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14 Comments

    • Have Americans Changed Their Spending Habits? [view article]
      Indeed. We are surrounded by products that survive on nothing more than marketing. Consumer product marketing over the past 10-15 years has been driven more by a "hit" culture, meaning making a marketing splash around a huge margin lower quality merchandise, than it has been around building sustainable businesses....all a result of the topping of a supercycle and the attendant almost hourly scramble to make even higher earnings against a turning tide.

      This has been fueled by the late 20th century convergence of mass manufactuing (superpowered by CAD/CAM efficiencies), mass media (superpowered by TV ), and mass marketing to the mass affluent. Even lower socio-economic groups participate now through mass retailing (Walmart and the arrival of big box retailing).

      I doubt most of the people reading this have seen life today at a Walmart in Flint Michigan. Lots of America at the start of the new century not looking very nice.       Aug 09 10:08 AM
    • Why the Online Video Business Is a Joke [view article]
      So complicated.

      The simple reality is that TV advertising, that is the real big money in TV advertising, is all about brand and image. It is not about Google, lead generation, DR marketing (though there is some of that on the low end), targeting etc and the other parlour tricks of the web business. Video is about big time brand building.

      When you are in that business you must have quality trusted environments and engaged users and reliable technology. Online video has none of that. Except for a few young demographic brands, the real money will not be playing with YouTube or any of the other user generated (READ: free and low cost) stuff.

      Add to that that, video just doesn't fit well with the online experience. Online is forward leaning, TV is lean back. How many online video screens have you clicked away from because you just don't want to wait for the load up?

      Add to that Google is not about branding. It's not in their DNA.

      Online video will take a couple of billion away from traditional TV, enough to make them very nervous for the next few years, but ultimately it will be a side show.       Jul 18 07:47 AM
    • Google Needs to Ramp Up Display Advertising - Citi [view article]
      Display is a completely different business. Think of it this way. Google is the Yellow pages. Display is News corp. Google will find this frustrating and will stumble. It will be their first major failure.

      Display is not about technology and technology has been a large part of Google' s success. The highest margin part of Google is google.com and unless they want to completley change their signature interface and add ads (which I highly doubt they will), display will be a minor addition to their business (which they are actually already doing).
      Video ads on Youtube will be a minor side show.       Jun 21 09:03 AM
    • What Is Wrong With Tribune's Math? [view article]
      All you have to do is follow what has already happened to TV and Radio. More clutter, more ads. Less content (strip series are now common again, remember the days when a different show was on every hour, 7 days a week). Thinner cheaper content (i.e reality programming, ) Higher value content shifts to higher return mediums (movies and several larger production value series now appear on cable and pay cable) Centralized back office/production across newspaper clusters. And less output. Remember that network prime time used to start at 7PM? Jun 11 09:42 AM
    • Print Is Toast - Ballmer [view article]
      bigger concern is who is going to pay to gather all that news? The AP? It's paid for by the newspapers! Jun 06 03:57 PM
    • Petrobras is Hoarding the World's Deep Sea Drillers [view article]
      Is it just possible that Goldman is way long oil is is just perpetuating this speculation that is going to burst sometime soon taking these drillers with it. May 18 10:33 AM
    • Misleading April Retail Numbers: Invest In Discounters [view article]
      Your argument only supports the fact that more people are shoppping at discounters...a long term trend that has been in place for many years, recession or not.

      The additional day in April does indicate that sales may have been down YTY but it seems to be balancing out month to month at a slow but not recessionary pace.

      May 18 10:24 AM
    • CBS and CNET: Vision, or Desperation? [view article]
      Old media content cos love new media content cos. Feels comfortable. Feels like you can replicate your old world experience in the new world. You can't. Virtually all of the old world media companies are being defensive in these aquisitions. They are looking for synergies and ways to defend their old market positions instead of building new businesses in the new world and embracing the future. The old organizations are so full of fiefdoms that simply want to bury the new to perpetuate the old, survival becomes impossible. CNET will get diminished or destroyed the same way CBS abandoned Marketwatch, Healthwatch, Sportsline, NBC-Zoom (and currently iVillage). Inforseek was at one time the #4 largest portal on the web...unitl ABC bought it. The cable MSOs obliterated $ 4 Bil in market cap in Excite@Home. The landscape is littered with these old media/new media failures.

      Old media companies have a terrible history or doing any kind of diversification.       May 16 08:25 AM
    • Microsoft Should Fire Steve Ballmer, or Hire SuperNanny. Or Both. [view article]
      Microsoft already has its own Yahoo...it's called MSN. They aready own the most desirable real estate on the web...it's called IE. What makes everyone so sure they would know what to do with another asset like Yahoo. They won't. Software and tech ain't the web and MSFT doesn't understand that. Apr 29 08:52 AM
    • Google Warns that Reducing “Accidental Clicks” Could Hurt Revenue [view article]
      Mortgage Melt + Click Fraud crackdown= stock price/PE compression

      Accidental clicks! Come on. This is just a smoke screen to cover the massive click fraud issues that they know they must fix and it is slamming revenue.       Feb 20 07:40 AM
    • Yahoo's Future: The Employee Perspective [view article]
      The real competition for all three Yhoo, MSFT, and Goog is the competition for ad dollars that is mounting from the traditional media media plaers. After 10 years and many failures, those guys are slowly getting their act together, in an unholy alliance with the ad agencies, and will take a powerful chunk out of the stand alone dotcoms in the next 2 years.

      None of these three have woken up to this and are truely prepared to fight it. Any configuration of these mergers will cause so much internal strife that they will be bickering internally while Rome burns around them.       Feb 17 08:28 AM
    • Did Microsoft 'Massively Undervalue' Yahoo? [view article]
      The problem for Yahoo is that it is teetering on the edge right now. It's value as an ad network is slipping as both the number of advertiers and number of affilliates is in decline. This is a death spiral and stopping it can be almost impossible if it gathers momentum. If they want to stay in the game, and away from MSFT, they will have to make a deal with either AOL or Google. Neither option is attractive. Google would be the better option but this is directly opposite to what they have been trying to do for the past year and Google's terms would essentially take them out of the network business anyway, leaving them with the display business, which they abandoned when the let Wenda Millard and Greg Coleman go last year Feb 11 08:15 AM
    • Did Microsoft 'Massively Undervalue' Yahoo? [view article]
      The problem for Yahoo is that it is teetering on the edge right now. It's value as an ad network is slipping as both the number of advertiers and number of affilliates is in decline. This is a death spiral and stopping it can be almost impossible if it gathers momentum. If they want to stay in the game, and away from MSFT, they will have to make a deal with either AOL or Google. Neither option is attractive. Google would be the better option but this is directly opposite to what they have been trying to do for the past year and Google's terms would essentially take them out of the network business anyway, leaving them with the display business, which they abandoned when the let Wenda Millard and Greg Coleman go last year Feb 11 08:15 AM
    • Did Microsoft 'Massively Undervalue' Yahoo? [view article]
      The problem for Yahoo is that it is teetering on the edge right now. It's value as an ad network is slipping as both the number of advertiers and number of affilliates is in decline. This is a death spiral and stopping it can be almost impossible if it gathers momentum. If they want to stay in the game, and away from MSFT, they will have to make a deal with either AOL or Google. Neither option is attractive. Google would be the better option but this is directly opposite to what they have been trying to do for the past year and Google's terms would essentially take them out of the network business anyway, leaving them with the display business, which they abandoned when the let Wenda Millard and Greg Coleman go last year Feb 11 08:14 AM
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