AllThingsD » premium

Key Strategic -- And Digitally Inclined -- CBS Exec Lurie Departs

Kara Swisher — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:00:48 +0000

Zander Lurie — CBS’s SVP of strategic development, who worked on a number of its key digital initiatives — is leaving the media giant.

Lurie has been involved in everything from the company’s acquisition of Clicker to its recent spate of licensing deals for digital distribution of its premium content to the integration of its CNET tech news unit.

He does not have another job lined up, but is looking for an operational role, he said in an interview.

Lurie was CFO of CBS Interactive, before moving to his corporate role. Previously, he worked on M&A at CNET.

“CBS is now at a place where everything is really integrated and working between all the digital platforms and our sports, news and entertainment products,” said Lurie. “So, I want to get out and build something new and from the ground up.”

Silver Lake Grabs Large Minority Stake of WME to Push Digital Initiatives

Kara Swisher — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:59:41 +0000

Large private equity firm Silver Lake is buying a large stake in powerful Hollywood talent agency William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, which is being described as a way to turbocharge its digital efforts.

While the pair would not disclose any financial details of the deal, which they are calling a “strategic partnership,” sources said Silver Lake is acquiring 31 percent of WME.

“Over the years, we have been brick-building, as we have been doing more and more digitally,” said Patrick Whitesell, co-CEO of WME with Ari Emanuel, in an interview today. “But the opportunities are so vast, there is a need for more capital to do more.”

Whitesell and Emanuel said they had been considering a range of investors, especially among media entities, but that they wanted to work with Silver Lake since it had more digital experience as an active investor in technology.

Skype, for example, was the driver of the sale of Internet telephony giant Skype to Microsoft for $8.5 billion, while WME reps stars such as Matt Damon and Hugh Jackman, among others.

“In addition to capital, we really wanted a partner that to help us build it out that had more technology expertise,” said Emanuel. “We are good with brands and creative and talent, but there are many more Silicon Valley opportunities.”

In fact, WME has long tried to up its digital portfolio to respond to the needs of its clients and the changing nature of entertainment distribution as consumer Internet use has exploded. That’s included a digital advertising effort, as well as one in online gaming.

Silver Lake, which has most recently looked at investing in Yahoo, it was a chance to get closer to a trove of premium entertainment content.

“You have two forces at play, ubiquitous distribution and four billion people connected,” said Silver Lake’s Egon Durban. “As that distribution has been commoditized, the only way to differentiate is through A-plus content.”

Along with the core investment, WME and Silver Lake said they will also be considering other possible deals together as they move forward.

“There is nothing we like more than handing our best partners more money,” said Durban, who will join WME executive committee and also help create a technology advisory counsel at the firm.

Calling Marc Andreessen! Actually, in an interesting factoid, it was the well-known tech investor and entrepreneur who introduced Durban to Emanuel.

But this movie has been shown before and is not the first Hollywood-tech hookup to happen. A variety of efforts have waxed and waned over the years — most of which have largely been underwhelming.

Last year, for example, Accel Partners invested $40 million in Legendary Pictures and, back in 2008, Accel, the then William Morris Agency and AT&T formed an investment consortium to focus on Southern California start-ups.

Most closely related was the 2010 deal, in which TPG Capital took a 35 percent stake in Creative Artists Agency.

Here is the official press release on the Silver Lake-WME deal:

WME Press Release_5 02 12_FINAL

As Nintendo Fades, Zynga Continues to Grow

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 16:48:12 +0000

It’s a battle between Mario and the farm, and the farm seems to be winning.

Yesterday, Nintendo reported an annual loss — its first in more than three decades — after revenues fell 36 percent. Hours later, five-year-old upstart Zynga reported nearly the opposite results, saying that first-quarter revenues jumped 32 percent year over year.

“Social, accessible and free are changing things,” said Zynga’s COO John Schappert in an interview. “We were built for this market; we live on free and in-app purchases. We never grew up on $60 games and consoles. It’s a different world, and it’s hard for some companies as they make the transition.”

For more than a year, the game industry has worried about the shift toward social and mobile from more traditional platforms like the home console. And now, after yesterday’s two drastically different financial reports, there is more than anecdotal evidence for concern.

Zynga continues to gain momentum and attract larger audiences with titles like FarmVille and CastleVille on Facebook and Words With Friends on mobile. On the flipside, Nintendo is facing yet another hardware cycle, with consumers waiting for its newest console, the Wii U, coming later this year.

Generally, experts believe that social and mobile games are expanding the overall games market. But yesterday it was hard not to see Nintendo’s first loss in three decades — totaling $531.1 million — as a hint of where things are headed.

Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, is bullish on Zynga’s prospects but is not optimistic about the future of console games.

“Nintendo is living in the past, repeating what got them to where they are, and hoping that the recent downturn is a fad,” he said. “They aren’t adapting to the times, and it’s hurting them.”

To be fair, the companies approach the market completely differently, so it’s hard to compare the two.

Nintendo sells proprietary portable and home gaming units as well as the games that work on top of them. Meanwhile, Zynga gives away its games for free and lets them work across most computers and mobile phones. It makes money on advertising and microtransactions.

The two approaches lead to drastically different audience sizes.

Zynga said the number of monthly active users playing its games increased to 292 million in the first quarter, up 24 percent. The game company, which got its start on Facebook, is also expanding rapidly to mobile, reporting that it had 22 million monthly users on mobile, up from only 12 million one quarter ago.

Nintendo does not break out quarterly figures, but the number of new customers it reached during its fiscal year pales in comparison. Over the past year, it sold 13.53 million 3DS units, and expects to sell 18.5 million this year. Nintendo sold 9.84 million Wiis over the past year, down 35 percent.

This year, Nintendo is banking on the Wii U to revive the company and to better position itself against mobile devices like the iPad. The new console will come with a 6.2-inch touchscreen that will allow users to interact in a new way with games on TV screens. It plans to sell 10.5 million Wii units this year, including the Wii U.

Last year, Nintendo Global President Satoru Iwata told AllThingsD in an interview that he is not willing to gamble on free-to-play games, because consumers are willing to pay for Nintendo’s superior experiences and brands.

“If we were simply going to say okay, the only the way we could sell more products is by decreasing the price, then there wouldn’t be a bright future, and the entire industry will fold,” he said.

His point is not entirely lost.

Zynga makes far less money per user than Nintendo. In fact, the gap between them is enormous.

Each console or portable game unit Nintendo sells has the opportunity to generate hundreds of dollars in income, since console games cost $60 and portable games cost around $40 (not to mention the initial cost of the hardware).

Meanwhile, Zynga makes very little on each player. It reports a metric called average daily bookings per average daily active users (ABPU). Yesterday, Zynga said ABPU increased to $0.055 in the first quarter from $0.051 in the same period a year earlier.

For Nintendo to switch from one model to the other would be like giving up the farm.

And to be entirely fair, Zynga wasn’t profitable, either. In the first quarter it lost $85 million, primarily due to stock-based compensation.

HBO Digital Head Alison Moore Talks About HBO Go and More! (Video)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:26:23 +0000

Earlier this week, HBO co-Presidents Eric Kessler and Richard Plepler hosted a cocktail party in San Francisco, along with a screening of HBO’s latest original film, “Game Change.”

The idea of the event was to get the Time Warner-owned premium cable channel some much-needed cred among the tech press in Silicon Valley, as well as to talk up its slick and well-done streaming service, HBO Go.

Kessler said that HBO would soon be adding Microsoft’s Xbox 360 to the many connected devices to which HBO Go now distributes the channel’s content. So far, the HBO Go app has been downloaded six million times and is available via cable operators.

Alison Moore, SVP of digital platforms at HBO, talked about that and more in this video interview I did here:

[ See post to watch video ]

Hey, Yahoo: When You Act Like a Media Company, I Like You (I Really Like You)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:15:26 +0000

Last night, I did the unthinkable, and actually drove myself through rush hour traffic in Silicon Valley to go to an event in San Jose.

I did this for three good reasons.

First, it was to see Bill Maher’s “CrazyStupidPolitics: Live From Silicon Valley” show, which was being being broadcast live and exclusively on Yahoo Screen, the Internet giant’s video destination. The event launched the Yahoo Comedy Channel, which will offer premium original video from some top talent for free, underwritten by advertisers.

Second, Maher is really, really funny, and even better in stand-up than on his HBO cable show.

