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Can't read what Mark's shirt says? It says: "My mom thinks I'm cool." This is an interview at the MarketWatch offices in the fall of 2005. Facebook has come a long way from its $100 million valuation back then. Viacom offered $750 million for the startup earlier this year, according to someone close to the situation.
Rumor has it that YouTube -- the popular, Napster-like, video-sharing startup -- is raising funds. I typically wouldn't write about such a rumor, but since YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley has twice cancelled a video interview with me in the last week, it sure seems that something is in the works.
It's not surprising that YouTube would be seeking funds given the traffic this site is receiving. If activity accelerates, it'll be no time before YouTube burns through its $3.5 million in venture financing. To be sure, YouTube may not be spending as much as some think. Mike Gordon, co-founder of LimeLight, a smaller version of Akamai, says that because YouTube streams short clips, it may be spending between $50,000 and $200,000 to deliver its video. How does Gordon know? LimeLight helps to stream YouTube's video. Media companies would be interested in owning YouTube, but Sequoia Capital's venture partner Mike Moritz won't sell for less than a few billion, so I heard.
Some bloggers have said that Facebook should have taken the $750 million offer. ( I heard from someone very close to the deal that the offer was from Viacom.) Compared to what iVillage went for, it does seem that the prices are getting out of hand. But Facebook is a trusted source, with a very targeted pool of users in specific areas - colleges. That makes Facebook an easy sell to advertisers.
A year ago or so, I said that Google's index of 8 billion pages was nothing compared to what would be created if tools were given to the people on the Web. Organizing this digital mess would present a big opportunity. And, it has. There are a number of companies trying to help us organize, including Plum. It's an invite-only service that will launch April 1. It's actually a great service, in my opinion. I asked Hans Peter how he plans to differentiate his company from the pack.
Watch interview with Hans Peter of Plum
Of all the media and Internet companies out there, I'd say Yahoo, Fox and CBS are the ones I'd consider aggressively trying to define the new media landscape. I asked Neil Budde of Yahoo news what his plans are for the service.
Watch interview with Neil Budde, head of Yahoo news
Who's doing who a favor? Google is issuing 5.3 million shares in a secondary offering, resulting in $2 billion in fresh cash. Google said in its SEC filing that the shares are being offered "primarily" to index fund managers, who will have to buy Google shares for their portfolios when Google becomes part of the S&P 500. I'll buy that, sort of. Shares of Google had gone from sub-$340 to nearly $400 over the course of a few days, following the news that it would be included. A few traders said that momentum traders (those pesky guys) were likely pushing up the stock in hopes of cashing out when the index funds are forced to buy Google shares. But is it Google's job to provide some liquidity for the index funds? No. Is Google going to do something "big" with that cash? Probably down the road. But one thing Google can certainly do now is take advantage of Wall Street for handing the cash-rich search giant the gift of free money. Google has $8 billion in cash already. Now, it'll have $10 billion.
Is Google looking to do something with its cash? There is speculation it is. But there was so much speculation last year that Google would buy something with the $4 billion raised in September. And, yet all Google did was drop $1 billion for a 5% stake in AOL. I don't know what Google is going to do with that cash. Maybe Google will decide to replace the buses -- that transport the couple thousand employees from San Francisco to the Google complex -- with jets; maybe Google can offer its employees college tuition for their children. Or, maybe Google will just let the money sit in the bank and earn 4%.
In stealth mode for now, San Francisco-based Plum is an easy-to-use service that lets you mash up -- to use the au courant term -- what's on your desktop and what's on the Web, putting all of it on one Web page that's not only for your own use but for the perusal of family members, friends and acquaintances, and other potentially interested parties. That is to say: the entire world. Plum definitely exploits the user-centric mindset that's swept the Web in recent months and years. Read about Plum on MarketWatch.
About 10% of mobile phones are GPS enabled, according to American Technology Research. If you have one of these phones, you might want to consider two of my favorite services - MapQuest Mobile and Telenav.
Mapquest costs $4 a month, and is used to help you find places from wherever you are without you having to know where you are. Telenav is a $9 a month and is a navigational device. If you want a voice-guided system on your phone, Telenav works really well. I demonstrated how both worked on MarketWatch Weekend, which airs on CBS.
Thumbs down for Google Finance? That's what some hedge fund managers (who are likely short Google, or likely still upset about missing the boat) said to me after they reviewed the new service this morning. That said, I have to agree to some extent. Why? Just because it's a service from Google, and I expect a lot more. Google's Finance site - which just launched Tuesday -- is not that impressive, partly because it looks so much like other finance sites, like Yahoo Finance, which launched years ago. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised, actually, given that Katie Stanton, a former Yahoo Finance employee, is running Google's new vertical.
Besides an interactive chart that shows when stories published (to give investors a sense of what moved the stock), there is nothing innovative or spectacular about the service. OK. I really do like the interactive charts - those are very useful! - and, I like the pop-up window with information about the executive team. I also like the prominent placement of the blogs. But where's the related video? Where are the open APIs, so smart geeks can mash-up stuff Google hasn't thought of? I thought Google believes in "The Wisdom of Crowds."
To be sure, Google doesn't need bells and whistles to be good. It just needs to be relevant. And, these days, blogs are relevant.
Type in "Google" on Google News, and you get 37,000 results. Type in "Google" on Google Finance, and go to the blog posts section, and you'll see that there are 5.9 million results. Want to know who's blogging about Google Finance? Besides yours truly, there's Bill Bishop -- a dear friend and former colleague at MarketWatch, and Henry Blodget, former Internet analyst.
Why is Google doing such a move? For starters, it's likely a number of people went to Google News and typed in "goog" or "aapl" - or other stock quotes, or names of publicly-held companies to get the latest news from 4,500 sources. I know I did. Moreover, traffic to finance sites has grown faster than traffic to Internet sites overa. Traffic to financial news and information sites grew 10% in February, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. That compares to 3% traffic growth to overall Internet sites. Advertisers also love finance sites. In 2005, 35% of the $418 million in ad dollars managed by Aquantive's Avenue A/Razorfish went into verticals vs. 31% that went into search. Advertisers also more than doubled their ad dollars going into finance verticals, despite the 20% increase in ad prices, according to the Internet advertising company.
Starting Thursday, CBS will make available the NCAA tournaments live and for free on the Web. First of all, I have to say, "It's about time a major media network went for it!" As I wrote in my Net Sense column on MarketWatch, CBS's decision is aggressive - perhaps risky - but definitely clever, and akin to an uncontested layup. There are more rewards than risks, that I see. To this end, boldness is of greater value than preparedness. The only real cost is the outlay for technology to support at least 200,000 simultaneous users. So, how much is this costing CBS to air online? It depends on the quality of the streams (256kbits or 512kbits) and average per meg cost of bandwidth. By using an estimate of 200,000 users and 256kbits, one very smart techie came up with a cost of $2 million. He said it's an expensive bet, but a good test of the market. What's your best guess?
These videos are from Grouper.com, which has 160,000. If you have a MySpace or Friendster blog, you can publish videos with one click. You can now upload up to 20 minutes of your own video on Grouper, which will host the video for free.
Hollaback Dance
More on Grouper.com
Dancing around the world
More on Grouper.com
What's to become of all these videos?
