This, the first of our regional blogs, is authored by the technology and financial journalist Dominic Basulto. Dominic is a New York native, has been a senior editor at Corante since day one and has written for a number of online and offline media companies. Send tips or story ideas to: basulto@gmail.com.
About this weblog
Here we'll report daily on the latest tech and business developments in New York City. Impossible we concede: comprehensive coverage of the city's every story. What we hope you'll find: tips, tidbits and perspectives you won't find elsewhere. As well as unique insights, original interviews and more that should be of interest to New York's vibrant community of technologists and those who track, invest in and report on them.
Over at CBS MarketWatch, Jon Friedman admits that bloggers frighten him: "I haven't reached the point where I can completely trust them to be accurate or comprehensive or analytical or, especially, fair. Sometimes, I'm not even sure if they worry about such conventions of journalism." Yes, it's the never-ending question of whether bloggers are indeed journalists, and if they are -- should they matter?
While Friedman admits that some bloggers are increasingly influential, he's quick to dismiss the other 99% of bloggers: "From where I sit, the rants of the vast majority of bloggers have about as much impact on the public's understanding of the daily news as the shrill eccentrics I encounter everyday on the subways in New York City." (Thank you, I'll take that as a compliment.)
Obviously, Friedman has encountered one too many of these journalist-wannabes (or else it's a cry for attention and readers): "Bloggers remind me of people who call into an all-sports talk-radio station and yell out their opinions. They have no new information to present. They aren't witty or clever. They're simply shrill. And that's no longer good enough..."
Gawker continues to delight Fast Company with items like this: a hilarious memo from the New York Sun exhorting newspaper staffers to stop stealing food from the office refrigerator.
Writing in the Times Online (U.K.) last week, Andrew Sullivan explains how the "iPod people" are changing the look and feel of the city. The usual “insane mishmash of yells, chatter, clatter, hustle and chutzpah that makes New York the urban equivalent of methamphetamine" has been replaced by an eerie quiet as a growing number iPod users “walk down the street in their own MP3 cocoon, bumping into others, deaf to small social cues, shutting out anyone not in their bubble…"
It's no different underground, where iPod users exchange blank looks with one another: "Get on a subway and you’re surrounded by a bunch of Stepford commuters staring into mid-space as if anaesthetised by technology. Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t overhear, don’t observe. Just tune in and tune out.”
On the Red Herring blog, Mitch Ratcliffe weighs in on the rapidly shifting competitive landscape for traditional media companies like Viacom, which recently posted a $18.4 million quarterly loss. The loss, which included a huge write-down of the company's radio assets, is nothing less than “another watershed event in the transition from old, centralized media to something new. Viacom and other media giants may play an important role in the new media landscape—they most likely will—but their valuations are going to take a beating during this process of rapid media evolution."
While companies such as Viacom believe that consolidation, cost-cutting and a re-focusing on traditional media like radio and TV will be enough to pull itself out of a financial mess, the reality may be much different, writes Ratcliffe: “Media is in flux at every level and in every niche. Viacom is easing investors into a new reality, one where highly centralized programming processes probably don't fit as comfortably as they did in the broadcast era. The retreat has only just begun, as the mobility of personalities like Howard Stern to new channels has only started, and with the talent the value will go.”
As the electronic trading of stocks continues to grow in popularity, brick-and-mortar exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange are becoming increasingly anachronistic. As if to underscore how some fledgling electronic exchanges are disrupting the traditional Wall Street way of doing business, some money managers are calling Liquidnet, an e-marketplace that allows institutional investors to trade large blocks of stock anonymously, a "Napster for stocks." According to one equity trader, "Liquidnet was the first to bring the liquidity to you rather than us carving up our order flow and sending it out. The beauty is anonymity, lower rates than full-service brokers, and it comes to you--versus you having to go out.”
The valuation of Liquidnet is staggering: based on a recent financing deal, the three-year-old company is already valued at $1.8 billion. By way of comparison, the NYSE is worth about $1.3 billion, Nasdaq is worth $794 million and Archipelago is worth about $873 million.
