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.
"Computer forensic specialists from SUNY at Cortland discovered that Wanamaker was subscribed to 48 different forums and networking communities... They also found that he posted a comment into one forum or another on an average of two per minute every hour of the day for the past seven weeks."
(If you don't believe this one, how about the one about a young Georgia bride-to-be who was abducted by suburban kidnappers?)
From Crain's New York: Internet-based lead generation company SilverCarrot of Manhattan has received $7 million in Series B venture capital funding from a group of investors led by Dolphin Equity Partners.
So what exactly is Internet-based lead generation? Well, SilverCarrot buys banner ads offering deals in order to drive visitors to sites it owns and operates. On these sites, registered visitors are asked about their preferences and whether they would like to receive more information on certain topics. SilverCarrot then passes on those leads to client. Presto! Lots of qualified leads, thanks to the magic of the Internet.
J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism announced the ten winners of its New Voices awards. These winners will receive $12,000 grants to launch innovative local media ventures across the country.
The one winner from New York City was Loisaida Speaks, from the Lower East Side Girls Club. The organization will use funding to train 32 young women to produce weekly podcasts on community news and issues. In the future, these podcasters will build a network of teen podcast correspondents to cover local issues and events.
For more on why podcasting has the potential to change the market reality for traditonal radio broadcasters, check out Buzz Machine's posting on the new all-podcasting radio station (YOURadio) launched by Infinity Broadcasting:
"YOURadio is big news and good news for a few reasons... First, it is big media recognizing that it's time to listen -- and do more than listen: Let the people speak. It is big media recognizing the value of citizens' media.
Second, it is an admission that the old, one-size-fits-all, top-down, one-way models of programming are broken and the audience can do it better.
Third, it an admission that the old business models are soon to break and that the people can provide more talent for less than the old talent could."
The New York Post's Page Six, a must-read for guys and gals who gossip, has contemplated life as a blog -- but don't expect any major changes any time soon. Richard Johnson, the editor of Page Six, responds to a question from I Want Media:
"When would we have time to write a blog? We are too busy gathering info, reporting and writing Page Six. And we find ourselves increasingly busy reading all those blogs out there, some of which actually contain new and accurate stories. Most don't. They are filled with criticism and opinion. I'm sure when there is a market for a Page Six blog, the Post will launch one. It's probably only a matter of time."
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer must be tired of tangling with Wall Street firms, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies... Now, he's turning his attention to the Internet sector and suing Los Angeles-based spyware firm Intermix Media, which stands accused of installing spyware on the personal computers of 3.7 million New Yorkers. Spitzer comments:
"Spyware and adware are more than an annoyance. These fraudulent programs foul machines, undermine productivity and in many cases frustrate consumers' efforts to remove them from their computers. These issues can serve to be a hindrance to the growth of e-commerce."
The only question: will spyware or e-commerce become a campaign issue during Spitzer's gubernatorial bid?
Last week, Mayor Bloomberg released a comprehensive new report called Telecommunications and Economic Development in New York City. The 74-page PDF document highlighted 21 key initiatives that the city should undertake over the next two to five years, including steps to make broadband access available for all city residents and businesses:
"Although New York City residents and businesses have access to an array of high-speed telecommunications connections and services that no other city can match, there are specific parts of the City where access is limited, such as Hunts Point in the Bronx and Sunset Park, Brooklyn. If New York City is to maintain its role as a world center of finance, communications and culture, we have to extend access to broadband communications to all, as well as continuously improve the reliability of our telecommunications networks and take advantage of emerging technologies."
For anyone interested in the future of telecom and broadband in New York: the Committee on Technology in Government is holding a hearing on May 2 to discuss the city's telecom infrastructure and the impact of broadband deployment on economic development. The key question is whether the recently released telecom plan went far enough in making sure that affordable broadband access will be available to all New Yorkers.
"The company again raised its 2005 year-end subscriber estimate, now forecasting more than 2.7 million subscribers at year-end, up from previous guidance of over 2.5 million, due to strong subscriber growth trends and continued demand for its service."
The company had 1.45 million subscribers as of March 31. Adding to the good news: as a result of solid subscriber growth over the past year, revenue quadrupled for the quarter, from $9.3 million a year ago to $43.2 million this year. More ears, more dollars. Once Howard Stern and Martha Stewart start revving up their programming for Sirius sometime in 2006, look for those numbers to improve even more.
