AllThingsD » women

[mer-i-tok-ruh-see]: An elite group of people whose progress is based on ability and talent rather than on class privilege or wealth.

Eric Johnson — Thu, 24 May 2012 06:59:50 +0000

It’s a meritocracy. I have no doubt that there are pockets of issues. I can only speak about Sequoia, we have quite a few women partners.

– Sequoia Capital partner Greg McAdoo, answering a panel questions at TechCrunch Disrupt about whether there’s sexism in the venture capital industry

Apple Grabs Yahoo Exec in Charge of Shine, Women's Lifestyles and Health Content

Kara Swisher — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:00:29 +0000

Jessica Jensen, the Yahoo exec in charge of its flagship Shine women’s site, as well as its lifestyles and health content businesses, has left the Silicon Valley Internet giant, the company confirmed.

Sources said Jensen is taking a job at Apple, working for former Yahoo and Adobe advertising exec Todd Teresi, who was recently tapped to head the mobile iAd division.

At Yahoo, Jensen was the point person on its critical women’s initiatives, including Shine, which is among the top such sites in the U.S., so her departure is a blow to new CEO Scott Thompson’s efforts to push forward its media businesses.

Previously, Jensen worked on strategy for Yahoo’s Americas unit, arriving there three years ago from LowImpactLiving.com, a green-housing-sector site that she founded and led.

Here she is in a Yahoo “Expert Q&A” video on its advertising solutions site:

Exclusive: BermanBraun Buys Most of Shelby Bonnie's Whiskey Media

Kara Swisher — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:30:32 +0000

In a deal that was just signed, longtime Silicon Valley exec Shelby Bonnie has sold his social publishing start-up, Whiskey Media, to Santa Monica-based entertainment and interactive production company BermanBraun.

As part of the deal, BermanBraun will get three key sites of San Francisco-based Whiskey, including video entertainment-focused Screened, tech-testing site Tested, and Anime Vice, which covers anime and manga comics. It will also acquire Whiskey’s content-publishing platform.

Two other sites owned by Whiskey — games-oriented Giant Bomb and comic-book database Comic Vine — will be sold to another media company, which is rumored to be CBS Interactive.

Heaped on top of the niche content, aimed at passionate fans, Whiskey mixes in a lot of social networking, as well as user-generated content, along with its professional fare.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

But the major reason for the acquisition is that BermanBraun — which also makes popular sites for large portals such as Microsoft’s MSN (the Wonderwall celebrity site and Glo, aimed at the women’s lifestyle arena) and AOL (upcoming sites on weather, men and pets) — needs to be able to scale its online content production. The Whiskey platform should be able to allow it to more easily grow and create new sites more quickly, as well as mine data across them.

“With the addition of Whiskey’s first rate team and powerful, state of the art publishing, data and social tools platform, we will be able to further enhance our user experience and engagement, and provide our advertising partners with unparalleled data insights,” said Lloyd Braun and Gail Berman, who run BermanBraun, in a statement. “One of the other great parts of this acquisition is that we will have Shelby Bonnie in our lives. We have enormous respect for Shelby personally and professionally, and his insights, relationships and acumen will be invaluable to us.”

Bonnie, who was once CEO of CNET, which he helped found, added: “I have had the pleasure of knowing both Lloyd and Gail for years and they are two incredibly high integrity people who bring passion and creativity to the interactive space. As we see a dramatic changes in the whole media landscape, success will demand new skills and talents. BermanBraun’s content skills and vision joined with the Whiskey platform will create a combination that I believe is without equal. I couldn’t be more excited for the combination.”

Here is a video interview I did with Bonnie in mid-2010 about Whiskey:

[ See post to watch video ]

Sisterhood Is Powerful

Eric Johnson — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 07:12:52 +0000

The Internet is how we cut through the noise and come together. The first key to organizing is trust, and women want to know how they are powerful — the Internet is how they are powerful.

– Shelby Knox, director of women’s rights site Change.org, on a panel this Saturday called “The Digital Lives of Girls,” moderated by Chelsea Clinton

Hey Ladies! Guess Who Loves Web Video?