After six months of testing, New York-based search advertising firm Kanoodle is rolling out a new product offering to help small online publishers (e.g. bloggers) make some money. Kanoodle’s new product offering, BrightAds RSS, searches RSS feeds for key words and then uses its proprietary keyword advertising system to match relevant ads to the content. In order to make the product widely available to smaller publishers, Kanoodle will partner with Moreover Technologies to deliver RSS feeds (and sponsored links) to a Web site’s readers.
The CEO of Moreover, Jim Pitkow, encouraged by early test results, is calling the new RSS-based advertising system the “democratization of content" since "small publishers now have a choice as to if and how they make money from their content.”
Newsday has more details about the “Origins of Cyberspace” auction at Christie’s last week that brought in more than $700,000 from the sale of 133 out of 254 lots. Among the top sellers at the auction was a 1946 business plan by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly with designs for the first electronic computers ($72,000). As noted earlier on Corante, the highest-selling item was a sketch of an analytical engine by Charles Babbage from 1843, which sold to a private buyer for $78,000 ($65,000 plus a 20% auction house commission).
The New York City Council has unanimously adopted Resolution No. 669, which "calls upon City agencies to use their funding and regulatory power to support and encourage the provision of affordable high-speed Internet service and computer purchases for the benefit of residents of affordable housing."
Gale Brewer, the chair of the city council's Committee on Technology in Government, comments on the need for affordable broadband access: "This resolution will help us bridge the digital divide -- lack of access to the economic, educational and financial tools that the Internet provides. By encouraging new affordable housing developments to be built with high-speed Internet access, we can accelerate the entry of low-income people into the economic mainstream. At a cost as low as $175 a unit, this is an investment New York can't afford not to make."
To learn more about other initiatives to bring technology to lower-income citizens in NYC, check out the Web site for One Economy Corporation.
The MTA is considering putting flat-screen TVs in the New York subway, says the New York Daily News. Based on a similar plan already underway in Atlanta, straphangers would be able to tune into local television news broadcasts, one of three different music channels, or an MTA informational channel.
Perhaps the only thing worse than a call from the IRS is a call from the SEC asking you to "explain a few things." The SEC has launched an insider-trading probe at Sirius Satellite Radio and the first person brought in for questioning was gossip journalist Chaunce Hayden, who was "grilled for two hours yesterday by five SEC attorneys." Sometime before the October 6 announcement that Howard Stern was joining the company, insiders actively bought shares of the company in anticipation of a run-up in the stock price. (In the five trading days before the deal was announced, in fact, Sirius shares soared by 26%)
Hayden says that he's innocent - and that he's never even owned any shares of Sirius stock, which leads to the obvious question: who's next to face the SEC inquisitors?
Entrepreneurs need to stop thinking so much and start acting, advises New York VC Fred Wilson. Call it "analysis paralysis" or the "Hamlet complex" or whatever you want, but the fact remains that it's impossible to analyze every action and every possible contingency before making an important decision. Venture backers will applaud an entrepreneur who acts and takes risks, even if the action turns out to be misguided later, says Wilson. As Teddy Roosevelt once said:
"In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."
In an article about ads embedded within online news stories, the New York Times points out that the New York Post is giving serious consideration to the adoption of the ever-controversial IntelliTXT. The system, developed by Vibrant Media, is the latest (and most intrusive) evolution of keyword advertising: when visitors use a mouse to view words that are underlined in green, a small box labeled "sponsored link" appears with an advertising message and a link to more information.
Forbes.com experimented with the system for about two months before passing on it, "citing unease among its reporters." A spokesperson for the New York Post cautions that plans to use IntelliTXT (already in use by 400 other online publishers) are still in a trial phase: "That was a test of new technology that was not intended to be live. They have not debated or discussed it internally. They are not making any prediction whether they are going to use it."
The Deal (publisher of TheDeal.com) and CNET News.com are joining forces to publish a bimonthly magazine, Tech Confidential, starting in May. The magazine will cover the "business and finance aspects of technology" and cater primarily to executives and entrepreneurs within the tech sector. Some content from the print magazine will also appear on the flagship CNET Web site, according to Crain's New York.