Infinity Broadcasting, a division of media conglomerate Viacom, announced the creation of the world's first-ever podcasting radio station: KYOURADIO. The station will launch in the San Francisco area on May 16. For all you do-it-yourselfers out there, it's worth pointing out that all of KYOURADIO's content will be "created exclusively by its listeners." In fact, in its press release, the head of Infinity Broadcasting goes to great lengths to point out the importance of finding and nurturing the "creativity of undiscovered talent from all walks of life."
If this little podcasting experiment by the Bay works out, it's conceivable that New York City could also become the home to homegrown podcasting stations. Not just 1-2 individual podcasts mixed in for the fun of it -- but a 24/7 radio station comprised totally of user-generated content. That's kinda cool, especially since big media companies like Viacom usually don't do this kind of thing until they're forced to...
In his Wired column this week, NYU assistant professor Adam Penenberg weighs in on whether or not the nation's top journalism programs should change how and what they teach in order to keep up with the changin' times: "With newspapers hemorrhaging readers and people migrating to the web for their daily news fix, should we consider changing the way we teach journalism?"
The key, says Penenberg, is keeping up with new technology - whether it be blogs or wikis or whatever -- while preserving the cornerstones of traditional journalism:
"That's why I think that NYU should continue to teach the basics but also experiment with novel ways to approach reporting and writing. There will always be a market for young reporters who know how to gather facts and write them up in a clear, convincing manner. For that, you can't do much better than showing students in our introductory classes how to craft a killer lede, a well-honed nut graf and an airtight structure."
The New York Times has yet another article about iPod subway crime: some people are becoming so afraid of riding the subway with their iPods that they are buying different types of earphones (the white earbuds are just too obvious), stashing their iPods deep into their bags and otherwise holding on to them for dear life. According to the New York Police Department, the steep increase in subway crime this year was "driven almost entirely by a sharp rise in robberies and thefts of cellphones and especially of iPods, which have become a totem of prosperous urban life."
The numbers are a bit deceptive, though: there were zero iPod thefts reported in 2004 and already 50 iPod abductions through the first four months of this year. Gothamist has more on why status gizmos make New Yorkers targets.
With this disturbing upswing in subway crime in mind, the MTA is now getting into the fray, with a series of safety announcements for riders. (Although it seems at times that the MTA is just as worried about their crime figures as they are about people actually losing their iPods).
Everybody knows that the tech industry produces a constant stream of buzzwords and jargon. With that in mind, this month's issue of IEEE Spectrum provides a look at the newest terms and catchphrases that will be showing up soon at a Web site near you:
PPMT (Pre- and Post-Mail Tension): waiting impatiently for e-mail replies from other people
Nanopretenders: companies that have nothing to do with nanotechnology that are attempting to cash in on the nanotech craze
Wife Acceptance Factor (WAF): features added to electronic gizmos and gadgets that make them more appealing to women
Gak factor: the tendency for some online sites (e.g. porn sites) to lose business once a parent or spouse discovers a number of unexplained credit card charges
For more terms and the latest neologisms, be sure to check out the Word Spy site run by Paul McFedries.
Wired News profiles the Wooster Collective, a New York City-based Web site that showcases an array of graffiti and street art from around the world: "Artists and camera-happy passersby send in photos of their works and sightings, and site creators put them up in blog-style postings that ensure the pictures take center stage."
Newsday is the latest New York-area newspaper to jump on the podcasting bandwagon. Podcasting may not yet be a mainstream technology, but the promise is boundless, according to one academic at Columbia University interviewed for the story. Already, there are 4,500 podcasts and 6 million podcast listeners nationwide, plus a vast untapped international marketplace.
What's cool is that initial efforts to integrate podcasting into a broader overall business strategy have been successful. The New York Sharks women's professional football team, for example, has found that podcasting has been a relatively cheap way to extend their audience and brand to new markets. At WNYC/93.9 FM, which started podcasting earlier this year, the results have been especially impressive:
"On the Media, the first NPR podcast, doubled its online listeners in four weeks and each show now gets 11,000 downloads... That rivals a midsize media market, like Kansas City or St. Louis."