Peter Kafka — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:59:15 +0000

From the “sort-of-surprising-but-really-shouldn’t-be” file: Women like watching video on the Web — even more than men do. At least when it comes to Netflix and Hulu.

So says Nielsen, using data it collected last fall. It says 57 percent of Netflix.com visitors are women, and that 59 percent of Hulu’s visitors are women.

And those numbers actually understate the gender gap a bit, because women watch more once they get to the sites, too. Nielsen says that women account for 64 percent of total viewing time on the two sites.

A good reminder that while there’s (still) a big gender imbalance when it comes to tech companies’ executive ranks, board composition, etc., it’s a different story when it comes to tech consumers. Another good reminder: Pinterest.

(Image courtesy of Shutterstock/Dmitrijs Dmitrijevs)

California Pension Fund Challenges Facebook Over Board

John Letzing and Joann S. Lublin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:25:47 +0000

A large California pension fund has challenged Facebook Inc. over what it sees as a lack of diversity on the company’s board of directors, just days after the social-networking firm filed papers to go public in a closely watched IPO.

In a letter addressed to Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, California State Teachers’ Retirement System Director of Corporate Governance Anne Sheehan wrote that, “We are disappointed that the Facebook board will not have any woman members.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Tobii’s Eye-Tracking Tech Knows What You’re Eyeing on Dating Sites

Lauren Goode — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:00:15 +0000

When it comes to scouring dating sites, men tend to look at the pictures more, while women’s eyes linger longer on the text.

We probably didn’t need a formal study to tell us that.

But that’s exactly what Tobii, maker of eye-tracking technology, set out to do.

The Sweden-based company, in collaboration with AnswerLab, recently pounced on a bunch of people at a San Francisco coffee shop and asked them to participate in a study in which they’d be examining the dating profiles of members of the opposite sex — and during the session, their eye movements would be tracked by Tobii’s sensors.

After participants viewed mock-up pages of eHarmony.com and Match.com profiles, the verdict was in: Men spent 65 percent more time than women did reviewing photos in profiles; women spent 50 percent more time reading the text about a potential mate’s background and interests.

Women also spent an average of 84 seconds gazing at a profile to determine if it was a match, compared to 58 seconds for men.

The study also revealed that people tend to like dating profiles that they feel are more reflective of the kind they would build for themselves. For example, people that prefer to share lots of personal info gravitated more toward very personal dating profiles, while those that stick to “just the facts, ma’am,” liked profiles that had simpler demographic info and data.

Tobii uses tracking technology that zeroes in on a user’s pupil and calculates the point of gaze using algorithms. For heavy blinkers or those with shifty eyes, the recovery time of Tobii’s sensor is between 100 and 300 milliseconds; it draws an “imaginary box” around the user’s head to account for lots of head movement, as well.

For more info on how it works, check out this video from D9, where Tobii general manager Barbara Barclay demoed how Tobii could help users control their laptops with just their eyeballs. Late last month, the company introduced its X1 Light Eye Tracker, marketed mainly to usability and market researchers.

To demonstrate the usefulness of its eye-tracking tech at the consumer level, Tobii is planning to conduct more studies and present more interesting use cases, Barclay said. The next study, for example, might be even more precise: Instead of examining who is looking at pictures versus text, the next study might shed light on which area of the pictures people’s eyes tend to linger on. (We know what you’re thinking right now.)

Ultimately, these types of studies could be most useful for advertisers, as well as Web companies.

The study showed that when there was a great deal of ad content on the right-hand side of a profile page, participants would be distracted by the ads and avert their eyes from the profile information. Great news for advertisers, but bad news for those who want to remain focused on the task at hand.

It’s important to note that the sample for this study was very small: The company managed to convince more than 40 people to try it out, but had to throw away a handful of samples due to inconclusive data, which can be caused by certain types of glasses, lazy or droopy eyes, or an extreme amount of gaze-shifting.

But Tobii’s Barclay says continued testing could help companies determine monetization strategies and how they might conflict with the ultimate goal of a Web site’s content, or to help advertisers make ads more relevant and boost click-through rates.

(Feature photo courtesy of Flickr)

Hot-Button Topic: Do Women Buy More Consumer Tech Than Men?