Third, some Yahoos always think I am too mean to the company and don’t focus on what it’s doing right.

To be fair, that’s because it has not been doing much right when it comes to stabilizing leadership, handling its longtime moribund board, and giving non-cat-wrangling direction to its talented pool of much-beleaguered employees.

Thus — with some sort of usually self-inflicted fire drill going on all the time — there is a lot for me to report on, from persistent attrition to declining metrics to the latest bickering with its Asian partners.

Which is why it was a pleasure to see the Maher event and then also watch it online, because it was done by Yahoo with the kind of beautiful ease that it used to roll out all the time from its media properties.

When I say pleasure, it is a major compliment, since making and presenting content on the Web has usually ended in pain. Google-owned YouTube, as successful as it is, still hurts my eyes when I watch it, and has not yet become the kind of environment that big brands would want to live in for a long time.

But, from its very first day, without a lot of fuss and noise, Yahoo has created and distributed some of the very best online content experiences from its undersung media units, whether it was Yahoo Finance or Yahoo Sports or Yahoo News.

While there were some notable misses — there was a strange original news show produced in Web 1.0 that was so bad it was good — Yahoo has always had a strong talent for media distribution, and has the huge audience to aim it at.

What has been a shame is the lessening focus the media side has gotten, despite its success over the many years, and even though many of its channels have long been No. 1 across the Web.

The often short shrift has been largely due to the faux struggle between whether Yahoo was a media company or a technology one. It has been an exhausting and toxic debate within Yahoo over the years, with no clear conclusion.

But here’s the truth: The Maher event showed that what Yahoo can do well is be a high-level, high-quality, highly selective distributor of media of all kinds to millions upon millions of users.

This has been and can still be — if properly organized, staffed and sold — a very good business for Yahoo, which has always treated it like some sideshow, rather than the main one.

I get that, of course — why be in a media business, when the pickings are so good in search, commerce, social … whatever?

Why? Well, because a terrific guide of all sorts of media experiences online is what Yahoo was from its very start, and what it has since tried not to be as definitively.

Having covered Yahoo from its very beginnings, it has been a lot like watching someone you think looks good in one outfit change into one ill-fitting and inappropriate get-up after the next in search of the right image.

But if the company only cared to take a look at how well and seemingly effortlessly it pulled off the Maher event, it would know immediately what it has always done well is what it should always be doing.

The Maher live offering was not fancy and it was not flashy and it did not have all kinds of the latest trends hanging all over it.

It was just good, well done and well worth a watch, whether in person or at home. And it was very, very funny.

It would be nice, then, if Yahoo learned to laugh like this much more often.

Here are some of the clips from Maher’s patter to enjoy:

After Stock Got Whacked Last Week, Demand Media Readies Its Q4 Story for Wall Street

Kara Swisher — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:27:10 +0000

A little more than a week ago, Morgan Stanley kneecapped Demand Media’s stock by downgrading the Santa Monica, Calif., online content company’s prospects.

Some worries: Pressure from algorithm-tweaking Google, upon which Demand relies heavily for traffic; worrisome drops in said traffic due to said tweaking; and not enough uptake on higher-quality, premium stories the company had promised in the fall.

Demand shares fell 6.5 percent that day, to close at $5.93.

It has recovered a bit to $6.13 today, but is still off almost 8 percent since the beginning of the year, and 71 percent from a year ago.

One irony to the tough call by Scott Devitt, of course, was that Morgan Stanley was the investment bank that had taken Demand public in January of 2011, at $17 a share.

In addition, the recent departure of three of the company’s six founders has also worried investors.

All this will presumably be on display today when Demand reports its fourth-quarter earnings. Wall Street analysts are expecting Demand to earn seven cents a share on an adjusted basis on an expected $81.95 million in revenue.

We’ll see after the market closes, as well as what its execs have to say about the key metrics of costs and traffic.

Viral Video: Hulu's Original "Paul, the Male Matchmaker" Set to Debut

Kara Swisher — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:57:06 +0000

Here’s the trailer for Hulu’s latest original content offering about a very unusual matchmaker.

That’s irksome “Paul, the Male Matchmaker,” a 10-episode spoof series from Warner Bros. Television Group’s Studio 2.0, which will debut on the premium video service on Feb. 13.

Get it? The day before Valentine’s Day.

It’s got the same tone as Lisa Kudrow’s successful (and now on cable television’s Showtime) “Web Therapy,” with lots of well-known guest stars.

I kind of like it from the teaser here, but we’ll see:

Was New Year's Eve a Netflix Moment for Uber?

Lauren Goode — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:10:24 +0000

On New Year’s Eve, some users of Uber’s driver-on-demand service discovered that a quick tap of a smartphone app could cost them $75 or more for a ride across town, thanks to demand-based pricing.

But despite the fact that some customers were dismayed, Uber isn’t throwing in the towel on dynamic pricing. In fact, the company, which is usually very transparent about its surge pricing plans, is considering whether to raise fares regularly on weekends.

Could this be a Netflix-like moment for small start-up Uber, just as it’s trying to grow?

You’re probably thinking, and rightly so, that Netflix and Uber are two very different companies: Netflix is a 14-year-old public company that faces tough competition in a growing premium video-streaming market; as of the quarter ending Sept. 30, it had around 24 million subscribers. Uber is a 1-and-a-half-year-old start-up using a mobile phone application to create a marketplace that connects consumers with a limited number of town-car drivers. Netflix is available in the U.S., Canada and 43 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean; Uber currently operates in six U.S. cities and in Paris. Subscribers pay a monthly fee to Netflix; Uber users pay per ride.

But Netflix provides a recent example of price adjustments that resulted in negative consumer reaction, to put it mildly. The company said last July that it was eliminating the option to combine DVD and streaming video services, and in doing so, hiked the price by 60 percent for consumers who wanted both options. Netflix’s stock plunged; the company later cut its guidance by one million subscribers, and eventually reversed its plans to offer a DVD-only service.

As Uber has explained a few times now, the sticker shock some customers experienced on New Year’s Eve was the result of surge pricing, which Uber has started putting into effect on nights when drivers might be busier than usual. Travis Kalanick, Uber’s founder and CEO, has pointed out that if Uber doesn’t make it worth its drivers’ while to be on the platform, there won’t be any drivers available.

When it comes to tech products and services, users often don’t react well to change — at first. Professionals and consumers alike become accustomed to a product, and some initially see change as disruptive to their productivity or proficiency in that tool. There’s also often a backlash when the change results in a threat — real or perceived — to privacy, as we’ve seen with reactions to Facebook’s ever-evolving settings.

But when the change ultimately costs users or subscribers something they can peg a dollar amount to — such as the Netflix price change, or as with last week’s Verizon Wireless convenience fee — the options being weighed become that much clearer for the consumer.

In other words: Should I stay, or should I go now?

Uber does not have to worry about shareholders, or FCC scrutiny. The number of complaints logged — 97 disgruntled users and 15 whose Uber apps on their smartphones might not have been working correctly — was a small percentage of the thousands of Uber rides that were booked on New Year’s Eve. It could be said that this is more of an Airbnb moment than a Netflix moment for Uber: A case of a small start-up needing to do a little damage control.

From a business perspective, Kalanick says, New Year’s Eve was still a success. Early-stage Uber investor Jason Calacanis tweeted that he “loves” Uber’s surge pricing, as it ensures availability. (Calacanis did not immediately respond to AllThingsD’s request for comment on his tweet.)

Love uber’s surge pricing as it helps drivers & ensures availability. 5x 3 days a year is ok by me. #angelinvestment http://t.co/v2XuLT80

January 1, 2012 6:44 pm via Tweet Button ReplyRetweetFavorite

@Jason

Jason Calacanis

Another regular Uber user, SproutSocial CEO Justyn Howard, said he used Uber on New Year’s Eve, and noted that his car ride didn’t seem any different than usual. He said he believes Uber is especially good with data-driven strategy, and that supply-and-demand management will become easier for Uber over time. “Overall, I expect the feedback and data gathered from NYE will be put to good use,” Howard said.

Uber is currently refunding some unhappy customers, on a case-by-case basis.

But for Uber, and many other start-up companies, reaching the average consumer will be critical if it wants to grow into a bigger company. By working with town-car companies and not taxis — as some other app platforms do — and charging a $7 to $8 base fare for rides, Uber is already a company that delivers a premium service that not everyone can afford.

