SpectatorBytes

Upon learning of Facebook’s acquisition of Friendfeed, very few industry people (myself included) were surprised that Facebook needed to acquire a company to bring in talent to compete with Twitter. However, if one takes a step back, this news should have at least raised an eyebrow. Currently, Facebook is one of the hottest digital [...]

One of the initiatives early-stage companies should seriously consider during this economic slowdown is venture mergers. Joining companies within your ecosystem of services of user offerings may put the resulting combined enterprise in a safer long-term position.
Advances in Web infrastructure and technology development has made it possible for many entrepreneurs to start highly specialized [...]

This was a tough week for online advertising given Valueclick’s lower guidance for Q208 (see below), Google’s less than stellar performance and even eBay’s cautious outlook for Q3.

Valueclick’s Guidance - Fiscal Year 2008 Revenue by Segment

Year-Over-Year Growth

Affiliate Marketing2(excludes Search123)

+8%

Comparison Shopping and Search (includes Search123)

+19% pro-forma

Technology

+18%

Media, Total

-18%

Display advertising

Low single digit increase

Lead generation

High 20% decrease

While Valueclick’s [...]

Recent report by Pubmatic (see here) over the past week indicate that online advertising prices are declining. This trend had already become evident as leading Web players announced their Q1 results.
The forces that have enabled the growth in advertising on the Web now seem to be working against it.
Direct Response advertisers have driven [...]

Microsoft’s control over Yahoo has reminded me about the importance of “religion” to succeed in technology. I believe “religion” is one of the key underlying reasons why Yahoo’s management and board has resisted Microsoft’s overture.
Digital media companies are founded and scaled around a particular “set of beliefs.” These beliefs reflect a particular way [...]

I recently attended the Under the Radar Conference at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View. I came across some interesting products and companies such as SlideRocket, Nuconomy, Orgoo, and TripIt. This was the third startup showcase in less than two weeks that I have attended. It was interesting to see next-gen product innovation [...]

Traditional and digital media companies have begun to recognize the need to use M&A to build their business. Acquisitions are increasingly becoming a critical source of product innovation, specialist talent (see my previous post Product Development: Specialists Win), new audiences, new customers, etc. This is a trend that I expect to become more [...]

For quite some time, I have been really impressed with Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos. I believe Jeff has proven to be a true industry visionary. This came today after reading about Kindle sales (see Amazon gains after CFO remarks). I am not sure whether or not the Kindle will is a hit and [...]

The controversy around Ask.com’s new strategy to focus on optimizing their search product for a segment of their users (see Ask.com And Ye Shall Receive) has reminded me of how important is to developed products that seek to deliver a clear and well-defined payoff to consumers.
I am not saying that Ask’s strategy will [...]