A bit of shameless promotion: the article also highlights Gregory Narain (a Corante contributor and podcasting pioneer) and his efforts to bring podcasting to the masses.
You failed to make your numbers this quarter? Fuh-get about a raise then. That's the story at IBM, where the company's top 50 managers will give up pay increases this year after the company had trouble making its sales numbers last quarter. Instead of blaming the overall economic environment or any other external factors, CEO Sam Palmisano was brutally frank:
"We found ourselves struggling in the first quarter. We attribute most of it to our own execution. It was us. It was our inability to close deals."
There could be a bit of bloodletting, too, if recent moves to boost the company's stock price fail to pay off. The New York Daily News reports that IBM is mulling over the prospect of cutting up to 10,000 jobs.
"Describing the Internet as 'the most underutilized advertising medium that's out there,' Morgan Stanley managing director Mary Meeker said broadband adoption, mobile device usage and international growth are opening up a variety of opportunities for marketers, entrepreneurs and investors."
Once broadband Internet penetration rates in the U.S. reach 40-50%, watch out. That's when things really get interesting. According to Meeker, the Internet has "nowhere to go but up."
The New York Stock Exchange recently announced a merger with the electronic trading network Archipelago, and Nasdaq followed that up just days later with a deal for Instinet's electronic trading network. As I argue over at Tech Central Station, the two moves spell the extinction of the Wall Street floor trader:
"In fact, the floor trader could be extinct by the year 2010: according to an informal Wall Street Journal Online survey conducted immediately after news of the NYSE-Archipelago merger broke, a majority of readers expected that the position of the Wall Street floor trader would no longer exist within five years. When that happens, the trading floor of the NYSE -- one of the last remaining places in the world where men wearing peculiar jackets wave pieces of paper in the air, run around frantically between the ringing of bells, and shout out orders into a delirious bedlam of money-making -- will become nothing more than a museum floor for 21st century capitalism, a quaint historical anachronism that failed to keep up with rapidly-changing technology and the needs of market participants."
New York City has 34 biotech companies and Long Island has 20 biotech companies, but did you know that Westchester County is home to 18 public and private companies that employ 1,900 people and generate more than $215 million in revenues each year? Moreover, there's room for even more growth:
"The Westchester biotech cluster could be on the cusp of a healthy growth spurt that could create more jobs and attract even more biotech firms to the area."
Network World published its annual list of 10 Start-ups to Watch - the up-and-coming tech companies with the types of innovative technologies that can solve networking's toughest problems. The only company from New York was OpTier, which develops software for managing transaction workloads.
Now that blogging is "trendy" in some circles, it looks like deep-pocketed media types are actually considering the idea of for-profit blog media publications. According to Gothamist, these celebrity blogging publications - like the one being launched by Arianna Huffington - may not be built for the long-haul:
"[The Huffington Post] seems less that than a celebrity vanity project like, oh, we don't know...maybe like an episode of The Love Boat with more street cred and an ability for readers to comments... Sure, it'll be cool to read what Walter Cronkite thinks, but we fear he'll get bogged down with despamming the system. And don't get us started on wondering if certain celebrities are actually posting or making a minion post for them."
The Wall Street Journal reports that the 800-pound gorillas of the tech sector are ready to wage a bruising, nasty war for the right to control your living room... PC companies are ready to beat up on the consumer electronics companies while the telephone giants are lining up against the cable giants.
Looks like Mel Karmazin of Sirius Satellite Radio is once again floating the idea of melding together satellite radio and MP3 players like the Apple iPod to create the next "killer app." At least, that's the story he's telling CNN/Money. The article notes, however, that "there is no evidence" to suggest that such a union is any closer than it was a few months ago, when execs at Sirius Satellite Radio apparently approached Steve Jobs with the idea. In the meantime, Wall Street analysts continue to salivate over the prospect of such a deal:
"The iPod is the biggest, baddest thing around and satellite radio is this small, cool device. Put them together and it's the ultimate."
Primedia is in talks with investment bankers at Credit Suisse First Boston to sell its Primedia Business Information unit. The unit, which consists of 70 B2B publications, 100+ Web sites and 25 special events, was responsible for about 15-20% of the company's overall revenue last year ($224.8 million of a total $1.3 billion). The move comes amid efforts by the company to slim down and re-focus its energies: in February, for example, Primedia sold off its About.com unit to the New York Times for $410 million.