If Uber institutes dynamic pricing on regular weekend nights, the company could solve the problem of ensuring there are enough drivers willing to opt in to Uber’s app platform, but at the risk of losing out on customers that aren’t willing to pay two times or more the standard fare.

The tech-savvy crowd, after the initial sticker shock, might accept this.

The “normals,” however, will likely stand outside a little longer hailing taxi cabs — or find other means of getting around town.

(Image courtesy of Flickr/McSmith86)

PopCap Says Making Bejeweled Free Will Lead to a New High Score (Video)

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:00:58 +0000

PopCap has big goals for Bejeweled, an 11-year-old puzzle game that challenges players to line up three or more matching jewels in order to clear them from the board.

For players, the goal is to clear as many gems as possible, but going forward, PopCap’s goal is to get as many people as possible to play the game.

To do so, the company’s strategy is to make it free.

AllThingsD visited PopCap’s Seattle office this week, and caught up with Giordano Bruno Contestabile, franchise business director for Bejeweled, to see how the game is evolving after more than a decade.

Earlier this year, PopCap was acquired by Electronic Arts for up to $1 billion, thanks to Bejeweled and other hit games, including Plants vs. Zombies.

Up until now, players had to pay for Bejeweled in order to play it, but PopCap has recently launched free versions on Facebook and the iPhone.

In the free version, players can challenge others to score as many points as possible in one minute. They have the option to pay for “power boosts” to increase their odds.

A paid version on the iPhone allows players to knock out gems without a time limit.

With the switch to the free-to-play model, Contestabile said, PopCap has a way of reaching a half a billion users, up from 40 million paid users. That’s comparable to Rovio, which claims to have achieved 600 million downloads in two years — both free and paid.

In this video interview, Contestabile talks about the benefits of the approach, while also disclosing that Microsoft and Electronic Arts had the chance to buy the game a decade ago for cheap, but passed:

[ See post to watch video ]

BermanBraun to Launch Three Non-HuffPost Sites -- Including Weather -- for AOL

Kara Swisher — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:27:24 +0000

In a deal that was struck some time ago and is close to fruition, BermanBraun is prepping three major Web properties for AOL that will focus on pets, men and, interestingly, the weather.

After I inquired, AOL confirmed that the Hollywood production company — headed by former Yahoo and ABC exec Lloyd Braun and former Paramount exec Gail Berman — will debut the trio of sites around March. The new sites will use rich features and a slick design to attract premium advertisers.

The pair will jointly sell the advertising, but the sites themselves will be operated by BermanBraun in cooperation with AOL’s media unit, the Huffington Post Media Group. The deal was struck in late 2010, before AOL bought the Huffington Post for $300 million in January of this year.

While AOL has partnered with many outside sites, this will be the most prominent one since that acquisition.

Since then, much of the new content development on AOL has been aimed at drastically increasing the number of sites with that brand. There have been more than two dozen of those since March.

In this case, the Huffington Post Media Group, run by Arianna Huffington, has typically either created new topic sites or relaunched old AOL ones.

This week, for example, the company rejiggered AOL TV as HuffPost TV, as well as announcing El Huffington Post, an international Spanish-language version of the Huffington Post that will debut in early 2012, in partnership with El País.

The BermanBraun effort, though, is more independent and large-scale. It will feature extensive video and heavy use of imagery. Huffington Post will be involved in editorial selection, and has been working closely with the firm on incorporating social elements.

“It’s been a very dynamic and collaborative partnership — we’ve worked together on everything from design to picking the editors,” said Roy Sekoff, founding editor of the Huffington Post Media Group, about the arrangement. “BermanBraun brings a distinctive approach to their sites, and we’ve helped infuse that with our focus on real-time, social, and building community.”

Sekoff declined to give more details, such as the names of the sites. (They won’t be HuffPost Pets, HuffPost Weather and HuffPost Dudes, though!)

Pets could be a strong category if done in a new way, especially if designed with new tablet devices in mind. And weather, to my mind, is a sleeper category if reimagined freshly.

BermanBraun — which also develops television shows and movies — has a lot of experience in the online content arena. It has previously created Web sites for Microsoft’s MSN unit, including the high-profile celebrity site Wonderwall.

It will be interesting to see how the collaboration turns out. In the meantime, here’s my favorite weather song — Lena Horne rules! — to enjoy until the three sites launch:

Peter Chernin on Hollywood, Asia Growth and Not Yahoo: The Full AsiaD Interview (Video)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:34:20 +0000

We are now posting the full videos from the recent AsiaD conference, which took place in Hong Kong in October.

We’re following the schedule of the actual event. Up now: Hollywood mogul Peter Chernin.

The much-respected entertainment exec, who was the longtime president of News Corp. (which owns this Web site), now runs his own production company in Santa Monica, Calif.

Chernin Entertainment has had some big early successes, including the hit movie “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” and the adorkable television show “New Girl.”

But Chernin has always been much more Internet-curious than the average Hollywood mogul. He was deeply involved in the creation of the Hulu premium video service, and now serves on the board of the Pandora online music site. He’s also been giving the troubled situation at Yahoo a look-see with some private equity firms.

Chernin declined to talk about this deal in an onstage interview with Peter Kafka, but he does discuss the prospects for the old media world in the digital age, and the giant opportunities in Asia:

[ See post to watch video ]

Former Top Yahoo Sales Exec Weishaupt Joins Criteo

Kara Swisher — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:13:35 +0000

Well-known online advertising exec Frank Weishaupt, who recently ran North American marketplaces for Yahoo, will join ad display performance firm Criteo to head up sales.

Weishaupt, who left Yahoo several months ago, will be based in Boston and will be hiring up to 100 salespeople. He’ll report to another former top Yahoo sales exec, Criteo President Greg Coleman.

Interestingly, one of the pair’s most pressing challenges going forward will be the recent move of Yahoo to block “retargeting” firms.

In a post last week, Peter Kafka wrote that Yahoo told Criteo and others that “it would stop selling them its ‘Class 2’ remnant inventory, which the companies used to purchase on behalf of clients and essentially resell at a premium. The idea, theoretically, is that Yahoo will sell more of those ads itself.”

Here’s the official press release:

CRITEO TAPS FRANK WEISHAUPT AND EXPANDS FOOTPRINT; OPENS BOSTON OFFICE

Leading online advertising performance platform expands US presence with Boston office and hires Former Yahoo! digital media veteran

PALO ALTO, CA — (NOVEMBER 14, 2011) – Criteo, the global leader in performance display today announced that Frank Weishaupt, former Vice President, North American Advertising Marketplaces at Yahoo!, will join the company as SVP of Sales. The company also announced the continued expansion into the US Market with the opening of an office in Boston, which will focus on sales and service to mid-market advertisers and publishers. With offices in over three continents, Criteo now employees over 400 employees while serving personalized ads on behalf of over 1200 e-commerce clients across 20 countries globally.

“Criteo is committed to bringing performance to the display advertising landscape,” said Greg Coleman, President of Criteo. “I am thrilled to have Frank, a true industry veteran with a very successful track record of scaling sales organizations, join the team to continue our momentum. Our goal at Criteo is to bring our solution to a wide variety of advertisers and publishers, and Frank will be focused on helping meet that objective.”

As a 15 year digital media veteran, one of Weishaupt’s key priorities will be to build a sales organization in Boston focused on mid-market advertisers and publishers. Weishaupt has been a key part of exponential growth for several of the world’s most influential digital media companies.

“Criteo has created a name for itself as the global leader in performance display advertising. I am excited to have joined a company that is committed to growth and a team with such passion to drive this industry forward,” said Frank Weishaupt, SVP of Sales at Criteo.

Prior to joining Criteo, Weishaupt held several key management at Yahoo! over a 10-year period. Most recently he had General Management responsibilities for the US Display, Search, and Ad Technology businesses. The focus of the role was overall monetization strategy, pricing and yield management, strategic direction of the Yahoo! Ad Network, and general management of the ad platforms and global exchange.

Weishaupt holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Northeastern University.

Criteo is hiring and looking for team members to join the global leader in performance online advertising marketing.

Adobe Admits It Is Saying Buh-Bye to Flash for Mobile Devices

Kara Swisher — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:15:30 +0000

In a blog post by one of its execs, titled “Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5,” Adobe said what had already been reported: That it would no longer be developing its well-known Flash for mobile devices.

