Cablevision Confirms It Will Explore Spin Offs To Lift Stock Price -- Thwarted in its attempt to acquire the company outright, Cablevision management is getting serious about finding ways to lift the company’s sagging share price. CEO Jim Dolan indicated on last week’s conference call that it would explore stock buybacks and dividends as possible means of getting a lift. The company now says its board has officially authorized the company to explore a spin-off of one or more of its businesses. Although the core cable business continues to perform well, investors have punished the company for sticking its fingers into too many pies (Sundance Channel, Newsday). Similar to the longtime knock on Comcast, management is perceived as being spendthrift with shareholder cash (Comcast eventually instituted a dividend to help combat this perception).

News Corp. In Line; FIM Income Down On Higher Costs; TV Crushed -- News Corp. has reported revenue of $8.59 billion for the quarter ended June 30, for 16.5 percent growth over the prior year’s quarter. Op income grew 21 percent to $1.48 billion. The company provides a net income figure of $1.12 billion ($.43 per share), well above last year’s net income of $890 million ($.25 per share), though the numbers aren’t comparable, as this quarter includes gains on the sale of Fox Sports Bay Area and Gemstar-TV Guide International. Like last quarter, the company isn’t providing an adjusted or non-GAAP figure, so the op income growth looks like the best bet for the moment. On a divisional breakdown, TV op income was hit hard, falling 28 percent to $279 million. Broadcast TV has been getting crushed across the board this quarter, as the company chalked up the decline to lower ratings and lower revenue. Things were much brighter on the cable side of the business, with op income up about 10 percent to $313 million.

Dow Jones’ Scarce Numbers; WSJ.com’s Subs Pass 1.1 MIllion; Integration With Other Brands -- Now that Dow Jones is one small part of the News Corp empire, its reported numbers are also, well, tiny. In News Corp’s Q208 earnings today, little mention of DJ’s number, though some more details were given in the earnings call. DJ contributed operating income of $24 million in Q208 (down from $37.9 million in the year-ago quarter when DJ was independent) and $45 million for News Corp’s full fiscal year, net of $24 million and $47 million in acquisition related amortization, respectively.

United Online Revs Fall 7 Percent; But People Keep Joining Pay Social Net Classmates -- Classmates, the subscription-based social net that United Online failed to take public continues to add subscribers... Paying accounts at the unit were up 41 percent from last year. Company-wide revenue still fell by 7 percent to $122.3 million, dragged down by the ISP business, which saw a 22 percent decline in revenue. Still, analysts had been looking for about $120 million. Unlike EarthLink, which has managed to grow ISP income despite the revenue fall (by slashing costs), op income on the ISP side fell to $21.1 million from $27.0 million. Back to Classmates—which the company would still love to take public one day—revenue grew by 19 percent to $57 million. The company added 288,000 paying subscribers in just this quarter. Op income grew by 29 percent in this unit to $6.1 million.

DoubleClick To Serve Ads In Microsoft's Silverlight Player -- Microsoft and Google have learned how to play nice--at least in the realm of online video advertising--as the companies announced a partnership to enable DoubleClick to serve ads in Silverlight 2, the second version of Microsoft's streaming video player. Advertisers can tap into available Silverlight 2 inventory through DoubleClick's In-Stream video advertising platform, which includes detailed analytics and forecasting tools. Silverlight 2 joins a host of online video players that DoubleClick can serve ads into, including FlashIn-Stream ads, including Real Media, Windows Media, and Adobe's market leader, Flash.

Top Gaining Site Categories for April 2008

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Top Gaining Properties for April 2008

*Ranking based on the top 100 German properties in April 2008.

** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Top 25 Properties for April 2008

*Ranking based on the top 100 German properties in April 2008.

** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

But it was the wily old Fox, News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch who proved to the most charming, candid, amusing, honest and informative at the same time. Candid enough to admit that there isn't anyone to really compete with him. Honest enough to point out what a mess both Microsoft and Yahoo made out of their deal, and Google is still a great partner. About Yahoo and Microsoft he said: I’m mystified. I can’t understand the whole thing? Neither can we Mr. Murdoch. He talked at length about the future of media, both on and offline. His responses to a barrage of questions was lucid and refreshingly without corporate speak. He talked about online video, Hulu and future of movie distribution.

Murdoch told the audience he didn’t sue YouTube because it provided promotion for shows like the Simpsons. And Hulu, said Murdoch, was a way for News Corp to control its copyrights. Murdoch expressed interested in online alternatives to broadcast television and traditional film releases, but said he still expects television to be “central.” Releasing movies only online? — he said that’s possible, but hasn’t been tried yet (well, not by Murdoch’s crowd). He’d like to see movies released on all screens at the same time but vested interests in the distribution chain oppose it.

When the conversation turned to politics things got really interesting. Mr. Murdoch can hardly be acused of being a democrat or a liberal, but he viewed Barack Obama positively and wanted to meet Obama. "I want to know if he's going to walk the walk," comparing him to rock star. He didn't quite endorse Barack, but he said Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate for US president has problems and challenges.

Read full transcript on All Things D, and watch the video. Photo and video courtesy of the D6 conference. Photo by Asa Mathat.