From the Dow Jones Newswires: New York-based Internet advertising firm DoubleClick has signed a deal to be acquired for $1.1 billion by a West Coast private equity firm. Details are to be released at a 10:00 am conference call, but initial reports suggest that CEO Kevin Ryan could be departing the company once the deal is finalized. The deal values DoubleClick at $8.50 a share. Before rumors of the deal surfaced, shares of the company were trading around the $7.50 mark.
Lenore Skenazy reminds us that it's TV-Turnoff Week... In order to celebrate the end of TV (at least for the next seven days), Skenazy picks up her TV-B-Gone and steps out on the town, zapping TVs in Penn Station and the Hotel Pennsylvania.
The New York Daily News explains that the celebrity blog is more than just another vanity of highly-paid Hollywood starlets. These blogs represent a new way of breaking news and communicating with the fan base, essentially erasing the need for PR handlers, publicists and tabloid editors. According to one New York-based PR expert, "It's an extremely effective way to make certain announcements because it reaches directly to the fan... It's information that is conceived by the public to be coming straight from the celebrity."
Anyone notice that iPod lingo is quickly making its way into our everyday lexicon? Take this example from the Chicago Tribune: "It's clear that Moby's career was in shuffle mode long before the iPod was a blip on the consumer consciousness." (italics added for emphasis) There's also been talk of "pod people" to describe self-absorbed iPod listeners -- a term that has roots in 1980's sci-fi horror films.
What's next? Boxers describing how they gave a "clickwheel" punch instead of a "roundhouse" punch? The "Icky iPod Shuffle" replacing the "Icky Shuffle" as a football endzone dance?
A bunch of New York Stock Exchange insiders, led by former NYSE Chief Executive Richard Grasso and Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone, could be putting together a rival bid to head off any attempt by the NYSE to merge with Archipelago, says the New York Post. From the article, it sounds like the bid is motivated as much by bad blood between these executives and Goldman Sachs than by any real desire to create shareholder value or improve the efficiency of the open-outcry auction model.
By now, it's the worst-kept secret in the blogosphere, but it looks like Arianna Huffington really is starting a blog media project that will feature 250 of the "most creative minds" in the country -- including 88-year-old Walter Cronkite and a host of big names from the worlds of entertainment, media and politics. She's calling it the Huffington Post.
The New York Times takes a closer look at the city's Trips123.com Web site, which was originally scheduled to launch in 1999 and has already cost taxpayers upwards of $20 million. Trips123.com, which provides up-to-date information on travel routes and public transportation schedules, is a creation of the MTA and Port Authority as well as 14 other regional agencies. Eventually, the site will offer $5.95/month subscriptions for travelers who positively, absolutely must have the latest travel info delivered to them as soon as possible.
It's worth pointing out that, despite all this time, effort, and collaboration that went into Trips123.com, another (privately-financed) Web site, HopStop.com, offers much of the same information.
Picking out the perfect running shoe is harder than it sounds, so JackRabbit Sports in Park Slope has installed a video camera and a treadmill in the store so that runners can analyze their running form before selecting the perfect shoe for a particular foot, stride or weight. The sidebar for the New York Times article includes a summary of shoes that were selected by the expert salespersons for a cross-section of customers visiting the store on a recent Saturday.
Can lab rats be trained to detect explosives? That's the premise behind experiments being conducted at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn: "Roborats may someday be the terrorist's worst nightmare —keen, furtive little spies that can be guided into a building through, say, an air duct and then allowed to roam freely to sniff out explosives, toxic chemicals, or other bad stuff."
The U.S. Defense Department is already interested in the experiments, and is encouraging researchers to find other "nosy little creatures for the perilous job, including rats, wasps, honeybees, and even yeast (yes, yeast)."