Lauren Goode — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:12:35 +0000

The issue of women in tech is a hot topic — whether the conversation is about female board members and entrepreneurs in a male-dominated industry, or about opportunities for women to get education in tech earlier in life.

Whether women buy more tech products than men seems to be another facet of the subject emerging right now.

According to a new report from Parks Associates, more women than men are downloading movies and music, women do the majority of game-playing across some platforms, and women have higher “purchase intentions” than men do when it comes to some electronics.

In the 1986 movie “Ferris Bueller's Day Off,” Ferris got a computer, while Jeannie got a car.

Women are 40 percent more likely than men to play games on Facebook, represent the majority of Nintendo Wii players, and match men in terms of owning and playing Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PS3, says the report. And women are 73 percent more likely than men to have watched a full-length TV show online in the past 30 days.

Parks Associates also says that women have higher purchase intentions than men do when it comes to buying popular devices like tablets, laptops and smartphones, though men’s interest surpassed women’s when it came to purchasing flat-screen LCD TVs.

Intent, of course, is different from pulling the trigger and pressing the e-commerce “buy” button.

This Nielsen study, meanwhile, refutes the idea that women aren’t likely to purchase advanced TVs.

And while the Parks Associates report says 88 percent of women purchased tech-related items last year, compared to 83 percent of the men surveyed, not all recent reports point to women as besting men in tech-buying.

Confused yet? You’re not alone.

Let’s look at this chronologically:

In 2008, men were estimated to spend $902 annually on consumer electronics, compared with the $558 women spent on tech each year.

By 2009, women were spending more on consumer electronics than men, according to the CEA. It says women accounted for $55 billion of the $96 billion spent on electronics gear that year.

But in 2010, as our WSJ colleague points out here, the average man reported spending $3 on consumer electronics for every $2 the average woman said she spent.

With all of the fluctuating data, perhaps comparing women to men when it comes to consumer tech spending isn’t the right way to look at it. It’s how much growth is occurring overall when it comes to women and consumer tech.

We’ve come a long way from this 2003 report on women being “comfortable” purchasing PCs and DVD hardware.

Despite the fact that women were still trailing men in terms of consumer electronics purchases in 2010 — women spent $631 on average, compared to men’s average annual spend of $969 — women still spent $73 more on tech products than they did in 2009. And that number is expected to continue to grow.

You’ve probably heard a lot about the emergence of female purchasing power. A lot of this may have to do with the current state of the economy and shifts within households: While men are recovering more quickly from the recession — regaining more than one out of three jobs lost, compared to women regaining about one in four — men have been hit harder over the past few years, hovering at a full percentage point higher in terms of unemployment. (Some of the recent employment gains for men may also be attributed to a disproportionate number of men working in the government sector who have been regaining their jobs.)

Many women consider themselves to be chief financial officers — of the home. According to a Harvard Business Review report from last year, U.S. women continue to say they control more than 70 percent of total consumer spending. Earlier reports indicate that this number could be even higher, but some researchers say the number is murky.

Another Nielsen study shows big differences between what female consumers in developed countries spend money on versus what females in emerging countries spend on: More than half of women in emerging countries focus on allocating household funds for their children’s education, compared to 16 percent of women in developed countries, who are more likely to spend on vacations and other items. And yet, in both developed and emerging countries, more than half of women surveyed say that purchases of computers, mobile phones and smartphones have changed their lives for the better.

Bottom line: Women are making more buying decisions, and that includes consumer technology products, though the growth to date seems incremental. And that doesn’t necessarily have to be measured against what men are buying — though marketers like to know these things.

We can only hope that increases in women’s tech purchasing also means that manufacturers and marketers are getting savvier about that age-old question — what do women want? — and that the answer isn’t necessarily hardware in stereotypically girlish hues.

A Start-Up Program for Women in Mobile Tech

Emily Glazer — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:14:33 +0000

When it comes to programs that nurture new start-ups, women often don’t make the cut. A new “start-up accelerator” hopes to combat that gender disparity in at least one booming market: mobile technology.

