An Experiential SMX West Review
February 13, 2009 by Jim Hedger
Filed under WMR Blog
Ever been in a busy room full of people and felt as if you and they were not really there? The sensation falls between an out of body experience and an unfortunate brain-full of high dosage pain relievers.
Standing with a small group of old-time search marketers on the trade-show floor at Search Marketing Expo (SMXWest) in Santa Clara at the beginning of this week, we all noted how the vibe of the show was sort of like that. Long used to feeling like ghosts in the machine, this month’s pilgrimage to the Valley made many of us feel like spiritless specters. It took a couple of days for the conference spirit to catch its first wind. Unfortunately, the conference was only three days long.
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Google Forcing TW to Put AOL in Play
February 5, 2009 by Jim Hedger
Filed under WMR Blog
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Google appears to be moving to shake things up in the search engine environment by issuing an ultimatum to Time Warner over AOL. “Put AOL in play or we walk away.”
In an investors’ teleconference yesterday, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said Google has pulled a shot-gun clause of sorts on Time Warner. Google owns 5% of AOL. It bought those shares in December 2005 for $1Billion which, at the time, gave AOL a valuation of $20Billion.
The deal was good for three years before Google had a right to sell or otherwise dispose of its shares. Instead of selling those shares however, Google decided to take a 75% write-down loss against the AOL investment on its Q4-08 financial statement effectively revaluing AOL at $5.4Billion.
Time Warner can buy Google out or it can spin AOL off into its own company. Time Warner reported a loss from AOL earlier this week. Time Warner has never really known what to do with AOL anyway.
Google, which is known for its Machiavellian style of negotiations, has developed a habit of using its enormous financial and technical resources to maneuver other companies into whatever position works best for Google.
In 2005, Google allowed Microsoft and Yahoo! to spend the autumn fighting each other over AOL before swooping in and making a last minute behind the back deal to acquire that 5%.
More recently, Google appeared to offer Yahoo! a last-ditch lifeline in its bid to stave off take-over by Microsoft. The deal fell through when the Congress threatened to open anti-trust hearings but for over six months, Google convinced former Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang that he had a safe path away from Microsoft. By just making the offer, Google put itself in a win-win situation and placed Yahoo! in a position where the lesser of two evils was still an awful option.
Watching Google basically force Time Warner’s hand over AOL is interesting. Clearly they want the property put into play. Why they want AOL in play is another question. Any ideas?
An affiliate convention in Denver, June 21st – 23rd
February 3, 2009 by Daron Babin
Filed under WMR Blog, affiliate convention
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WebmasterRadio.FM is pleased to announce that we have launched a new Affiliate Convention to service the needs of those in the Affiliate Marketplace. We feel the performance marketing industry is rife with business that needs to be fostered along with the educational growth of its participants.
For anyone who knows us, knows that we have long had a hand in the affiliate marketing space. Most do not realize that we have been as involved as we were. To those ends, I had an idea to create a new trade show series after having spent a year working to those ends and just not quite so happy as I would be…if the project were solely in the hands of WMR.
The genesis of this plan was one that formed rapidly, as we knew there was a demand for our event. If you’ve never been to an affiliate convention programmed by WebmasterRadio.FM, than you’ll quickly discover how we differentiate ourselves from other conferences in the affiliate marketing space by focusing on the people who make the industry run, the actual affiliate marketers. Recognizing the cold realities of our current economic conditions, we wanted to present a low-cost, high-value show. In order to make an affiliate convention in Denver economically feasible for attendees, we decided to make admittance to the convention free for anyone who can prove they are a working affiliate marketer, which we take care of with a quick and painless phone call.
The offer of free admittance should remove a big barrier to entry for many affiliate marketers. Conventions give attendees a leg-up in an economy that is making many marketers feel unsure. The contacts, education and networking give us a chance to shore up our business ideas and relationships.
At AffCon2010 you will find value, benefit, education, and enormous networking opportunities in a beautiful setting. Focused entirely on affiliate marketing, the Affiliate Convention will feature keynote speakers Joel Comm, Jeremy “Shoemoney” Shoemaker followed by a line-up Heather Paulson, Jeannine Crooks, Tim Ash, Anita Edge and many more. Our goal is to provide a convention built around the needs and interests of the grassroots of this expansive industry, the actual affiliate marketers.