Fortune takes a look at media mogul Sumner Redstone's strategy to save the $22.5 billion "content colossus" Viacom. It's not clear whether he can pull it off -- and it's certainly not clear whether media conglomerates like Viacom are built to last in today's rapidly-shifting media environment. Over at Tech Central Station, I asked the question that must be dogging Redstone as he scrambles to save his media empire: "Is Viacom Viable?":
"Media conglomerates like Viacom are struggling with a rapidly-shifting media landscape and a number of external forces that threaten to make their former business models obsolete. Technologies like the Internet, TiVo and satellite radio continue to erode traditional broadcast audiences, while at the same time, forcing marketers to rethink how to allocate their advertising dollars. After an $18.4 billion write-down of its assets in February; the exit of senior executive Mel Karmazin last year and the imminent departure of Howard Stern next year (both to Sirius Satellite Radio); and the lingering bad taste created by the news scandals surrounding Dan Rather at CBS News, Viacom is under pressure like never before. In order to adjust to this changing media world, Viacom will need to act quickly and decisively..."
In partnership with Movielink, Verizon is rolling out a new service for broadband customers that will allow Verizon DSL customers to download movies directly to their laptops. The cost of "renting" a movie from Movielink will be $2.99 to $4.99, with a selection offered at 99 cents per download. Once a movie has been downloaded, customers have the option of watching it as many times as they want during any 24-hour period. After 30 days, the movie disappears from the computer.
As a Verizon DSL customer, I haven't been offered this deal, but I hope to test-drive the service sometime in the near future. From the CNET article, it sounds like the all-in cost of watching a movie will be at least $3.98 (99 cents to download, and then $2.99 to rent), which is comparable to what Blockbuster charges ($3.99) at the neighborhood rental store.
Led by Council Member Gale Brewer, the New York City Council is moving ahead with plans to create a nine-member broadband task force to study how affordable broadband access can be made available to all New York City residents, nonprofit organizations and businesses. Over a twelve-month period, the temporary task force will advise the mayor and the city council speaker as to the technical, legal, environmental and economic feasibility of providing affordable, city-wide broadband access.
What's cool is that "affordable broadband" could mean "affordable wireless broadband." The press release from Council Member Brewer specifically mentions the "Wireless Philadelphia" initiative to build and manage a citywide wireless broadband network:
"New York City has much to learn from the ‘Wireless Philadelphia’ initiative. Our challenges are different and our process will likely yield a different solution. But, Philadelphia had the courage and foresight to tackle the most difficult issues surrounding telecommunications, and we must do the same. We must balance New Yorkers’ right to the benefits that broadband access brings with responsible telecommunications growth and policy."
For ongoing coverage of New York's and Philly's plans, stay tuned to Glenn Fleishman at Wi-Fi Net News and Esme Vos at MuniWireless.com.
Cablevision's last-minute $17.1 billion all-cash bid for Adelphia was not enough, according to Bloomberg News. Comcast and Time Warner agreed to buy the bankrupt cable company for $17.6 billion in cash and stock: $12.7 billion in cash and $4.9 billion worth of shares in a cable company Time Warner plans to spin off. According to Bloomberg, the deal will "reinforce Comcast and Time Warner Cable's dominance in the industry."
The New York Post has the scoop on some trashy technology. Queens will be the new home for 50 solar-powered compacting trash cans known as "Big Bellies." These big bellies have big appetites: "Each 50-inch-tall, wireless machine contains solar panels, sensors and internal compaction systems that allow it to hold 300 gallons of compacted garbage." (Traditional garbage cans only handle 40 gallons of garbage.)
"DoubleClick, the one-time darling of dot-com advertising, is nearing an agreement to be sold to Hellman & Friedman in a potential deal that could be worth around $1.2 billion."
Single click, $600 million. Double click, $1.2 billion.
Big news out of the canyons of Wall Street: the New York Stock Exchange will merge its operations with Chicago-based Archipelago, one of the biggest electronic trading systems, to form the NYSE Group. It's a final acknowledgement that the open-outcry system of trading stocks (lots of sweaty guys running around with pieces of paper in their hands and gesticulating wildly) may not be superior to anonymous trading handled electronically:
"The merger is the most significant acknowledgement yet that the Big Board's traditional market, driven by human traders, might not be able to survive in an era increasingly dominated by instantaneous electronic trades."
No doubt the timing of the deal has something to do with news that Nasdaq has been flirting with an acquisition of Instinet, another electronic trading system.