Here’s the key graph:

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.”

Last night, reports surfaced that the high-profile software company — whose Flash technology has been a flagship product — was halting development on the mobile version of its browser plug-in.

Now, Adobe will focus its PC Web browser business on tools that allow Flash developers to create mobile apps by packaging their code to run on Adobe’s AIR platform.

The move has big implications for Adobe going forward and also for mobile device makers, such as Google and Research In Motion. But not Apple.

As Ina Fried wrote:

“The move, if true, would be a major blow to Android device makers, who have long touted Flash compatibility as a key competitive advantage over Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

It would also mark a posthumous vindication for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products.”

Turns out Jobs was prescient, as usual.

Here is the full version of the Adobe blog:

Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5

POSTED BY DANNY WINOKUR, VICE PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER, INTERACTIVE DEVELOPMENT AT ADOBE ON NOVEMBER 9, 2011 5:59 AM IN BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS, CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS, DEVELOPERS, VIDEO

Adobe is all about enabling designers and developers to create the most expressive content possible, regardless of platform or technology. For more than a decade, Flash has enabled the richest content to be created and deployed on the web by reaching beyond what browsers could do. It has repeatedly served as a blueprint for standardizing new technologies in HTML. Over the past two years, we’ve delivered Flash Player for mobile browsers and brought the full expressiveness of the web to many mobile devices.

However, HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.

These changes will allow us to increase investment in HTML5 and innovate with Flash where it can have most impact for the industry, including advanced gaming and premium video. Flash Player 11 for PC browsers just introduced dozens of new features, including hardware accelerated 3D graphics for console-quality gaming and premium HD video with content protection. Flash developers can take advantage of these features, and all that our Flash tooling has to offer, to reach more than a billion PCs through their browsers and to package native apps with AIR that run on hundreds of millions of mobile devices through all the popular app stores, including the iTunes App Store, Android Market, Amazon Appstore for Android and BlackBerry App World.

We are already working on Flash Player 12 and a new round of exciting features which we expect to again advance what is possible for delivering high definition entertainment experiences. We will continue to leverage our experience with Flash to accelerate our work with the W3C and WebKit to bring similar capabilities to HTML5 as quickly as possible, just as we have done with CSS Shaders. And, we will design new features in Flash for a smooth transition to HTML5 as the standards evolve so developers can confidently invest knowing their skills will continue to be leveraged.

We are super excited about the next generations of HTML5 and Flash. Together they offer developers and content publishers great options for delivering compelling web and application experiences across PCs and devices. There is already amazing work being done that is pushing the newest boundaries, and we can’t wait to see what is still yet to come!

Yahoo's Product Runway: Are You In or Out?

Kara Swisher — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:41:24 +0000

I am here at Yahoo HQ in Sunnyvale, Calif., to check out “Product Runway,” which is the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s attempt to show that it can still innovate.

First and foremost is the launch of Livestand, a personalized news reader that is similar to Flipboard and a variety of other rivals, including — soon — Google.

It’s Yahoo’s attempt to present a business-as-usual feel — amidst a long and agonizing and very public strategic overview that might also include the sale of the company (or not!), in the wake of the recent firing of its last CEO, Carol Bartz.

It has caused a lot of trauma inside Yahoo, which can’t help with innovation.

But we press on!

In other words, despite the three-ring circus going on outside, Yahoo wants you to know it is still hard at work.

We begin:

10:35 am: As the strains of U2 die out, Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving takes the stage, which is actually set up in the company’s cafeteria. I can smell lunch being made nearby and I am hungry.

Apt — Yahoo certainly needs to show off a lot of cool stuff or its fate will be cooked.

No pressure, Blake!

“Personally, I am more bullish on Yahoo today,” he said. “What is Yahoo? Simple. It’s the premier digital media company. Period. Stop.”

Oh, if it were only that easy.

10:46 am: Irving pulls out his favorite slide, which looks like a chemistry test. It lists the various elements of the product strategy, with things like personalization, mobile, premium.

Now to Livestand, which is available on the Apple iTunes app store right now.

Don’t all rush at once!

Irving notes that Livestand is more than just an app — it is a platform.

In other words, Yahoo wants to help publishers publish online. Kind of a Facebook of content.

If Yahoo can pull it off, that is. (And, of course, unless Facebook decides to do the same.)

10:50 am: Livestand is an HTML5 “personalized living magazine.”

“This is the way Web pages are going to look,” declares Irving. Which is to say, heavy on photos, swoopy navigation, a television screen-like interface.

Irving uses the example of Surfer magazine, which is a good idea since waves always look pretty. Especially in a video-in-frame with Kelly Slater in Hawaii.

But, in essence, for anyone who has used Flipboard for years now, none of this is entirely different.

10:54 am: The look of what would be the Yahoo News page is actually much more interesting, since it is clearly a whole lot better than the Web page.

Irving also shows off a “living ad” — in this case, an unusually snuggly couple on a couch. It is cool, but creepy.

When launched, the ad has tap points. Irving — naughtily declaring about what is an ad, “I’ll tap that” — taps the lady’s butt, which would also have been my move. We learn about the jeans, of course.

10:58 am: Irving then shows off the ability to add feeds.

Next, something called “Cocktails.” First up, a developer tool called Yahoo Mojito and Yahoo Manhattan, which is a hosting service. The company will open-source both the technologies in 2012.

Irving brings up Mike Kerns, VP of Personalization & Social, who came to Yahoo when it bought the innovative sports fan site called Citizen Sports.

“We like to ship sh#t,” he notes. I like Mike Kerns immediately.

Kerns intros C.O.R.E. No, it is not a secret government organization that takes out fussy bloggers, who might be more critical than Yahoo execs would like.

In fact, it stands for “content optimization relevance engine.” Of course it does.

Simply put, C.O.R.E. is trying to link the right content or whatever to the right consumers and who likes what. Ladies like this, dudes like this. Apparently, “men of multiple ages” enjoy stories about golden chicken.

11:11 am: Kerns is moving on to social, especially its integration with Facebook. While much touted, sources tell me it has gone slower than expected in terms of use, but that it is improving.

Kerns talks about the idea of matching content to conversations to interests and, well, you know — the now exhausting world of modern media consumption.

The world in which you can no longer simply read an article and enjoy it — you must comment, share, discuss, parse, tweet.

Does anyone remember when you read something cool and just kept it to yourself?

Forget it, pal! It is a full-information society now and you better get on board and start poking your friends about every little thing.

(Personally, I plan on becoming a hermit in 3 … 2 … 1.)

11:18 am: Now Tim Parsey, who is Yahoo’s design head. He is hands down the most delightful exec the company has had in a while, mostly because he loves to smirk adorkably.

He shows off Yahoo’s first original design, which was a dull list. And then another really bad logo. But Parsey loves it! It’s kitschy!

Smirk attack!

Parsey moves into what has to happen now, which is to deliver a much more emotional experience and a much better designed one. He uses words like “humanism.”

Say what? He is right — Yahoo has for too long completely ignored design as an important part of the experience.

That’s why Flipboard was so quickly touted — it was pretty and fun. And it is why everyone is simply forced to love Apple products.

11:22 am: Parsey even has a code for it, called REM — for rational, emotional and meaningful.

He shows off a weather app. People take photos and they can be used in the app. Then Yahoo Mail for the iPad, whic is also handsome with photos and video. Livestand, also pretty.

“Great way to differentiate,” says Parsey. He calls it “one Yahoo!” Indeed.

11:35 am: I’ll admit it. After Parsey-fest, I zoned out for a sec when IntoNow dude, Adam Cahan, comes up.

Donut emergency!

Back to IntoNow, it’s the television indexing service that Yahoo bought in April.

Essentially, more ways to watch the media — in this case, video — and do 53 other things at the very same time. Memo to humanity: We will all be paying continuous partial attention for the rest of eternity.

Like I said: Hermitage!

11:41 am: Product dude Irving is back, making a point that, despite all the public mishegas, Yahoo has been busy at innovating.

A redo of email, better search, social “Facebar” with Facebook, Flickr for Google Android.

Irving is correct — Yahoo’s engineers have been hard at work and deserve kudos for doing so, even with attrition issues, stock declines and questions about the company’s very future being debated daily.