Paid Content shares the news that independent Wall Street research firm Majestic Research has landed a first round of institutional venture capital. A number of Internet heavyweights -- like Nick Nicholas (former Co-CEO of Time Warner), Josh Kopelman (founder of Half.com) and Bill Hambrecht (of WR Hambrecht + Co) -- are lending their public support to the venture, so if you haven't already done so, check out the Transparent Bundles blog from Majestic Research's Seth Goldstein.
The most important paper in the history of digital computing
A sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage sold for $65,000 at the Origins of Cyberspace auction at Christie's on Wednesday. (By way of comparison, Christie's had posted an estimate of between $30,000 - $40,000 for the item.) So what do you get for $65,000? "The first separate edition, extremely rare, of the most important paper in the history of digital computing before modern times," according to the Christie's auction catalogue.
Gizmodo points to a story from Wired News about some of the whizbang tech toys on display at the New York Toy Fair this week. One of the highlights: the Cyber Gear Expressions! Digital Radio, which "clearly took its design inspiration from the 1957 Gibson Les Paul Stratocaster or from someone else who is dead and not holding any lawyer on retainer."
Citysearch now offers reviews of restaurants, bars, coffee shops, book stores and hotels in New York City with free wireless Internet access. By now, everybody knows that Bryant Park offers free Wi-Fi access -- but did you know that Coliseum Books (located across the street) also offers wireless Internet access in its "homey" cafe? (Hat tip: NewYorkology)
Sirius Satellite Radio inked a five-year, $107.5 million deal for the broadcast rights to NASCAR races, effectively pulling the rug out from under XM Satellite Radio, which currently broadcasts the races. According to the New York Post, XM CEO Hugh Panero exploded in a "volcanic" rage when he was informed of the deal. Starting in 2007, Sirius plans to offer a 24/7 NASCAR channel supported in part by advertising.
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. held a meeting of the minds last week in New York to work out a comprehensive Internet strategy for the company's diverse media holdings. As Paid Content points out, though, about the only thing the company's top executives agreed upon was that it was time to bring in some third-party consultants to sort through the muck:
"Rupert Murdoch figured none of his lieutenants were any good at coming up with a Web strategy, and has hired management consultants McKinsey to help come up with a new global strategy... The consultancy firm is advising News Corp on improving co-ordination between its network television, publishing, film and newspaper assets...the firm has initially advised the company should use existing websites to exploit the trend towards internet downloading and online advertising."
Jay Rosen of PressThink weighs in on the $410 million acquisition of About.com by the New York Times. The business rationale for the deal, says Rosen, has to do with About.com's search engine expertise -- something the New York Times currently lacks:
"They know how to show up in search; we don't. Let's buy them. Then we'll know too."
While About.com, with its 500 or so niche content sites, currently has 22 million monthly readers, the New York Times only has 13 million readers. That's because About.com and similar sites "know how to design pages that find their way into search engines, and thus have a second life." By some accounts, only 20% of readers see an article when it is new and featured -- the other 80% see it only after it's been archived. Once the New York Times learns to optimize its pages for search (such as by including permanent links to older archived content), its monthly readership will likely increase significantly -- and that means more advertising dollars as well.
BuzzMachine reports that Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York Times, addressed the subject of blogs and blogging during a recent talk at Columbia University:
"Keller also sees 'blogging,' or online writing that blurs news and commentary, as a mixed blessing. While he celebrated the blogger's ability to uncover breaking news, he noted that a blog's inherent bias might be detrimental to the reader. "A blog is still a view of the world through a pinhole," he said."
Gothamist admits to being fascinated by the popularity of cellphone jammers, especially after an article in the New York Post speculated about certain illicit ways that these jammers are being used:
"The Post talked to a couple spy shops and jammer purchasers. Restaurateurs are buying them, and some suspect hotels buy them to make people use the expensive hotel phones... Would you jam people's cellphones? Or are you in need of jamming? Of course, jammers are illegal, but isn't music sharing, to a certain extent?"
How much money can a talented blogger make these days doing nothing but blogging? Jason Kottke of Kottke.org is about to find out -- he's quit his Web design job for a chance to become a full-time blogger. Blogging for blogging's sake, you might call it. He's tightening the belt and asking his faithful readers to lend him a hand by becoming micropatrons. It's probably easiest to explain what he's attempting to do by stating upfront what he's not trying to do:
"Kottke.org will also not become any less personal or any more professional. This is still my personal web site and is not going to mutate into a vertical blog about tech, design, politics, pop culture, or even asbestos. I'm not turning into a journalist. I'm still going to write and post almost exclusively about things I am interested in, whatever those may be at any particular moment. Just so you know, I may occasionally post cat photos, as is my right as the editor of a personal web site."