News Corp. is said to be interested in acquiring Newsgrounds.com, an online video game company, through its IGN division. The Glenside, Penn.-based Newgrounds, founded in 1995, receives 500,000 unique visitors per day and describes itself as "the largest Flash portal on the Web." (Iwantmedia 5/22, http://pulse2.com/2008/05/21/rumor-news-corp-wants-to-acquire-newgrounds 5/21)

Bloomberg released and article that seems to suggest that there is other in interest in PriceGrabber as well.

From the article: "I see no reason why they would get less than what they paid'' for PriceGrabber, Christian Koefoed-Nielsen, an analyst at Panmure Gordon & Co. in London, said by telephone today. The unit ``is more profitable than when they bought it.''

[Widgets] are all the rage on the Web. Marketers are thinking of ways to use them to sell ads, and venture capitalists are mulling investments in the hottest widget makers. The stampede reached a roar this month, when market leader MySpace and Facebook expanded their services for targeted ads, including widgets designed by marketers.

But look at the numbers for investments in widget distribution platforms and widget suppliers, and it becomes clear that this not a stampede but more like a Sunday stroll through the widget park.

A widget is just an embeddable bit of web or desktop content wrapped up in a nice user interface. You can put widgets on blogs, social networking profile pages, or on an Ajax start page, though not all widgets can be embedded on all kinds of pages.

Though many companies might use widgets to promote and distribute their content or features, there are two categories of startups that, to me, represent relatively pure bets on widgetization. The first is widget development, distribution, and packaging platforms like Clearspring or Widgetbox; the second, widget suppliers like RockYou or Slide.

I'm leaving out many other kinds of widgets and widget startups, of course. You can have desktop dashboard widgets, widgets to be embedded on blogs like Blogburst or MyBlogLog or Lijit, Ajax start pages that support widgets, video syndication widgets, and more.

But taking a look at widget platforms and social networking widget purveyors, we can get an idea of whether 2007 has seen a stampede towards widgets or perhaps something more genteel. I've gathered funding data for widget distribution platforms and widget distributors in the table below.

This doesn't represent all the funding for such companies. Fox Media is building SpringWidgets, so that investment doesn't appear here. Widgetbox has been rumored to have taken additional funding from Sequoia. And some companies have reported investments but declined to provide specific figures. Still, this gives an idea of the magnitude of interest in the space.

You could also argue that companies like YouTube and PhotoBucket are widget companies -- and if you added in their acquisition prices the numbers do start to get really big, really quickly (partly, of course, because acquisition prices represent the entire value of those companies). But I think those two are examples of how embeddable web content can help promote a broader web service. iLike might fit better with those, too.

The total funding for these companies is just under $60 million, a respectable number but by no means a stampede towards widgets. This could reflect the uncertainty around how to make money with widgets and widget platforms. Or perhaps it's more evidence of investor sobriety.

The Fox Interactive Media group is making some bold moves - both in video content and new activity in ad networks. These moves combined with the continued expansion of MySpace and other activity and rumours within the Murdoch empire, makes the News Corp's online strategy one of the most innovative of a BIG media group around - IMHO.

At Reuters Media Summit, the company officials indicated that MySpace will roll out "friend feeds," a feature that is extremely popular amongst Facebook users. What I found even more interesting was Fox Interactive President Peter Levinsohn outlining plans of FIM Serve, an online advertising network, that will first serve News Corp-owned web properties and will later be available to outside web-publishers.

Hey, since everyone is launching an ad-network, why not Fox Interactive. At least, News Corp. (unlike some of its rudderless peers) realizes that is biggest strength is its sales force and can be used more effectively.

Fox, I am guessing will include technologies acquired as part of Strategic Data deal in this new ad-network, FIM Serve. The company had built its "hyper targeting" advertising technology long before Facebook made it a buzz word, and now the company wants to put it to use. It certainly has the web heft - 46 billion page views in October in US alone. News Corp's sprawling media properties alone could keep FIM Serve humming, as long as the it can deliver on promises, and build an effective ad network.

September 11, 2006

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fox Interactive Media, Tribune and LookSmart are among major media owners who will auction non-premium advertising space to generate more revenue from existing Web pages.

The publishers will use a product called Publisher Media Exchange from Right Media that they can adapt to their own Web sites. Right Media said on Monday the PMX system will help the publishers consolidate ads on pages, such as older archive news, on their own auction-based platform, enabling advertisers and online ad networks to compete for each consumer viewing an advert in real-time.

Companies using the PMX system include News Corp. Inc.'s Fox Interactive Media, home to social networking Web site MySpace, and Tribune Co., which owns several major newspaper Web sites, including chicagotribune.com and latimes.com. Others include search network LookSmart, blogging service Six Apart and Tickle.

The auctioning of ad space or advertiser links in real-time has gained currency in recent years following the success of products such as Google Inc.'s AdSense and AdWords products, which are both automated. Companies such as Yahoo Inc. have also had success with similar models. The publishers will also have access to the external Right Media Exchange, which includes more than 11,000 buyers and sellers of online advertising.

Copyright © 2006 Reuters, All Rights Reserved.

Сделки, наподобие этой, показывают положительное влияние, которое может оказать корпоративный инвестор на стартапы. Следует заметить, что конкурент Indeed получил инвестиции от New York Times в прошлом году, и они частично поддерживают NYT -овский онлайновый поисковик по поиску работы.

Источник: Techcrunch