The problem is that too many of these improvements are mostly incremental and essentially table stakes for tech companies, most of whom have introed many more significant innovations in the same time frame as Yahoo has.

Google did Android, Google+ (as well as some notable failures). Microsoft did Kinect, Windows Phone, Windows 8. Amazon did Kindle Fire. Facebook did a range of major updates, as it has grown like a weed.

And there’s Apple. You might have heard of the iPhone and the iPad.

You get my point. Yahoo’s Product Runway today is well done, but what it really needs to be is just the beginning of a take-off.

11:48 am: Now Q&A time.

The first question is what took so long to get Livestand out, the second is why should people use Livestand since Flipboard and others have already been around for a dog’s age.

I ask about design — mostly because I want Parsey to use the word “delicious” a lot — and also about all the turmoil around the company and its impact on product creation. (I decide not to mention that Yahoo blew its acquisition of the bookmarking site, Delicious, and then sold it.)

Parsey delivers on the delicious scale, noting that Yahoo must have one design experience and yet has a lot of different interfaces. In other words, it cannot be Apple, but it can feel a lot more cohesive.

Irving talks a little bit around the obvious elephant in the room — the future of Yahoo — noting that the product staff was trying to focus and forget the storm going on outside.

“We have dreams about what this company can be,” says Irving.

You and me both, brother.

12:04 pm: More questions that are too detailed for my tastes, since they have delivered lunch and I can see it and I am ravenous.

As Parsey might say: It looks deliiiiiccccious.

Now, let’s hope Yahoo can do even more tasty stuff.

Exclusive: Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Blake Krikorian Joins Amazon Board

Kara Swisher — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 04:47:48 +0000

Well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur Blake Krikorian has joined the board of Amazon, according to several sources close to the situation.

Krikorian — who is considered one of tech’s most savvy execs with regard to video and media distribution — co-founded Sling Media, the maker of the innovative video device Slingbox, in 2004.

(He demoed it at the second D: All Things Digital conference in 2004.)

It was sold in 2007 to EchoStar Communications for $380 million. After a short stint there, Krikorian left and has since been working on a variety of projects and making various investments.

Those include some promising start-ups, such as Lytro, Kno, Clipboard, Chirply and Tasty Labs. Another company he invested in, Clicker, was sold to CBS earlier this year.

He has also been a sought-after exec — sources said he had offers over the last year from Google and also Zynga.

Amazon certainly could use a director such as Krikorian as it seeks to enter the media distribution space more aggressively. It is about to launch a Kindle tablet, for example, and also is a major bidder for the Hulu premium video service.

It has been rumored that Amazon will soon offer an interactive television device, too.

Krikorian certainly has much experience in the arena. One of his first jobs was at the fabled General Magic, which pioneered the creation of one of the first interactive mobile products before the Internet.

He also started a mobile computing unit for Philips Electronics, as well as working in adjacent arenas at other firms.

The University of California at Los Angeles graduate has a degree in mechanical engineering.

Other directors on Amazon’s eight-person board, besides CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, include Kleiner Perkins’s Bing Gordon and Hewlett-Packard’s Jon Rubinstein.

Krikorian, who declined to comment, will be its ninth member.

I also have an email in to Amazon PR, and will update if I get a response.

UPDATE: No need, as here is the 8-K regulatory filing by Amazon announcing the appointment:

AMZN-20110908-8K-20110908

Yang Says "Not for Sale": All Hands on Yahoo's Slippery Deck!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:36:38 +0000

At a prequel for the many VPs of Yahoo to the all-hands meeting for all 13,500 employees of the Silicon Valley Internet giant that is taking place at 11 am, Yahoo co-founder, director and former CEO Jerry Yang told the group the company was “not for sale.”

Even though, of course, it was hiring advisory firms, such as Allen & Co., to explore strategic options. Many justifiably feel “for sale” is just what Yahoo is.

Instead, Yang reassured the troops that it was business as usual at the company, in spite of the abrupt firing of its current CEO Carol Bartz yesterday.

One attendee emailed me: “Really?“

Yang told the group that the aim was to grow revenue and profit, but did not put forth a specific plan as yet. He also said the search was on for a new CEO.

Meanwhile, interim CEO Tim Morse spoke only at the end of the meeting, for the last 10 minutes.

Morse continued to be Yang’s sidekick at the all-hands meeting later, in which they reiterated their no-sale motto.

Still, the troops were restless and the event included a lot of pointed questions from employees about the ouster of Bartz and how that was going to get the company growing again.

One employee asked the board to give Bartz’s $10 million severance package to charity, to much applause.

Another query was about the shift on Bartz by Yahoo’s Chairman Roy Bostock, who praised her performance earlier this summer at the annual meeting.

How, asked the employee, did Yahoo go from full support of Bartz to fired? The basic answer from Yang: Things change!

Another employee asked about the bid to buy the Hulu premium video service. Americas head Ross Levinsohn’s answer: Yahoo did not need it to win.

Both Levinsohn and product head Blake Irving stressed how big Yahoo still is, although Yahoo’s kind of big today might not mean better.

Employees — I love them for channelling exactly what I would have asked — pressed Morse on when the strategery would be done this time. A few months, he said.

But perhaps the toughest query was about how did the board fire the CEO without first having a plan in place, which the questioning employee noted had further worsened trust issues with Yahoo leadership.

It got the biggest applause.

Trust us, said Yang.

That’s a big ask for beleaguered Yahoo staffers these days.

Meanwhile, Yahoo filed a new-less 8-K regulatory filing today about the Bartz firing.

In it, Yahoo wrote: “No new compensatory or severance arrangements were entered into in connection with these leadership changes. Ms. Bartz will receive severance benefits
for termination without cause as provided in her employment and equity award agreements.”

Here it is:

YHOO-20110907-8K-20110906

My Picks for Yahoo's Next CEO -- Maybe Snoop Dogg, Ya Digg?

Kara Swisher — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 14:00:32 +0000

The firing of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz leaves open one of the bigger and more difficult jobs in tech — one that has taken its toll on many.

Nonetheless, rapper Snoop Dogg stepped right up to the Twitter plate yesterday, as soon as news broke of the ouster.

Tweeted Snoop Dogg:

“Im takn over as tha CEO of Yahoo. Need sum of tha Snoop Dogg content ya digg. Nuff Said.”

Not nearly nuff!

Thus, while the Yahoo board has yet to begin a search, I have already been hard at work on selecting the next CEO.

(Last time, the company took none of my suggestions, but after the most recent result, the directors might want to pay mind!)

Sources said Yahoo is looking for an experienced Internet type, either from inside or outside the company.

“Yahoo has put its flag in the ground as a digital media company with a technology base,” said one source. “The job requires big buckets of expertise and needs someone who will grow the company.”

Here I go with the outsiders:

Peter Chernin: The former News Corp. exec has been eyeing Yahoo for a possible takeover with other investors. Both Yahoo and I had picked him when co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down as CEO almost three years ago, and he had declined the offer. This time, perhaps a big chunk of the company and total autonomy would work, even if making a hit like “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is more fun.

Sheryl Sandberg: The COO of Facebook is sort of the anti-Bartz, with a smooth and efficient persona, and she is an experienced tech exec. But the former Google exec is at a place of growth at the social networking site, and is unlikely to want to leave the big show, especially since a blockbuster IPO is looming.

Jason Kilar: The Hulu CEO is in the midst of the process of selling the premium video service, with Yahoo as a bidder. While he has some tense relations with the studios, Kilar is top notch in his dedication to consumer products, and has a lot of experience from his stint at Amazon, too.

Dan Rosensweig: Currently CEO of IPO-headed Chegg textbook rental service, the former Yahoo exec never got a chance to run the company as its top leader. Well-connected and still well-liked by the troops at Yahoo, it still would be pretty hard for him to go home again.

Dave Goldberg: Sure, he’s married to Sandberg (see above), but the savvy CEO of polling phenom SurveyMonkey is one of the sharpest thinkers in Silicon Valley. He sold his music company to Yahoo many years ago and has a strong background in consumer online services.

Jon Miller: The chief digital exec at News Corp. almost got the CEO spot years ago when Carl Icahn was agitating for change at Yahoo, before Time Warner blocked him via a noncompete. With the mishegas at the media giant, and dwindling digital businesses there, it might be a good escape hatch for Miller.