The New York Daily News has an exclusive on the proliferation of pre-paid porn cards that are being "peddled by bodegas and newsstands across the city - even to underage kids." The so-called PPP cards ("pre-paid porn") cost anywhere from $5 to $50 and have been widely available in the city for the past four months.
XM Satellite Radio and New York-based Sirius Satellite Radio may both still be losing money, but investors are willing to look the other way as long as subscriber growth projections remain optimistic. According to a best case scenario, the number of satellite radio subscribers could grow ten-fold over the next five years; however, some analysts warn that these projections are way too rosy, especially since "the industry is new and demand is difficult to gauge."
For investors, that means keeping a close eye on subscriber growth figures. Says one media analyst, "Subscriber growth is the key and critical driver for satellite radio. Any snag in obtaining that growth could cause a sharp correction in the stocks of these companies." For Sirius, the magic number is 2.5 million subscribers by the end of 2005. Failure to meet that goal could torpedo the company's stock price.
New York-based Poindexter Systems, which helps advertisers improve the profitability of their online marketing investments by analyzing consumer behavior, announced that Dr. Andreas Weigend would become the company's new chief scientist. Weigend, a former business school professor at NYU, was also the chief scientist at Amazon.com, where he "ran hundreds of simultaneous experiments to gather and analyze information to predict user behavior." By analyzing this behavior, Amazon was able to develop predictive models for recommendations and cross-selling.
The Wi-Fi Salon, which is "dedicated to changing New York and improving its communities economically and socially through Wi-Fi technology," plans to create as many as 26 free wireless hot spots on the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side by the end of 2004. According to Crain's New York, the company is still putting the finishing touches on a business model that will enable it to break even within the next 18 months:
"The Wi-Fi Salon has not yet started generating revenues, but expects to make money from nearby companies that pay for Wi-Fi access to run voice-over-Internet-protocol systems, or pay to be included in a business directory that pops up when someone logs on to free Wi-Fi at a particular hot spot."
The company places a huge emphasis on community involvement, and with that in mind, Wi-Fi Salon invites New Yorkers to call or e-mail them with a story about how Wi-Fi has made a difference in their community.
A number of New York restaurants like Bed and Uncle Jack's Steakhouse are using their Web sites to flog anything and everything -- from shirts and CDs to jewelry and steak knives. The e-commerce efforts have two results -- padding the bottom line with non-food-related sales and acting as a source of buzz for possible expansion into new markets, says the New York Times. In fact, one lecturer at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration thinks that some restaurants may be so successful selling over the Web that the restaurant business eventually becomes a sideline endeavor:
"The restaurant could stop but the products could go on. If you make enough money this way, you might come to the point where you just get out of the business of waking up in the morning and spending all day cooking and being behind the stove."
The Chicago Tribune publishes a fun piece about New York's own TheSmokingGun.com, which is back in the national spotlight, thanks to the Michael Jackson child-molestation case. Over the past eight years, the "tart, celebrity-centric Web site has found and posted original documents about the missteps of the rich, famous and those who aspire to the same..." Now, The Smoking Gun -- one of the 28 most-quoted sites on the Internet by bloggers despite having only three employees -- has once again scooped the nation's major media outlets with a 1,903-page document related to the Jackson case.
In 2002, dot-com survivor Mike Daisey adapted his successful off-Broadway monologue about life at Amazon.com into the book "21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com." He's back with a new production ("Monopoly!") at the Ohio Theater in SoHo; the play combines a short history of the origins of the board game Monopoly, observations about Microsoft's antitrust suit and insights about the scientific cult figure Nikolai Tesla to create a humorous send-up of corporate greed and unchecked ambition. New York Times theater critic Jason Zinoman obviously enjoyed the show, noting that Daisey is "so much fun to look at. He furiously chops the air with his hands, contorts his rubbery face and, when things come to a climax, pops his eyes out in a laughably cartoonish expression."