"Mr. Kastner's presentation, "Selling Air: A Real-time 'Mocumentary,'" will present a cohesive e-marketing strategy for fictitious client SkyAwry Inc. in its effort to sell its newly-patented innovation: air! Much like "The Apprentice," this lively session will start off with a bang when a SkyAwry marketing project manager is accused of incompetence, resulting in her firing in the company boardroom. Mr. Kastner will then engage the audience to help develop a fresh cutting edge approach- using the latest in digital technology- to bring the vaporous product to market."
A rogue Internet pharmacy was busted up in Queens, part of a nationwide crackdown on illegal Internet pharmacies by the FBI, FDA, and Customs. The Queens Internet pharmacy was suspected of shipping narcotics, steroids and other illegal substances to buyers (including kids) around the world. In a raid on a New York City warehouse, federal agents discovered "massive quantities of Indian-manufactured generic drugs" that were part of a $5 million Internet drug smuggling ring.
Jason Kottke asks an interesting question: Why did online traffic at the NewYorkTimes.com Web site hit record-breaking levels last month? While the New York Times has always been a favorite resource for bloggers and other online news junkies, it looks like the newspaper did little or nothing special to boost traffic. Kottke points to the New York Times press release and wonders aloud how "content" alone could have been responsible for the spike in traffic:
"Having some experience building and running content-based web sites, I'm skeptical the specific content offered by the NY Times is the whole story here. (This is a bit like Amazon saying their sales increased mostly because the quality of the books offered went up.)"
For those keeping track, the New York Times had 555 million page views in March, a nifty little 17% increase compared to the year-earlier period.
Marketing guru Joseph Jaffe has a new book available for pre-order on Amazon: Life After the 30-Second Spot: Energize Your Brand With a Bold Mix of Alternatives to Traditional Advertising. The old marketing is dead, time for the new marketing. Marketers who grew up with the 30-second TV commercial now need to reach consumers at a time when many TV viewers can simply TiVo past any commercial. That is -- if consumers are even watching TV anymore... The book won't be available until mid-May, but if his presentation at the New York Digital Marketing Conference and Expo yesterday is any indication of what's in the book, it's a keeper.
Jaffe was a whirlwind of top-level strategic thinking ("horizontal integration" vs. "vertical integration"), buzzwords ("interconsumpatibility), humor, funky graphics, marketing speak, word games and a load of metaphors. What is the Internet? Is it a medium? A technology? An enabler? An integrator? Or maybe it's Grand Central Station... (think about that one for awhile)
You can check out more of Jaffe's ideas at his Jaffe Juice blog.
After reportedly scuttling plans to build a new 1.9 million square foot tower in Battery Park City, Goldman Sachs is now looking around for a midtown alternative, according to the New York Post. The only problem, say insiders, is that another alternative in Manhattan may not exist: "Try finding a site than can immediately accommodate a nearly 2 million square-foot tower." For now, Plan B appears to be something along the lines of the Hotel Pennsylvania site on Seventh Avenue at 33rd Street -- but that would require demolishing the hotel and then designing and building a super-skyscraper from scratch. That's doable, of course, but Goldman needs a new HQ by 2008, when a number of downtown leases are set to expire.
New York-Presbyterian Hospital has made two RSS feeds available -- "Health in the News" and "Hospital News." (Hat tip: Micro Persuasion) Look for more companies and organizations to experiment with RSS as a way to keep customers in the loop.
Looks like Cablevision hasn't given up on its acquisition bid for Adelphia: Newsday reports that Cablevision has upped its offer to $17.1 billion in an attempt to outbid Time Warner and Comcast. The company's earlier all-cash offer was for $16.5 billion. So... the question for Adelphia (and its creditors) is whether the $18 billion cash-and-stock offer from Time Warner and Comcast is superior to the $17.1 billion all-cash bid from Cablevision.
Actually, it's not quite as easy as that. There's also the matter of the breakup fee:
"Adelphia has agreed that if it switches to a bidder other than Time Warner and Comcast, it will pay them a breakup fee of 2.5% of the sale price, equal to nearly $450 million at current bidding levels."
NBC executives are bouncing around the idea of giving blogs to the network's top news anchors as a way of retaining their TV audiences. That means Brian Williams and Katie Couric could soon join the blogosphere. NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker comments on the possible role of blogs at NBC:
"Over the next two years, network news is going to go through a lot more changes. This is one of the biggest issues facing traditional network news divisions. I don't know why Brian Williams isn't blogging right now. We should be looking for a more interactive component ... and be experimenting more."