Susan Wojcicki: The accomplished Google exec, who runs all its ad products, has the kind of calm, cool, collected persona that Yahoo could use right about now. The search giant was founded in her garage, and she has been a key part of its success since then. Wojcicki is also an understated class act in hey-look-at-me Silicon Valley.

Todd Bradley: The Hewlett-Packard exec just got blindsided when the company kicked webOS to the curb. While he is in line to run a possible spinoff of the device business, Bradley might also want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

Mike McCue: The CEO of Flipboard would certainly energize Yahoo with his intense focus on quality and consumer delight. The news app start-up could be a good addition to Yahoo, and McCue, the former Netscape and Microsoft exec who is well-liked in the Internet scene, would be, too.

Joanne Bradford: The former Yahoo advertising head bolted Bartz’s regime early on to run revenue for Demand Media. Well-liked in the ad business, she also knows where all the bodies are buried at Yahoo. Since ads and media are key at the company, she’d make an interesting choice.

Yusuf Mehdi: The Microsoft online exec would also be a left-field candidate to run Yahoo, given his even-keeled personality and longtime experience in the sector. And, though pricey, Mehdi’s impact on Bing search has been important. But he’s also been involved in the software giant’s lackluster ad and search partnership and still has not turned around the situation at MSN.

Kevin Johnson: The former Microsoft exec and current CEO of Juniper was once slated to be the CEO of Yahoo, had Microsoft managed to win the company in its hostile takeover attempt. In fact, Johnson was the architect of the idea of Yahoo running the media and Microsoft running the tech.

Tim Armstrong: Well, he might have been a good candidate before the downward slide of AOL and a recent series of questionable judgments. If Armstrong can’t keep a loud tech blogger in line, it’s not clear he can wrangle the Yahoo beast.

And here’s the insider scoop:

Ross Levinsohn: The former News Corp. exec is running the Americas for Yahoo, which puts him in charge of the company’s key businesses. But he’s still struggling to turn the ad business around, and how well he does that could be a major determinant of his success. But fantastic hair!

Blake Irving: The former Microsoft exec has an amiable nature and is well-liked at Yahoo, but he still needs to show that the company can ship some innovative products, and quickly. Like Livestand, the news reader, which is muchly late.

David Kenny: The Yahoo board member is now president of Akamai, which might preclude him from the job. But the well-regarded exec — he’s a snazzy dresser, too — ran one of the Internet’s top digital ad agencies and now has tech chops from the content delivery network.

Memo to Yahoo board: I have a million more ideas, from former Viacom exec Tom Freston to former Yahoo board member Eric Hippeau. Or why not bring back a passel of former Yahoos to advise, such as former CEO Terry Semel or former president Sue Decker?

Or Oprah! I hear Winfrey will be in Silicon Valley later this week, and she has a lot more free time now.

Like Snoop Dogg, she would fo shizzle be the bomb to cover.

More AsiaD Speakers: Sony, Google+, Microsoft, Hollywood, Huawei and Hot SV Start-Ups!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:33 +0000

After our grand tour of Asia last week — with stops in Korea and Japan — it seems like a perfect time to update the speaker list for our upcoming AsiaD conference in Hong Kong in October.

As Walt Mossberg and I said, we are trying to mix both U.S.-based speakers with a pan-Asian selection of speakers from across the region, and the new additions are just that.

For the international confab — this one will be held Oct. 19-21 — we’ve already announced a great lineup, including Alibaba’s Jack Ma; Google Android head Andy Rubin; Twitter inventor and product guru, as well as Square co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey; Nvidia founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang; and Asus Chairman Jonny Shih.

Now, to add to that terrific lineup:

Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai is widely considered the second in command at the consumer electronics giant Sony, in charge of its key computer entertainment division, as well as now serving as executive deputy president of the whole company. In that role, the dynamic exec is at the nexus of the Japanese company’s efforts around tablets, smartphones, gaming and more. As Sony struggles to reassert its dominance over the arena, Hirai will be a key player in that effort.

Bradley Horowitz — as head of product management for Google+, the search giant’s aggressive effort to break Facebook’s hammerlock on social networking — has a perfect perspective to talk about the fast-growing area and where it is going globally. With locally-based social companies springing up all over Asia, can Google establish one the whole world will use? It’s an important question and Horowitz’s job No. 1.

At Microsoft, Andy Lees is leading one of the software giant’s most important initiatives, as president of its Windows Phone division. His come-from-behind job includes mobile software and hardware, as well as its key partnership with Nokia. With Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android far in the lead, Lees will need to win in markets globally, especially in Asia.

Peter Chernin is one of Hollywood’s top players and execs. The former top News Corp. exec is now a movie producer — his first effort, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” is a big hit. But he’s also been increasingly active in media investing in Asia of late, and has a lot to say about the global nature of entertainment in the digital age.

John Roese heads the North American R&D team for Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant making everything from heavy-duty gear for networks to mobile phones and tablets. The former CTO of Nortel, he’s heading up global development of Huawei’s cloud services for both businesses and consumers. Roese will also talk about the phenomenon of a Chinese-owned company emerging on the world technology stage.

Even in the midst of an economic downturn, there is no denying that it has been a golden time for Silicon Valley start-ups, which have enjoyed unprecedented growth and funding in the Web 2.0 era. But as they seek to expand beyond the U.S., a critical move for them all, we’ve assembled a panel of entrepreneurs to discuss it, including:

Brian Chesky is the CEO and co-founder of Airbnb, the popular online vacation rental site that recently got a huge dose of funding and an equally large amount of controversy. How Airbnb can take the company to the next level, including across the world, while dealing with the kinds of challenges the small management team has to face, will be an interesting topic for discussion.

After stints as president of Asia Pacific and Latin America operations at Google and co-founder of the online personal finance company Yodlee, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is trying her hand at a small start-up again. She’ll talk about how the recently funded Joyus, a new premium video commerce site trying to pioneer a new way to shop online, plans to expand globally.

Finally, longtime tech exec David Goldberg is now running one of tech’s most successful start-ups at SurveyMonkey, the dominant online survey company. With stints as founder of music site Launch Media, which was bought by Yahoo, and as an Entrepreneur in Residence with Benchmark Capital, he is the perfect person to explain what it’s like being an entrepreneur today in Silicon Valley.

We have even more speakers for AsiaD we’ll be announcing in the coming weeks, so get ready for what’s next.

Demand Media Q2 Call Liveblog: Spam-a-Not

Kara Swisher — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:20:00 +0000

Today, Demand Media beat Wall Street expectations in its second-quarter earning, growing revenue and lessening losses.

The Santa Monica, Calif., online content maker also announced that it had re-upped and expanded its advertising partnership with Google and also bought two start-ups in social media and advertising.

Now, it’s time for the inevitable conference call to explain it all to Wall Street analysts and the media.

2:02 pm PT: The call starts off with an unusually jaunty CEO Richard Rosenblatt, who quickly got to the real deal: Exactly how badly did Google’s changes to its search algorithm, under a program code-named Panda, hurt Demand’s content business?

Not much, says Rosenblatt, who reels off a list of things the company has done to improve its offerings, which have been dinged by many as, well, spam.

Rosenblatt was not having any of that, talking about removing 300,000 pieces of crappy content and also “quality improvements” with partners such as cheerily demented cooking goddess Rachael Ray. She might cook with spam — here is a delightful Spam Hawaiian recipe — but she ain’t spam!

2:13 pm: Now it is on to the acquisition of IndieClick. Essentially: It’s for the young people.

Then, international. Latin America Demand editorial via eHow en español! (Actually, the acquisition of Emergincast.com, an Argentine start-up. Coming soon to a blog site near you: ¿Cómo se hierve el agua?

Last, social media. Demand will be doing a lot more of it, like everyone else in the world, including more recommendations. I would really like it if some Internet company said it was going anti-social.

2:18 pm: The finance guy comes on, covering everything already in the press releases. Which is why I am cutting out here and getting a gluten-free doughnut at the Whole Foods store where I am writing this post.

It is as delicious as you might imagine a gluten-free doughnut can be. Which is to say: Not very!

2:32 pm: Q&A time from the Wall Street dudes — and, let it be said, they are all dudes.

The first question is about the “cleansing” of its cruddy content and if it is all flushed out.

It might be baked-on sludge, but Rosenblatt assures that Demand has it all figured out.