Since the play "takes aim at the unchecked power of corporations," it's even "tempting to call Mr. Daisey the Michael Moore of the New York stage - they are both roundish regular guys with a history of stalking C.E.O.'s." But, as Zinoman points out, Daisey is more like an earnest graduate student than a real political activist.
As the mega-merger spree continues, leading to more deals like Verizon's multi-billion-dollar bid for MCI, employees are wary that companies could be preparing to shed thousands of jobs. With that in mind, the New York Daily News takes a look at what steps rank-and-file office workers can take to avoid a layoff. According to some experts, the main priority is to solidify existing relationships at the office with people willing to go to bat for you: "The more people who know about you and your accomplishments - and feel comfortable with you - the more chance you have that a person will be in a meeting where decisions are made about who to save, who to let go, who to promote."
It's also not too late to brush up on brown-nosing skills: "Learn to be a 'company person,' 'yes man,' or however you define it, very quickly. You begin with a blank slate. Agree to anything new management says, do extra assignments and work others don't want."
The SEC has launched an insider-trading probe of Sirius Satellite Radio related to Howard Stern's announced decision on October 6 that he was making the move from traditional radio to satellite radio. Two weeks before Stern made the announcement, shares of the company soared by as much as 40%, leading to some speculation that "someone who knew the deal was coming started buying up stock in anticipation of shares skyrocketing when the news got out." In order to figure out who knew what and when, the SEC has already issued a subpoena to New York gossip journalist Chaunce Hayden, a frequent guest on the Stern show, seeking information about trading in securities of Sirius Satellite Radio.
The New York Stock Exchange as we know it -- the "iconic brick-and-mortar exchange" -- may soon no longer exist, says the New York Post. Quite simply, "proposed regulations, technology and competition from other exchanges are changing the way stocks are bought and sold, who sells them when, and where." The most obvious change is that electronic trading will eventually make floor trading obsolete. Says one enthusiast of electronic trading: "We always joke saying that the exchange would make a great bowling alley one day."
In a case of "that's not what I really said," it looks like media pundit Michael Wolff may - or may not - have written on the I Want Media site that The Wall Street Journal stopped mattering when it started charging for its online content. According to FishBowlNY, the site took down the article under pressure from Wolff.
Wolff explains: "It wasn't an interview. It was a talk I gave that somebody recorded and then transcribed. Beyond being purloined, it was poorly transcribed, unedited, and not meant to be a piece of written work, so I asked that it not be published."
"You break it, you own it... The same is true of a company. The VCs on the board often have the power to change out the management of a company. But if they do that, they are responsible for fixing the management and the company... Don't go into a company thinking you can swap out management easily. And don't make a management change unless you are willing to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty for a while. Because that's what's required when you "own" the business."
Internet phone service provider Fusion Telecommunications, based in Manhattan, recently raised $23.2 million in an IPO. According to the company's Web site, "Multinational corporations, government agencies, Internet service providers, cable operators and carriers with strategic opportunities - and challenges - in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean count on us to drive high-quality, cost-effective global solutions into the world's hardest to reach places-fast."
If you're a New York blogger looking to get paid for your thoughts, you might want to check out BlogAds, which is developing a NYC-centric BlogAds network: "Reach 300,000 New York blog readers each week by advertising on the NYC Blogads network. Order them all, or pick and choose. Readers come for the New Yorkers' take on restaurants, nightlife, college life, religion, politics, sports, travel, local news and celebrity gossip." And, of course, tech news. (Hat tip: NewYorkology)
The New York Times Company announced plans to acquire About.com from parent company Primedia at a price tag of $410 million. The deal will have a two-fold impact --it will add a "fast-growing, highly profitable" Internet destination to the company's portfolio and enable the New York Times to boost its revenue from the rapidly-growing online advertising business. By adding About.com's 22 million monthly users to its stable of over 40 Internet sites, the New York Times is poised to become the 12th-largest presence in the online world.