Women Innovate Mobile opened its application today to start-ups with a woman founder or co-founder and a product that is related to mobile. The accelerator will offer two to five start-ups free New York office space, mentoring and coaching, access to venture capitalists and other investors in addition to $18,000 in seed funding, $10,000 worth of product development and design support, and $10,000 worth of mobile marketing promotions.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Sheryl Sandberg: "I Have Never Worked for a Woman"

Liz Gannes — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:41:18 +0000

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is famously outspoken about women and their ambition gap. Today in Portland, she delivered an extended version of her stump speech on the topic, as a keynote at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

One thing Sandberg said today stood out to me: “I have never worked for a woman, and I have never worked with a lot of women.”

I guess that’s not hard to believe when you look at Sandberg’s upper-echelon-heavy resume of Facebook, Google, the U.S. Treasury Department, McKinsey & Company and the World Bank. But it’s still kind of a stunner.

Here are some of Sandberg’s other key points:

Technology is a growth industry, so it’s a good one to join. When Sandberg was thinking she wouldn’t accept an offer to be Google’s general manager, Eric Schmidt told her, “Stop being an idiot; all that matters is growth.” She says that’s the best advice she ever got.

“I would be better at my job if I were technical,” Sandberg told the technical audience, saying she had doubts about addressing them for that reason. (She didn’t need to worry, the talk was very well received.)

Sandberg spoke of the importance of women setting an example by believing in themselves. “It’s easy to dislike the few senior women out there,” she said, referencing backlash she herself has gotten. “What if women were half the positions in power? It would be harder to dislike all of them.”

She added, “The main reason women don’t go into computer science turns out to be women don’t go into computer science.”

As in previous talks, Sandberg emphasized the value (in a heterosexual household) of making sure the man is equally responsible for domestic work. She also told women not to “leave before they leave”; that is, not to self-impose caps on their careers because they are planning to have kids.

“When you’re more valuable, the people around you will do more to make it work,” she told women, referencing Facebook’s flexible hours.

Lastly, Sandberg encouraged women to speak out like she has — saying it wasn’t until recently that she felt comfortable in her career to use it as a platform for these talks. “I stand up here as an old woman,” the 42-year-old Sandberg told the student-heavy audience. “My generation is not going to change this.”

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

Tech Is Glamour-ous: Mag Hosts Panel on Women in Tech (Video)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:03:26 +0000

Earlier this week, I flew to New York to moderate a panel on women in tech for Glamour, part of an article I did for the magazine’s recent issue.

As loyal readers know, I now and then get a bee in my bonnet about the issue of gender imbalance in tech. As in: Too many dudes and not enough ladies in key jobs.

So, along with the piece, there was also an event to talk about it all, which was held at the Times Square HQ of Glamour’s publisher, Condé Nast.

My panel included women execs from high-profile tech companies, including: Stacy Brown-Philpot, director of Google-owned and operated properties; Julie Larson-Green, corporate VP of program management for Windows at Microsoft; Kati London, director of product for Zynga; and Hilary Mason, chief scientist at Bitly.

My video interviews with them are below, as well as another of the whole session:

[ See post to watch video ]

Snapette Aims at Women Shoppers With Social Photo and Shopping App

Drake Martinet — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:00:20 +0000

The majority of e-commerce sites share a single thing in common: They were built by dudes.

That hasn’t escaped the founders of Snapette, a social photo-sharing app built by women, explicitly for women.

The three-person company recently graduated from Dave McClure’s 500 Startups incubator.

According to Snapette co-founder Sarah Paiji: “Men go to a store to solve a problem — to replace something. For women it’s less about fulfilling a particular need.”

The app, which launched in Apple’s App Store a few weeks back, focuses on the experience of shopping and leaves out buying altogether — for now.

Being a guy, all I’ve got to go on is my one X chromosome, but Paiji’s argument does make some sense.

Sites like Amazon, she said, are “all search and filters — you need to know what you are looking for. That’s how men shop.”

Snapette takes it in a different direction — somewhere between Yelp and Instagram.

Users open up the app and are presented with pictures of shoes or bags, snapped by other Snapette users in stores both nearby and far away.

Why limit the app to these fashion accessories?

“The focus on accessories keeps it about the products,” said Paiji, implying that she didn’t want the app to be about rating how an item looks on a person.

The trio who founded Snapette are currently making the rounds, seeking about $500,000 in funding, and are hoping for investors who really “get it,” said Paiji.