Over the coming weeks, the convention website, www.AffCon2010.com will continue fill out. We will be introducing a number of social media tools for delegates, speakers, attendees and organizers to use to communicate and help build a better affiliate convention.
WebmasterRadio.FM has consistently stood for the strength of the online marketing community. Together with our partners, WebmasterRadio.FM is proud to take a leading role in bringing the affiliate marketing community closer together by presenting the most inclusive experience possible. If you work in or around the affiliate marketing industry, AffCon2010 is for you.
Yahoo Q3 Report, 10% Reduction in Headcount
October 22, 2008 by Jim Hedger
Filed under WMR Blog
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Yahoo! saw another extremely poor quarter over the past three months and will be reducing its headcount by approximately 10%.
I spent yesterday afternoon listening to the investors’ conference call hosted by beleaguered Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang, President Susan Decker and CFO Blake Jorgensen. Their voices sounded as bleak as the information they were expressing. It hadn’t been a good day. It hasn’t been a good year. Yahoo! is hurting and there appears to be a lot more tunnel than there is light in their long-term outlook. The purple party’s over and no one appears to know exactly when or even if it might start up again.
Let’s step back to the beginning of 2008 for a moment. We need to go back to understand how Yahoo! got so badly damaged as it moves forward. After Yahoo! delivered a disastrous Q4-07 report, Microsoft made an offer to purchase the company for approximately $31/share in a cash and stock deal. Yahoo! declined the initial offer and two subsequent offers in a protracted process that stretched out over seven months. According to CEO Jerry Yang, Yahoo! wanted between $35 and $37 per share before considering a sale.
During this time, Carl Ichan, an investor with a history of corporate raiding got involved and purchased about 5% of the company in the belief Microsoft would increase its bid per share. A few other investor groups including one led by Texas energy giant T. Boone Pickens also acquired a bulk of Yahoo! share, buying into the company when the company’s stock traded between $27/share and $21/share. The involvement of stock speculators such as Ichan added an interesting twist to the story. Intense pressure was brought to bear on Yahoo!’s board of directors and on Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to make a deal happen. Both sides dug their heels in and the chances of a merger between the two sank as weeks dragged into months.
Many in the search marketing community supported a merger between Microsoft and Yahoo! from the day Ballmer posed the question. Google has way too much control of the online advertising market and search marketers are desperate for a competitive ad-network to emerge. Though most of us believed it would be a train wreck of a deal, we tended to agree that combining Yahoo! with Microsoft presented the best opportunity to see competition arise in the online ad market.
Yahoo! started looking for life-rafts. An “Anything but Microsoft” movement began placing Yahoo! in talks with AOL, NBC, Digg and eventually, Google. Towards the middle of June and early July, a proposed plan to allow Google to place AdWords on Yahoo! properties began to emerge. Through the ad-distribution plan, Yahoo! would insert Google ads into searches where it lacked sufficient inventory. Yahoo! believes it could add about $800million to its bottom line under such an arrangement.
Microsoft and most of the search marketing community tend to disagree, so much in fact that a congressional panel is now investigating the deal to see if it violates federal anti-trust regulations. Similar inquiries are being made in other jurisdictions like the EU and Canada. Recently, Google and Yahoo! announced they were delaying implementation of the ad-distribution agreement because of ongoing congressional hearings.
In early August, Yahoo! elected a modified board of directors which included Ichan and two other activist investors. That board was expected to rubber-stamp the Google ad-distribution deal and provide a public face of stability for Yahoo!’s investors. In early August, nobody could have predicted the destabilizing effects of the credit crisis and subsequent financial meltdown. As of this morning, YHOO shares are trading at $12.67 (10:45am PST).
Even without the extraordinary drop shown on the stock market, Yahoo! was going to report poor quarterly results. Aside from the Google ad-distribution deal, Yahoo!’s other bright light is found in the display market. Display is down and is thought to be one of the online advertising sectors that will be badly affected by the downturn.
Yahoo! is in trouble. A time machine set to 20/20 hindsight might help but unfortunately, Yahoo! doesn’t have one. At this point, I am not sure what will help. It’s too bad because Yahoo! is not only a great group of extremely talented people, it represented the best opportunity to see competition in the PPC space.
It appears Jerry Yang will remain as CEO and the board will continue to try to find a set of solutions that work. The only certain thing is that something will certainly happen at in the coming months.