Paid Content, as usual, has an exhaustive source of details, data and facts about the deal. (On February 8, they correctly predicted that the New York Times would emerge as the victorious bidder for About.com). A quick snippet from Rafat Ali of Paid Content:
"Make no mistake, it is about search/CPC ad revenues in the short term, first and foremost. Then, of course, the benefits of added traffic over long term. It will be very interesting to see how they execute on the integration of NYTimes.com and About.com. The phrase "adding an alternate model of content creation and aggregation" is a peculiar way to put it, but it denotes blogs and the whole blog media world, so to speak. In short, this is NYT's blog strategy, on the editorial side. Whether they want to characterize it as such, that I doubt... "
Gothamist recommends checking out Todd Gross's photoblog Quarlo.com for a new batch of stunning New York City photographs. The site has been mentioned in Slate, the New York Times, Forbes and USA Today, so it's worth a look.
Crain's New York, citing a report in the Financial Times, says that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (the owner of media assets such as the New York Post and Fox News) is "in the process of crafting a new Internet strategy for the media empire." Murdoch and about 50 senior executives at the company met in New York on Wednesday to discuss how to leverage the power of the Internet.
According to the Financial Times, "the company is taking the most serious look at its online operations since Mr. Murdoch's son James spearheaded a failed high-tech push in the 1990s. News Corp. is refocusing on the Web amid declining readership for newspapers, a sharp rise in consumer broadband use, and growth in Internet advertising, especially in the area of paid searches."
Barry Diller's online travel businesses may be experiencing some tough sledding, but he apparently has a few tricks up his sleeve... According to informiTV.com, Diller is now predicting a revolution in interactive television. One of the linchpins of this strategy could be HSN (Home Shopping Network), which could add interactive capability sometime in 2005.
Diller on the future of interactive TV: "There is no question that interactive TV is going to be in a lot of homes within the next few years and I think we’re going to be very, very early in the process.”
InterActiveCorp's CFO also is talking up the concept: “HSN has the ability to talk directly to 85 million consumers directly in their homes. That’s an amazingly powerful communication and selling device and one of our goals is figuring out how to leverage that... We think [interactive TV] will provide both ease of ordering and also potentially a gateway to new and interesting ways of doing business through the television and internet channels. We’re excited about it but it’s very early.”
Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp (which owns Internet properties such as Expedia, Hotels.com and Match.com) posted a loss of $46 million for the quarter, primarily as a result of two massive write-downs: a $185 million write-down of the value of its call center services business and a $33 million write-down in the value of a U.K. travel channel. Without the charges, InterActiveCorp had earnings of $250 million, a 10% increase from the year-earlier period.
According to Wi-Fi Net News, Boston is experimenting with Wi-Fi access in four subway stations: "Park Street, Downtown Crossing, Government Center, and State Street (and tunnels connecting stations) will have Wi-Fi access provided by InSite. The city may extend the network to the whole system." The fact that Boston could soon have Wi-Fi access throughout the entire subway system raises the obvious question: if Beantown can have Wi-Fi access in the subway, why not New York?
The New York Academy of Sciences has a great "Science & the City" calendar of upcoming science-related events in NYC. On the 17th, for example, there's a discussion and demonstration of robot-based art at the Museum of Natural History as well as the 2005 "NYC Brain Bee" competition at the Rockefeller University, where high school kids test their knowledge of neuroscience (!). For those with more mainstream tastes in science, there's always the James Cameron IMAX show ("Aliens of the Deep") on the Upper West Side.
If you have anxiety about going into work on Mondays, you're not alone, says the Wall Street Journal. For many workers, the anxiety starts on Sunday night -- just as it did during the years of grade school and high school:
"People who suffer from the Sunday-night doldrums don't necessarily dislike work, but they sure don't like the thought of it. For many of the afflicted, the pre-Monday funk is yet another workplace echo of grade school. The only difference between this one and fire drills, cafeteria trays, bullies, teams and report cards (a.k.a. performance reviews) is that it happens every week, and yelling "Force field!" won't protect you."
James J. Cramer of TheStreet.com thinks that Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp should make a bid for Cendant: "Together, they would become the unstoppable destination portal for both travel and real estate. It won't happen now because it's too logical; not enough money has been lost yet, but it should happen."
From Crain's New York: the Internet unit of Manhattan-based Major League Baseball will acquire Tickets.com, an online seller of sporting events and entertainment tickets, in a deal valued at $66 million. According to Crain's, "the acquisition of Tickets.com will allow MLB Advanced Media to centralize its online operations."