But finding money that “gets it” hasn’t been easy in Silicon Valley’s male-dominated venture capital culture, she added.

“We have gotten a lot of interest, but lots of VCs are holding off and taking the app home to their wives and mothers before getting back to us,” said Paiji.

VC sluggishness notwithstanding, Paiji expressed confidence in Snapette’s monetization prospects, alluding to subject-area strengths relative to apps like Instagram.

“How do you monetize a picture of a sunset?,” she said. “Our path is much clearer, with partners and brands.”

As for what’s next, Snapette plans to continue to “focus on discovery,” according to Paiji, which means continuing to isolate the experience of shopping from the process of buying — something that makes relatively little sense to me.

But that’s probably the point.

Maybe co founder Sarah Paiji can explain it in this video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, the New Yorker and Women in Silicon Valley

Kara Swisher — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 14:07:42 +0000

Well-known New Yorker writer Ken Auletta has taken on Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in the magazine, with a largely glowing profile provocatively titled: “A Woman’s Place: Can Sheryl Sandberg Upend Silicon Valley’s Male-Dominated Culture?”

My short answer is: No, she can’t. But Auletta does yeoman’s work explaining the irksome issue by using Sandberg as his metaphor.

Sandberg has been very vocal about the issue of women in the workplace over the last year, in a series of speeches she has made.

But, actually, the Auletta piece is mostly a full-on Sandberg profile, hitting all the obvious stops in her life and in that of Google — her previous employer — and Facebook, her current one. Also, of course, we can’t leave out the fight between those two tech behemoths.

No news is committed, but it is a very good read (and the second big piece — the other was the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek — Sandberg has been the subject of of late.)

I was also interviewed for the piece, which started out as a larger one on women in Silicon Valley. No surprise, it quickly became largely about one of its most interesting ones.

Oddly, in a section about women in tech, I am quoted saying that I scare men. To be fair: I am an equal opportunity terrifier.

Sandberg, who comes off as quite a deft smoothie (which she is) in the New Yorker piece, is clearly not a terrifier and it seems to be working out well for her so far.

Viral Video: "Brave" Finally Gives a Princess a Job

Kara Swisher — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 10:35:13 +0000

One of the best lines I ever heard from Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg — who has been very vocal about casting light on women’s challenges in the workplace — was about her service on the Disney board.

Discussing the depiction of its happy-ending female animated characters, she joked to me that what she always pushed for at meetings were “princesses with jobs.”

Sandberg seems to have gotten her wish now, with this upcoming movie from Disney unit Pixar, “Brave.”

Incredibly, it’s the first time in its dozen films that Pixar has a female hero at its center.

It’s about a red-headed Scottish princess named Merida, who insists on being a warrior — complete with rocking bow and arrow.

Finally.

An Unlikely Pair (Me and Glamour Magazine, That Is) Tackle Women in Tech Conundrum This Fall

Kara Swisher — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:01:38 +0000

As readers of mine know, I write a semi-ranty post now and again about the lack of women in high-level tech jobs and on the boards of its major companies.

While things are a lot better in the digital industry than, say, in meat-packing, it is still a slow slog to equality in both power and influence, even with ever more enlightened male tech leaders.

Many years ago, for example, I posted a piece, titled “The Men and (No) Women Facebook of Facebook Management” There were none in the high echelons of the social networking start-up at the time.

More recently, I wrote a piece — “The Men and No Women of Web 2.0 Boards (BoomTown’s Talking to You: Twitter, Facebook, Zynga, Groupon and Foursquare)” — about how all the often touchy-feely men entrepreneurs of the hottest Web 2.0 companies had a glaring problem.

While most of them have women as a majority of their customers, they could not seem to find even one qualified woman for any of their boards.

This makes it a struggle even in programming our D: All Things Digital conferences. We have featured almost every significant female tech exec we could — from eBay’s Meg Whitman to Hewlett-Packard’s Carly Fiorina to Yahoo’s Sue Decker and, later, Carol Bartz to Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg to this year’s amazing DARPA head Dr. Regina Dugan.

But it is still definitely not enough and a failing we think about improving all the time.

I could go on — and I am going to go on even more this fall in the pages of Glamour magazine, which has asked me to write an essay on where all the women in tech are and what is their status today and in the future.

