, internet advertising may be hitting an awful headwind.

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

Internet ad growth slowing originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Will News Corp ride to the rescue of Yahoo? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Microsoft gaining support from Yahoo shareholders

Microsoft gaining support from Yahoo shareholders originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading NebuAD CEO explains next step in behavioral targeting

NebuAD CEO explains next step in behavioral targeting originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

You have no secrets from NebuAd originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.