Only in New York: the iPod subway mugging. In some parts of the city, the number of students who have been the victims of iPod robberies on the subways in recent months has almost doubled. In one neighborhood of Brooklyn, NYC transit cops even distributed fliers offering to engrave students' iPods and cellphones with ID numbers.
In order to promote its Yahoo Personals online dating service, Yahoo arranged a special Valentine's Day promotion in Herald Square yesterday:
"Yahoo set up an eight-foot tall model of a haystack stuck with giant needles. Finding the right mate can seem as hard as finding a needle in a haystack... but in Yahoo's haystack, the needles were in plain sight, and everyone who grabbed a needle won a prize. The gifts ranged from one-pound bags of ground coffee from Dunkin' Donuts and heart-shaped boxes of Godiva chocolates to the top prize: diamond-encrusted hoop earrings - the real thing."
Not to be outdone, online dating rival Match.com displayed classic Magnum photos of couples on a digital billboard at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The company also hired a photographer to take pictures of real-life New York couples as well in order to display them on the billboard.
In the wake of Verizon's $6.75 billion acquisition of MCI and SBC's $16 billion acquisition of AT&T, the New York Post takes a closer look at the rise of the new telecom behemoths -- and in the process, coins a new term ("teleclom" = telecom conglomerate). Bigger is better, writes the Post: there are already rumours that SBC may attempt to merge with BellSouth now in an attempt to counter Verizon's latest move.
The Paid Content empire establishes another outpost: the Digital Media Events Blog. A quick scan of upcoming events in NYC: the Digital Music Forum on March 2 and the Billboard Music & Money Symposium on March 3.
NY1's Adam Balkin reports on "high-tech twists" for some favorite gadgets and gizmos. According to Balkin, "a television remote, a USB drive, a computer, even a food scale - new technology can put a twist on just about anything to make it more useful for you, or at least try." One of the more useful items mentioned in the report is the Lexar Jumpdrive Touchguard USB drive: it gives users secure access to all websites that require a username and password -- even when "you can't remember what all those user names and passwords are."
On the homeland security front: Thirteen/WNET New York is gearing up to demonstrate a live test of the Smart Dissemination Networks (“Smart Nets”) digital emergency response communications system to federal officials. According to Unstrung, the Smart Nets demo will give these officials their "first look at the operational capabilities of the system as it is field-tested in the challenging urban environment of New York City." Smart Nets make use of the Instructional Television Fixed Service Band (ITFS) to provide two-way wireless broadband communications to fire, police, EMS, and other personnel in NYC.
In the Wall Street Journal, Lee Gomes looks at the role of municipal governments in setting up city-wide wireless Internet networks. The problem that local governments are attempting to address, says Gomes, is that "the speeds at which houses can link up [to the Internet] has plateaued at current DSL and cable rates, badly lagging behind the speeds available in many other countries, notably in Asia."
With this mind, is government intervention of some kind required to bring broadband Internet access to its citizens? Philadelphia has already struggled with this issue, and now it appears that New York also will wrestle over the issue. Ordinarily, the Wall Street Journal would be aghast at the suggestion of government involvement. This case might be different, though:
"Incumbent players don't usually have an incentive to build these faster new networks because they are tied to their wired networks, which also deliver telephone and television services. And that's one reason that networking speeds in the U.S. are stuck in the rut they are in... It's easy to bash city governments as being full of maladroit bureaucrats eager to manhandle a new technology, and even economists who support municipal networks say cities shouldn't rush into them. But well-thought-out city plans could help everyone by acting as a catalyst and shaking up the status quo."
"Public relations specialists are scrambling to adjust to a time in which the Internet revolution and a boom in alternative media sources are rewriting the parameters of the communications industry and challenging traditional sources of authority. So, despite an avalanche of freely available information, the truth is becoming harder to discern..."
Cablevision chairman Charles Dolan may have lost the boardroom fight with his son over the future of Voom, but that didn't keep him from launching a personal bid to take over the troubled satellite TV service as a privately-owned business. Investors still have plenty of questions, though, about what will happen with Voom: "The announcement of the plan late Thursday left many unanswered questions that could dramatically affect Cablevision Systems Corp., its founding chairman and its chief executive James Dolan, who split with his father Charles over Voom."