I will also be part of what I hope will be a provocative panel, moderated by Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive, in New York City on October 11.

The panel, said Glamour, “will ask where all the women are and why don’t we see more of them — and tell why the next Mark Zuckerberg should be a ‘Marcia.’”

I am not so sanguine that that will occur anytime soon, but it will be good to talk about this important issue. Diversity is at the heart of true innovation and more of it is needed for tech to thrive in the coming years.

I will also be helping select the panelists for the Glamour event and would welcome any suggestions, especially some ideas that are not typical.

Until then, here’s the impressive Dugan at D9 last week, as well as a video of the movie trailer for 1995′s “Hackers,” in which Angelina Jolie plays a hard-charging techie who is her mostly dude colleagues’ equal.

[ See post to watch video ]

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg on Women in Workplace: "Don't Leave Before You Leave"

Kara Swisher — Wed, 18 May 2011 13:15:23 +0000

In her second major speech focused on women in the workplace, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told the graduates at Barnard College’s 119th commencement ceremony in New York yesterday not to “leave before you leave.”

Her message–a version of which she also delivered last year to an audience at the TedWomen conference in Washington, D.C., in a speech titled “Why We Have So Few Women Leaders”–should be paid attention to in Silicon Valley, where Sandberg is one of the few high-ranking and high-profile women execs.

Sandberg, a former Google exec before taking the No. 2 spot at the social networking giant, aimed more at women than at men yesterday, urging the students she addressed not to quit too early due to a vexing variety of personal choices.

Said Sandberg:

“So my heartfelt message is: Don’t leave before you leave. Don’t lean back, lean in. Keep your foot on the gas pedal until the day you have to make a decision. That’s the only way to ensure you even have a decision to make.”

And:

“Women shortchange their own contributions from the very start, and this underestimation is expensive for both you and others. Because when you underestimate yourself, you lessen the impact you can have.”

Word.

Here’s the video of the speech, as well as the text of it, below. I also added the video of the TED one:

barnard_commencement_2011_-_facebook_coo_sheryl_sandberg_prepared_remarks

(Photos by Barnard College/Asiya Khaki and Dorothy Hong.)

CafeMom Launches Daily Deals and Plans Hispanic Moms Site

Kara Swisher — Wed, 04 May 2011 12:27:36 +0000

CafeMom, a social-networking and community site aimed at mothers, is expanding its offerings to daily deals, as well as announcing an anticipated launch of a site aimed at Hispanic moms.

The deals effort has just been launched under the killer URL of Mom.com and will first be available in the Northern New Jersey area.

The sales force, which will presumably compete with armies of sales people from social buying phenoms such as Groupon and LivingSocial, will be made up of local moms in these markets.

The “Mamas Latinas” site–which is still unnamed–will be run by former People en Español publisher Lucia Ballas-Traynor, who has just been hired by CafeMom.

In an interview yesterday, its co-founders Michael Sanchez and Andrew Shue said the New York-based CafeMom was aiming at another major growth spurt.

Said Shue of the effort so far: “It’s just two dads trying to create the definitive mom’s site.”

There is a lot of competition in the space, such as iVillage, which is more broadly aimed at the lucrative women’s space.

But CafeMom had attracted attention too and had considered a number of acquisition offers last year, before deciding to expand its service on its own.

Last summer, in fact, Yahoo and several other companies expressed interest in the possibility of acquiring CafeMom.

After considering a variety of offers, said Sanchez, who is CEO of CafeMom, “We think we have a unique opportunity to grow ourselves and not for someone else.”

The company has been knocking around for a long time in Internet terms, morphing from a sister company owned by CMI Marketing called ClubMom back in the Web 1.0 days.

CMI, which was also founded by Shue and Sanchez, finally got two big fundings in 2008 totaling $24 million, from venture firms such as Highland Capital Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Moving from what was essentially a glorified bulletin board for moms, it has added content and other social-networking tools and games.

For example, it recently launched a blog and content platform named “The Stir.”

Shue and Sanchez said the main CafeMom site now has 7.6 million million unique monthly visitors on its main site and almost 21 million on its overall network of affiliated sites.