ClickZ has details about a new 21-page DoubleClick report that takes a look back at the last decade in online advertising. According to ClickZ, the report highlights two macro trends: "A seller's market is emerging in online advertising and consumer control over media is escalating." The report, which was released at the Digital Marketing Conference & Expo in New York, also includes a look at rich media, search, and the exploding world of blogs.
At the annual meeting of Dow Jones shareholders, a number of top institutional investors could try to flex their muscles, according to the New York Post: " Major shareholders may try today to break through the wall surrounding the Wall Street Journal's family controlled empire." A number of items are on the agenda -- voting against a bylaw change that would strengthen the hand of the Bancroft founding family, acting to strip CEO Peter Kann of his chairman position, and casting a no-confidence vote against absentee board member Vernon Jordan.
In These Times asks a provocative question -- Is Low-Cost Wi-Fi Un-American? -- in order to point out that representatives from Verizon, Qwest, Comcast and a bevy of other telecom heavies are doing their best to stamp out free or low-cost Wi-Fi:
"Just as the notion of affordable broadband for all was beginning to take hold in towns and cities across the country, the patriots at Verizon, Qwest, Comcast, Bell South and SBC Communications have created legislation that will stop the creeping socialism of broadband community Internet before it invades our homes...
Telecommunications giants have mobilized a well-funded army of coin-operated think tanks, pliant legislators and lazy journalists who stand ready to paint community Internet as an affront to American innovation and free enterprise. Their weapon of choice is industry-crafted legislation that restricts local governments from offering public service Internet access at reasonable rates..."
Hot off the presses: on April 20, the New York City Podcasting Association will hold its first-ever meeting at Kamen Entertainment Group's recording studios in Times Square.
After a recent New York Times piece about bloggers getting fired for sharing tidbits about their workplaces, BL Ochman's What's Next blog is conducting an interesting experiment about the ability of the blogosphere to propagate ideas throughout the mainstream media:
"I've decided to start an unscientific project tracking how long it takes a story to get from the blogosphere to The New York Times. In the case of bloggers getting fired for what they write on their personal blogs, it's been about five months, according to this BlogPulse conversation tracker."
Martha Stewart may still be under house arrest, but that didn't stop her from inking an exclusive four-year, multi-million deal with Sirius Satellite Radio to create and launch a new satellite radio channel. Martha's newest creation will offer classic Martha Stewart programming (cooking, gardening, housekeeping) 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In just the past six weeks, she has already signed deals to create two new television programs ("The Apprentice" and "Everyday Food"). Now there's satellite radio. What's next -- a Martha Stewart podcast series?
UPDATE: Business Week says the four-year deal is worth $30 million.
As seen on AdRants: ZDNet is auctioning off advertising time on podcasts hosted by David Berlind via eBay. The winning bidder will receive a 60 second sponsorship slot on five of the podcasts. It's all for a good cause since proceeds go to tsunami relief.
CIO Magazine profiles Verizon's chief information officer, Shaygan Kheradpir, in a nice feature called "Sleepless in Manhattan." So what's an average day like for Kheradpir? He works 10 or 12 hours a day, takes a break, and then goes back online for three or four hours every night. Oh, and don't forget about the conference calls that happen around midnight, the e-mails sent out at times during the night when most people are catching up on their REM sleep, and the morning phone calls that take place literally "first thing" in the morning.
If you need more than two or three hours' worth of power from the batteries powering your laptop computer, NY1's Adam Balkin has some good news for you:
"IBM and Sanyo have teamed up to create a prototype fuel cell battery for laptop computers that promises up to eight hours of life – that's double, maybe even triple what you get now. If this all sounds familiar that's because this is the same type of fuel cell technology being tested out for cars right now, such as the Toyota Prius."
The article points out that Hitachi and Toshiba are also working on fuel cell batteries that may be able to power cell phones, PDAs and MP3 players.
"Podcasting sounds like something you'd do with a rod and a reel, but it's actually the latest iPod phenomenon. A sort of on-demand radio broadcast downloaded straight to your MP3 player, podcasts give you the freedom to roam around the city - even underground - listening to your favorite radio program."