Then, a query about international and how the company decides what to pick. Algo, of course! And local content writers.

Back to the spam content: Does the need to have better content mean less of it? Kind of, since there is a lot more video. But still a lot of content churning out of Demand!

A question about Facebook and how to program Demand content into it. Good lord, it’s hyper-poking!

“It’s not clear the best way of how you expand into all these properties,” said Rosenblatt, specifically referring to its acquisition today of both IndieClick and RSS Graffiti.

The next question is how successful Demand is in the display and brand business, and how IndieClick, a premium ad company aimed at niche blogs, will be integrated in.

More on social media advertising’s future. Aaaghh, this is as obvious as a store-bought-crust apple pie baked by Rachael Ray.

Rosenblatt notes that its flagship site, eHow, is but one means of distribution, but Demand content is going all over the place and winging by people when they least expect it.

“Social is more effective … to try to find stuff you didn’t know that you needed,” says Rosenblatt, who also would not dis search as a means of discovery.

That’s important, since Google is a major traffic driver and advertising partner, when it is not terrorizing Demand and others with its search algo version of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor Snape.

And presto, here comes a question about Demand’s Google ad relationship, which Rosenblatt touts nicely.

Of course he does. It’s tastier than spam, after all.

Exclusive: Ning Is Being Shopped Around at $150M Price Tag

Kara Swisher — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:08:32 +0000

According to multiple sources close to the situation, Ning has been talking recently to a large pool of companies about selling itself, including Google and Groupon, as well as to a number of private equity companies.

Interest has been both incoming to and outgoing from Ning.

The talks around the fate of the high-profile social networking platform — co-founded by Silicon Valley icon and investor Marc Andreessen — are still early and might not result in a sale, although a number of sources said the company was being valued at up to $150 million.

That price is well below previous loftier valuations for Ning and would mean only a break-even for investors, who have put close to $120 million into Ning since it was founded in 2004.

Among its investors: Andreessen, LinkedIn Chairman and investor Reid Hoffman, Legg Mason, Allen & Company and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

There are no bankers involved in the preliminary efforts, in which Andreessen has been involved, although discussions with Google and Groupon have been substantive in nature.

Several other companies — including AOL, Demand Media and Go Daddy — have also been approached or are kicking tires at the site. Most would be interested in Ning’s technology for creating premium social networks.

Ning bills itself on its site as “The World’s Largest Platform for Creating Social Websites.”

The sales effort grew out of a parallel one to possibly raise more money for the start-up. Sources said there was some incoming interest, so talking to a larger pool of buyers was undertaken recently.

Such a move would be an interesting one for Ning, which has undergone a series of ups and downs over its history, including dramatic management and business plan shifts.

Its most recent plan has been to go all-premium, trying to find a way to turn the start-up into a profitable enterprise.

That’s worked out well, the company has previously said, with strong growth. Since its business shift a year ago, Ning has said, it has had 400 percent year-on-year revenue growth, going from 17,000 to more than 100,000 subscribers and with 60 million monthly active users.

Ning’s shift has been under the leadership of Jason Rosenthal, who had been COO of Ning until he replaced its founding CEO, Gina Bianchini, in early 2010.

Ning has also recently tried to get into the highly competitive mobile social communications arena, with a service called Mogwee. The traction for the product does not appear to have been significant.

Ning’s Rosenthal declined to comment about any sales efforts when reached by me today.

Who's to Blame for Yahoo's Q2 Revenue Rout? The Line Forms Around Back…

Kara Swisher — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 21:02:54 +0000

Yahoo turned in another weak performance in the second quarter, with yet another decline in revenue.

This time it was five percent, compared to last quarter’s six percent. In other words, at least things are looking up as they go down!

While earnings per share rose smartly, Wall Street is still looking for strong sales growth from the Silicon Valley Internet giant, which seems unable to provide it.

Blamed most this time for the revenue fall: Yahoo’s changes in its display sales operations in the key Americas region, reasons for which were largely unspecified in the initial company press release. (You can see the damage in this slide deck from the company here.)

Maybe Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will explain it all in its upcoming conference call with analysts (or she could try the I-don’t-know approach taken by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch in PhoneGate hearings in Britain earlier today!).

2 pm PT: It starts with the usual regulatory blah-blah, which I always enjoy.

Bartz gets right into it, opening with the key problems with China’s Alibaba Group, as well as its display and search revenue weaknesses.

The fight with Alibaba is over its Alipay payments unit, which was spun out of the Chinese company without Yahoo’s say-so. Yahoo is a big shareholder.

Bartz says that the company was working on a settlement night and day.

But she quickly gets onto how display did not perform as expected in its key Americas arena. “Obviously, I am not happy,” she said.

Obvi! Neither are shareholders, Carol.

She says it was not about new competitive development. It was not about the economy. It was not about engagement.

So what was it? Changes in its sales leadership and organization, says Bartz, which has included talent walking out the door in droves.

A lot more than Yahoo expected, but no surprise to anyone who has been paying any attention to the brain drain at the company.

Bartz promises a new approach to sales, part of its endless turnaround, which is beginning to feel like a digital version of “Waiting for Godot.”

Search revenue, though, says Bartz, was better than expected.

2:11 pm: CFO Tim Morse is on now, running through the numbers and the display shortfall in the Americas region.

“We simply did not have appropriate coverage,” says Morse, noting consumer products, tech and autos as weak spots in the advertising market.

Thank goodness, then, for the guarantees from search revenue in the Microsoft partnership deal.

More numbers and then it is back to Bartz to talk about search, which is going better than the last quarter, when it was the culprit for the revenue decline.

She says that Microsoft and Yahoo were working together to improve the issues.

“We’d like to be further down the road,” says Bartz about the goal of search revenue per search growth, as well as settling all the other problems, such as the Asian issues.

And, by further, I am presuming she means actual forward movement, which is what roads are actually for.

2:27 pm: Q&A time, the part of our program where Wall Street analysts do not ask the questions that need asking (and where I win fancy journalism awards for pointing this delta out!).

Therefore, Bartz is first thanked for providing “color” about the display disaster and is not asked about more specifics of the disaster itself.

The second question still does not get to it either, but she does note Yahoo’s sales force has to sell beyond “Gee, we’re big” and come up with better ad solutions.

“The issue is we did not have enough sales people in front of the big clients,” says Bartz.

That’s because all those former Yahoos are now working at Groupon, LivingSocial, Facebook and on down the line and now in front of big clients for those hotter companies.

2:34 pm: Question about its Asian assets. Yahoo’s talks with Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba are separate, says Bartz, although I would add that they have non-movement in common.

And also a question about Yahoo’s interest in the acquisition of the Hulu premium online video service.

Bartz winks verbally and says nothing, which translates into: Of course, it is interested.

More on the reasons for the display fall-off, which Bartz makes clear is not due to big competitive threats, but internal issues.

Maybe she’s saving big competitive threats as the reason for a revenue decline in the third quarter!

I look forward to the quarter I get the finger pointed at me for causing revenue to fall, due to my snarky posts.

Now, we are into softball questions about improvements in engagement. It’s up, but no one asks why Yahoo is still not doing anything very cutting edge in product innovation compared to competitors.

I believe Google has launched at least 14 new social networks since this Sunday, along with its strong quarterly performance last week. And Apple, well, blew away its quarter today as it is about to release more cool new stuff later this week.

And that might be the crux of the issue for Yahoo, which might not solve its woes by throwing a more focused sales army at the issue.

That’s because Yahoo’s products are simply not nearly has social as Facebook or even Google right now, which might be the true problem as old customers move on to new advertising solutions.

Whatever the reason, Yahoo clearly needs a refresh of its ad products and how it sells them, especially in its fast-growing mobile, video and communications products.

Bartz talks about getting better expertise, a tighter regional focus and other issues of going to market, which is perhaps something she might have realized many, many quarters ago.

After all, she’s been in charge for a while, and these issues are not new.

In fact, in an earlier quarter, Bartz was stressing “tentpole” events and anchor media properties and the power of the size of Yahoo as a selling point.

This was in April, in fact, in the first quarter of this year.

As I wrote then:

“CEO Carol Bartz excited was the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s traffic gusher for big tentpole events such as the Super Bowl and the Oscars. In fact, Bartz practically sounded like a gushy “Entertainment Tonight” flunky when talking to Wall Street analysts about Yahoo’s Oscar news, games and other offerings. She proudly noted the site’s efforts generated more than a billion pages views.”