The pair said that CafeMom is profitable, with 100 employees. It now has revenue of about $36 million annually.

Here’s the official press release about the Hispanic moms site:

CafeMom, the #1 site for moms with more than 7MM monthly visitors, to launch new website for Hispanic Moms

Outgoing publisher of PEOPLE en Español announced as co-founder.

New York, New York May 4, 2011–CafeMom announced its plans to launch a web destination catering to Hispanic moms in the coming months, to be co-founded by Lucia Ballas-Traynor, a Hispanic marketing veteran and the just-departed publisher of PEOPLE en Español. As part of its market research, CafeMom conducted a major national study of Hispanic moms, across the acculturation spectrum, and found that 92% of Hispanic moms believe there is not currently a website that clearly serves their needs.

“There is currently a huge gap online in serving Hispanic moms,” said CafeMom CEO, Michael Sanchez. “By 2014 one in four moms online will be Hispanic, and advertisers are increasingly looking for ways to reach this key segment. The site represents a tremendous opportunity, both to add value to millions of moms’ lives and to deliver unique integration possibilities to the brands that are most committed to the Hispanic market.”

CafeMom conducted a nationally-representative study of Hispanic moms fielded in both English and Spanish with a well-respected third party research vendor. The study showed Hispanic moms are underserved online, and are also eager to connect with each other. 79% of Hispanic moms said they wanted to connect with other Moms who share their culture, heritage, and life experiences.

Co-founder Lucia Ballas-Traynor brings her 25 years experience in Hispanic media, and has been at the helm of leading Hispanic media brands such as Univision’s Galavision, MTV Tr3s and most recently People en Español, the largest selling Hispanic magazine in the U.S.

“Our plan is to leverage CafeMom’s expertise in community, content, and strategic programs for leading brands and combine it with a world class leadership team that has a deep understanding of Hispanic moms and media,” said Sanchez. “As part of this effort, we are excited to bring Lucia on to the team. She has a proven track record in delivering for consumers and advertisers alike.”

“I’m thrilled to be working with CafeMom on this,” says Ballas-Traynor. “CafeMom is uniquely positioned to deliver this opportunity as an authority on moms. I’m confident that we can create something that will add real value to the lives of millions of Hispanic moms.”

Yahoo Focuses on Tentpole Events With New Head

Kara Swisher — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:11:25 +0000

At least one thing in yesterday’s lackluster first-quarter earnings report for Yahoo that got its Microsoft-search-bashing 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.

There will be more of that, it seems, with the elevation of Yahoo exec Sam Silverstein (pictured here) as head of its special events coverage. Sources said it will be a major area of emphasis, given obvious advertiser interest.

It’s all part of a lot of dramatic changes being made in the media unit at Yahoo, which is run by its newish Audience head Mickie Rosen.

Previous to his new duties, Silverstein has been mostly focused on major sports events for Yahoo, but has also been managing content on its front page and in tech and green arenas.

The move to taking over more comes after Lawrence Yee–who led Yahoo entertainment efforts and was once the managing editor of its omg! celebrity site–headed to TMZ.com, the competing and much sassier celebrity site, owned by AOL. His new job is as managing editor of its TooFab site, TMZ overlord Harvey Levin confirmed to me.

Also gone recently is Annette Cardwell, who was managing editor of Yahoo’s Shine women’s site, who is now working as director of digital content and games at Future US, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Now it will be up to Silverstein, who is well-regarded at Yahoo, to run the upcoming Royal Wedding coverage by himself.

William and Kate, as well as Bartz, will be watching.

Liveblogging Yahoo's Q1 Earnings Call: Get Me to Funky Town

Kara Swisher — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 21:21:01 +0000

MicroHoo is funky!

At least according to Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on the Silicon Valley search giant’s first-quarter earnings conference call about its recent financial performance.

Yahoo’s results showed a continued worrisome revenue growth stall, due in large part to a search advertising fall-off, and a still-turning turnaround.

Yahoo reported revenues of $1.06 billion, down six percent from a year ago, on net earnings of 17 cents a share, down 28 percent.

The results were essentially in line with Wall Street expectations.

2:03 pm PT: The call started right on time, as per usual. Maybe they can’t get search right anymore, but Yahoo execs sure know how to start an analysts’ confab.