Manhattan-based Emerging Pictures is setting up a cross-country digital cinema network, says Crain's New York. The cinemas, slated to appear primarily in museums and performing arts centers in "smaller markets," will show a mix of independent and foreign films. The guy bankrolling the venture is Internet entrepreneur Jeff Skoll, best known as one of the co-founders of eBay.
A sweet valentine for Verizon: the company announced plans to acquire MCI for $6.6 billion in cash and stock, beating out a rival bid from Qwest. (Apparently, Qwest offered a higher bid of $7.3 billion, but couldn't put all the financing pieces together.) The lesson in all of this? MCI may be "a shadow of its former self, but its high-margin corporate customers and worldwide telephone and data network make it quite valuable."
Poking around Wi-Fi Networking News for news about municipal Wi-Fi in New York City, when we stumbled across the new Wi-Fi Blackberry, the new must-have for alpha executives:
"The Blackberry 7270 has Wi-Fi built in as well as a VoIP client, but there’s no cellular radio inside... Instead, it’s designed as a campus-wide enterprise tool that combines voice and messaging. Campus-wide pager systems have been widespread and there’s a growing use of VoIP over Wi-Fi; this is a neat combination of both. But it means some executives will now have to carry two Blackberrys."
A brief item in today's New York Post: New York Model Management is collaborating with teen Web site company Bolt Media to launch a "coast-to-coast model search" that will include a "cybersearch" for four new supermodels. The article hints that all aspects of the model selection process - or at least, the submission of pics - will be handled online. If nothing else, writes the Post, the models selected will be "younger and more cyber-friendly" than the types of models currently appearing on shows hosted by Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum or Sports Illustrated. After all, Bolt bills itself as the "#1 youth hangout on the Web."
Getting business development deals done can be a real nightmare, writes Ed Sim. You might talk to a series of high-level executives about a deal, and each one seems jazzed about it. Then, somehow, almost inexplicably, the deal craters. It doesn't get done, and you've just wasted a lot of time and energy on nothing.
With that in mind, Ed Sim offers a few key tips on how to improve the success rate of your biz dev sales pitches. The key factor is finding out who owns the relationship. In other words, which high-level executive is willing to take ownership of the idea and push it along? This is different than just signing off on the idea and passing the hat to someone else -- it means championing the deal, shepherding it through the rough patches, and making sure all the incentives are properly aligned.
Actually, a classic book for understanding this process is Leading Change from Harvard Business School's John Kotter. In step-by-step fashion, Kotter walks through all the key steps of driving change within an organization. Leaders must establish a sense of urgency, create a guiding coalition, develop a vision and a strategy, communicate that vision to others, generate short-term wins, and empower employees for action. That type of person, though, is hard to find -- and that's why so many business development deals stall.
As seen on I Want Media (at the top of the rightmost column): the editor & founder of the site is teaching an undergraduate class in digital journalism at NYU and wants your input, suggestions, and ideas:
"The course covers Internet culture, online magazines, blogging, and more. Scheduled guest speakers include writer/editor Kurt Andersen, Slate editor Jacob Weisberg, WSJ.com managing editor Bill Grueskin, and several bloggers. What topics in digital journalism do you think students should explore? Your suggestions are welcome and appreciated..."
There's been a rash of "gee-whiz, that's cool" stories about new product offerings (usually in beta version) from innovative companies like Amazon and Google. Google Maps, for example, launched on Tuesday and just a few days earlier, Amazon's A9 subsidiary unveiled a form of photographic Yellow Pages. In this week's Circuits section, the New York Times profiled two more sites worth checking out: LiquidInformation.org, where "text is parsed into a forest of hyperlinks," and Wikinews.org, an "experiment in collaborative news gathering and reporting." Both sites are hoping to change forever the way that Internet users use online information and news.
The New York Times has a mini-feature on OverheardinNewYork.com, which has been amusing New Yorkers with its "priceless gems you overhear on the street." The site has been so successful in diverting cubicle dwellers from their PCs, in fact, that it has spawned a spin-off: OverheardintheOffice.com.