In New York, WNYC is one of the first radio stations experimenting with podcasting, and the station's director of programming explains why podcasting's style of do-it-yourself radio is catching on: "The appeal of podcasts is that they are a way for people to be empowered with their media - they get to listen to the things they want to hear, when they want to hear it."
Alan Meckler weighs in on the advertising "slump" at the Wall Street Journal and New York Times:
"Both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are having a rough go with traditional ad space revenues. Both companies blame less tech and financial ad spending. There is truth in this assertion. But the problem is deeper. The Internet is grabbing more and more ad dollars."
Meckler than explains how a number of trends are creating the perfect storm for traditional newspapers. In response, look for forward-thinking publishers like Rupert Murdoch to shake things up and experiment with new ideas in response to the changing times:
"Newspapers will always be with us, but as more and more people use the Internet, newspapers are going to become smaller and smaller and will have to rely on Web traffic to work in tandem with the print editions in order to be economically viable."
How many strategic partners can an early-stage start-up really work with? According to New York VC Ed Sim, the answer is one. That's right, one. Sim explains:
"I can't tell you how many early stage companies I talk to tout their great list of partners. I always step back in amazement at how a small company can support more than one, really large partner in the beginning."
If an early-stage company claims to have a handful of partners, take a closer look to see whether the partner is really adding anything to the bottom line. If the partner is just there for show (i.e. another pretty face on a Web site), then the partnership is really nothing more than a "Barney press release":
"In my mind, if you and your partner are not generating revenue for each other than it isn't a real partnership but rather just a Barney press release. Yeah, you know the "I love you, you love me" kind of partnership that sucks precious resources from a startup and yields no value and no customers."
With that in mind, Sim provides five rules of engagement for making any strategic partnership work. It's hard work, and the fun is just starting once the two parties sign on the dotted line.
In Sunday's New York Times, James Fallows (a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly) provides a "Where are they now?" update on some cool gadgets & gizmos that have previously appeared in the paper, like Skype, Google Maps (now with satellite imagery), and mind-mapping software for the Mac.
The Globe and Mail points out that some tourists are now using their cellphones as tour guides:
"Move over dusty ol' guidebook, there's a new kid in town: the cellphone. Our beloved gadgets are now leading us through zoos, and allowing celebrities such as Steven Tyler and Sigourney Weaver to show us around Boston and New York."
Audio guides for the cellphone are available for $5.95 at TalkingStreet.com, which offers the option of Sigourney Weaver narrating a tour of Lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center site and Jerry Stiller providing audio commentary for a tour of the Lower East Side.
The creator of Talking Street, Miles Kronby, explains the appeal of using the cellphone as a tour guide: "Our interest is to make these tours as rich as possible, with other voices, not just dry readings from a guide book into a phone. We're aiming for something well beyond that. Something vivid and interactive, to make you feel like you're in the middle of it all."
Paul Tharp of the New York Post has details on how Peter Kann is reorganizing the management team at the Wall Street Journal in response to a four-year "ad slump." (Just asking: At the four-year mark, doesn't a "slump" get promoted to something a bit more serious?) Here's how Kann avoided getting Kanned:
"Kann yesterday promoted the Journal's top marketing and ad executive, Scott Schulman, to take over a new post of chief strategy officer at the parent, Dow Jones & Co. Replacing Schulman is Judy Barry, a former ace ad executive at the New York Times until she was poached by the Journal six months ago to help stop its steep ad decline. Schulman will report directly to Kann on the rescue strategy, while Barry will report directly to Kann's wife, Karen House, the Journal's publisher."
That might be part of the problem -- Kann's wife is part of the management team? In the immortal words of Captain Kirk, "Kaannn!"
Tom Watson has a great post on why the new "Thursday Styles" section of the New York Times (which replaced the popular "Circuits" section) is DOA after only one issue:
"The hapless, befuddled executive editor of The New York Times and his primogeniture-cursed boss have added the pathetic ThursdayStyles to their lineup of special sections, replacing the popular Circuits, which covered consumer technology. The result is a public humiliation for the newspaper, happy guffaws thumping from the chests of rivals, chump change from advertisers peddling luxe goods, and more evidence that the citadel on West 43rd Street is even further out of touch wit
