Articles of the Day
LinkedIn admits to buyout talks - LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman admits that the company has been in talks with the “usual suspects” about a possible buyout, but has decided not to sell, according to an AP report. “I know we are going to be much more valuable in a year or two… I think an IPO is by far and away the most likely outcome,” the chairman told the news agency, which reports that a listing would likely take place in a year or two.
MySpace to found website development arm - MySpace is to found a business incubator venture that will set up and develop new consumer websites. According to a New York Times interview with MySpace founder and CEO, Chris DeWolfe, the new venture is provisionally named Slingshot Labs. The new company will be financed by News Corp, but will function like a startup, operating independently and working to build-up four or five consumer websites at a time.
Financial Firms Lead Web Ads, for Now - Some ad inventory could be up for grabs. The most recent available online ad spending data may not be recent enough. December 2007 data from Nielsen Online AdRelevance cited in a January 2008 MarketingCharts article show the financial services industry still leading online display advertising. Nielsen found that financial services companies spent over a quarter of a billion dollars on online ads in December 2007, accounting for 29% of all online ad spending.
Study: Social Networking Results Difficult To Track - Social networking may be among the hottest online categories, but it’s also the most difficult to track user behavior on, according to a survey of digital marketing managers by digital advertising and consulting firm Sapient.
Alacra Launches Finance-Focused Ad Network, PCAN - Alacra has jumped into the ad network game with the launch of the Premium Content Ad Network (PCAN), a new pay-per-action (PPA) network geared toward publishers of finance and business-focused content.
Venture Capitalists Increase Spending 12% On Internet Companies In ‘07 - Venture Capital investors poured $4.6 billion into Internet-specific companies in 748 deals in 2007–up from $4.1 billion in 691 deals in 2006, according to the MoneyTree report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, based on Thomson Financial data. That’s an increase of 12% and 8%, respectively. Internet-specific companies accounted for 84% of dollars and 81% of deals in the Media and Entertainment industry in 2007.
Five Trends To Watch In Online Video Advertising - It’s that magical time of year again. Of course I’m referring to the annual ritual of declaring that the coming year will be The Year of Online Video. In 2008, five key trends point to real breakthroughs in the emergence of online video as a major medium–for advertisers as well as consumers and media companies.
eBay’s Whitman Retires After 10 Years - The first major executive shake up of 2008 comes from eBay, not Yahoo: CEO Meg Whitman, in charge of the online auctioneer for 10 years, will announce her retirement in the coming weeks. John Donahue, whom Whitman recruited in 2005 to become president of the company’s auction business, is now the leading candidate to succeed her.
Google’s search share slackens, Nielsen says - Google garnered a 56.3% share of the U.S. search market in December, compared with a 57.7% share in the previous month, according to Nielsen. Yahoo Inc meanwhile, saw its share in December fall slightly to 17.7%, compared with 17.9% in November. A Nielsen spokeswoman said because Nielsen has used a new methodology for tracking search share since October, it’s difficult to provide a long-term comparison of Google’s month-to-month results.