Now big is out! Moving on!

The last question is another about Yahoo’s talks with its Asian partners.

“It’s complex,” says Bartz.

You can say that again.

With Yet Another Flat Quarter Expected, Does Yahoo Need a Hail Mary Hulu Acquisition?

Kara Swisher — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:22:44 +0000

Tomorrow, Yahoo will announce its second-quarter earnings and, once again, Wall Street is expecting yet another meh performance from the Internet giant.

In his “cheat sheet” report, Citi analyst Mark Mahaney’s take is pretty typical of the sentiment of investors weary of waiting for a rebound in Yahoo’s growth.

“From $15, we believe YHOO shares have upwards bias,” wrote Mahaney, “but we don’t have real conviction.”

That’s become the unfortunate norm for Yahoo, whose management has continued to struggle with a variety of issues, from its ongoing talent drain to an unexpected and still unresolved fight with its main partner in China to the troubles in its search partnership with Microsoft to the overall lack of ability to turbocharge its advertising and other businesses as has been long promised.

While it is certainly not for lack of trying, the prospect of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz wheeling out another series of excuses for the lack of turnaround and — something many have been looking for most of all — a clearer strategic vision for the company on the earnings call on Tuesday, will surely not produce a dulcet impact on its depressed shares.

The stock has continued to dip well below $15 a share, down almost six percent last week and 13 percent for the last six months.

That’s why some think that Yahoo’s interest in bidding for the Hulu premium video service, which is being sold by its media giant owners, might be just the bold and risky move to get the company centered around.

With the online video ad business growing and the need for Yahoo to focus its many ambitions, some think Hulu could be a key piece in becoming the “premier digital media company” that the Internet giant has recently taken to calling itself.

By doubling down on what Hulu represents — that would be the premium online video business — it’s a fast-growing category Yahoo’s large sales force would be well-suited for.

In addition, a purchase of Hulu could give Yahoo some much-needed talent in the arena, including its CEO Jason Kilar and others.

“Of all the buyers, Yahoo is the most in need of a purchase to change its paradigm,” said one observer. “If it could not pay too much, Hulu would give Yahoo some differentiating that it really needs.”

Of course, paying too much for Hulu is a key consideration mentioned by all who are looking at it, including Google, AT&T, Amazon and others.

How to determine the value of Hulu’s content licenses, both now and later — given that once those rights expire whoever owns Hulu will eventually have to compete in acquiring the often high-priced material from Hollywood — is the biggest question they are asking.

Is that worth $1 billion or $2 billion? Can a new owner keep up the momentum needed to successfully maintain the Hulu business well after those content rights expire? And, of course, which company would be best suited to accomplish this task?

Yahoo certainly has all the potential to be at the front of that line, despite being managed erratically for far too long. But — also as usual — there is the endless debate internally over whether buying it will fix problems.

Whatever happens, most agree that something dramatic needs to happen at Yahoo, rather than the continual story of flatness that has been coming out of the company for far too long.

And we’ll all see if that’s improved after the close of the market tomorrow, when Wall Street is expecting Yahoo to report revenue of $1.11 billion on earnings of 18 cents.

That’s a revenue decline of two percent, which is not great, especially considering Google’s strong performance last week. Then again, it’s better than the first quarter’s six percent drop in revenue for Yahoo.

Like I said: Meh.

Dancing Queen: After Meeting With Microsoft Last Week, Yahoo Is Next on Hulu's Sales Card

Kara Swisher — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 19:05:02 +0000

Here’s a handy helper for those following the fate of the Hulu premium online video service, whose noisy efforts to sell itself have gotten a lot of attention of late:

“In preliminary talks” = “hawking itself to one of a half dozen big moneybag tech companies who will visit with Hulu’s bankers and management to see its presentation at Morgan Stanley’s office in Century City in Los Angeles.”

Last Friday, for example, that meant a look-see for Microsoft execs, to show the software giant the story of how paying top dollar for the popular Hulu would be a great investment.

This week, sources said, Yahoo will get the expected gander at the books too, among the other companies targeted by Hulu as part of a sales process in its very early stages.

Among those companies on the short list, sources said, along with Microsoft and Yahoo are: Google, Verizon, AT&T and Amazon.

None of these should come as a surprise, since they all have a big interest in the digital distribution of content business.

Google is perhaps the most interesting and difficult of the group, due to both its massive YouTube unit and the even more massive interest by government regulators about its disturbing massiveness.

Amazon is the company that seems most suited as a Hulu buyer, since it already makes its business selling and distributing content. In addition, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar was a former exec — bringing a certain level of familiarity and presumably much less of the grumpy disgruntlement that he experienced with Hulu’s current media giant owners.

Microsoft seems like the longest shot and least enthusiastic, although it certainly could afford it.

As for Yahoo: Good lord, it needs something sexy to tell weary investors.

Not in the initial round, but other possible acquirers Hulu is targeting: Facebook, Netflix, Samsung and Liberty Media.

And definitely not among those kicking the tires: Disney, News Corp. and Comcast, the trio of partners who own Hulu, along with Providence Equity Partners.

The big question, of course, is whether media-focused Apple — a notorious buyer of almost nothing — would be interested in Hulu.

These blind dates with the best possible buyers will presumably give each insight into Hulu’s business and give Hulu information on what they are looking for.

Sources who have heard the pitch said Hulu is positioning itself as an inevitable competitor to cable, which seems an odd position to take, unless it can get regular access to the kind of top-drawer content that consumers want.

And that will be the most important issue for anyone buying Hulu: The time and terms of rights to the television and movie content on the site, which has been a critical part of its success.

Buyers I have interviewed said Hulu has to offer at least an 18-month license for its content and a pile of rights to hit shows to differentiate itself from competitors.

As Peter Kafka wrote, Hulu buyers would indeed get exclusive content, but with strings attached.

He also noted that the latest content licenses for Hulu’s owner/partners — Disney’s ABC and News Corp.’s Fox — have recently been completed, deals that will stay intact if Hulu is sold.

Unlike Netflix, which has had to pay top dollar for a small pile of premium content while deftly using a large archive of older content to attract subscribers, Hulu’s success has had a lot to do with more access to popular current shows offered by its media giant owners.

Those shows include TV hits such as “The Office” and “Glee.”

That access has become a point of contention with those owners, who have differed with Hulu management about what comes next for the mostly advertising-supported site, even though its slick product has been a clear hit with consumers.

Of course, some speculate that Hulu might not sell at all, just as it never went public as it had said it might do previously. In that case, it will be interesting to see what will become of Hulu once the music stops.

(And, if anyone would like to email me the Hulu presentation or notes on it, please do, so I can formulate a bid myself!)

But, until this deal churns slowly, leakily and loudly forward — let’s enjoy some apt Hulu content. As usual, the fun version of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” by the kids from “Glee” was not available on the site.

Thus, I selected frequent “Glee” guest star Gwyneth Paltrow belting out Joan Jett’s “Do You Wanna Touch Me” on the show, as a good alternate metaphor for the sales process:

Ning Customers Can Now Defray Costs by Charging Members for Access

Liz Gannes — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 16:56:11 +0000

Ning, the social network creator, turned off its ad-supported version and went all-premium last year (plans cost $3 to $50 per month). Now, it is helping its customers recoup their costs by charging their members as well. Starting today, the company will offer four paid access tools: Membership fees, paid groups, premium content and donations.

Video: Om Talks About $6 Million Giga-Funding

Kara Swisher — Thu, 26 May 2011 20:14:38 +0000

Yesterday, I slogged through the rain to the downtown San Francisco HQ of the GigaOM Network to visit with tech blogging pioneer Om Malik.

He just got $6 million more in funding, bringing the total for the tech news and research company to $15 million. Reed Elsevier Ventures is the newest investor, along with current ones, Alloy Ventures and True Ventures.

Malik, who founded GigaOM five years ago, is also a partner at True. He said he still owns a substantial stake in GigaOM after the funding, which apparently valued his company at $40 million.

GigaOM–which is better known for its popular tech news and analysis blog–will use the money to turbocharge its premium subscription service, called GigaOM Pro. That service charges $199 a year for deep-dive reports in areas including mobile, clean tech and cloud computing.

Here’s my video chitchat with Malik:

[ See post to watch video ]

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