Bartz started off the call, noting “overall, our turnaround is proceeding on schedule.”

Well, the schedule of a three-toed sloth, I suppose, but it’s on schedule!

Bartz is too smart, though, and quickly noted the problems with search revenue declines, related to its search and online advertising partnership with Microsoft.

Still, she then used the unusual term “funky comparisons” to dismiss the key issue.

But isn’t she the one who struck the funky deal with Microsoft that has resulted in these funky comparisons and these even funkier search advertising revenues?

Just askin’!

Bartz proceeded quickly to noting Yahoo’s advances due to technology improvements, which showed a doubling of impressions to big events such as the Super Bowl and the Oscars.

It’s a good point, since Yahoo–for all its troubles–is still a huge traffic driver, including serving up 1.3 billion page views for the Oscars.

Bartz talked about monetization and said a lot of other stuff, but got to the finances quickly.

“Search was a mixed bag,” she said flatly. You can say that again–but not in a good way.

Bartz tried to put a good-news spin on it, but had to admit that “on the downside [Microsoft's] adCenter is not seeing strong RPS,” she said.

That’s revenue per search and a key number that Yahoo had thought would be better by now.

Bartz noted that the paid search markets internationally will be delayed until MicroHoo gets its act together.

Good idea!

2:16 pm: CFO Tim Morse took over to go through the numbers.

“We had good display momentum around the globe,” he said.

But search was, um, bad. It underperformed, but Yahoo had that guarantee from Microsoft to pay out, which Morse called a “financial floor.”

Morse pretty much read the press release from here on out.

2:24 pm: Bartz was back talking up the huge audience Yahoo has abroad. And it is true–the Yahoo brand is a golden one globally.

Also video consumption is up too, as it is across the Web, in terms of views and time spent. Yahoo’s “Primetime in No Time” got 500 million streams in the quarter.

Bartz turned to mobile, which is weak no matter what she said about the laudable Livestand. It’s one of many in a very competitive market.

Same for social, which Yahoo has essentially abdicated to Facebook. That said, Yahoo has tried to weave social within its myriad of sites and it gets it, especially compared to the socially awkward Google.

Bartz summed up that she hoped everyone gets that profitability and revenue growth were on track to get better, promising more at the investor day in May.

2:30 pm: Q&A time!

The first question is about display growth. It’s a softball, since display was up.

The next is about other revenue growth areas to come.

Bartz–who seemed not so prepped for such an obvious question–ticked off shopping, travel and uuuuuh….

Morse jumped in and talked about making internal connections, which I also did not understand.

An analyst then wanted to “dig into” search problems. I’d say it’s time to call in Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel!

Relative to RPS, Bartz acknowledged it was low and everyone was studying the issue. There is a plan, apparently. Again, Bartz was maddeningly vague.

I missed the next question and then it was back to search.

Bartz was not getting too specific about search, but would say video advertising was going to do well.

She did note that Yahoo expected a dip in Q1 related to search revenue, “but the dip went a little lower than we expected and lasted a little longer than expected.”

Bartz said she had recently sat down with Microsoft execs to go over the problems. How much would I have liked to have been a fly on that wall!

The next question was about video and it turns out Bartz loves the babbling babies too! I knew we had something cool in common.

The next question is about Japan and the possible deal to sell off Yahoo’s ownership of Yahoo Japan!

Morse said diddly, except “we continue to make progress.”

A question about display and possible content verticals.

Verticals Yahoo is interested in, according to Bartz: Entertainment, lifestyle, women, gossip.

“The things people really want to do, they want to disappear,” said Bartz, which was an interesting way of putting it.

Yet another question in what was beginning to feel like an endless call.

It was about Right Media, Yahoo’s advertising exchange. Cleaning it up, etc.

The next question is about communications, as in email.

Bartz even sounded bored and messed up a few words. “I’ve had too many Diet Cokes,” she joked.

Personally, I am considering disappearing into some content, since there is yet another question.

It’s–no surprise–an RPS question!

Funky!

Search guarantee payments from Microsoft are in place for another four quarters. Thank goodness.

Bartz got more detailed about the problems. There is some kind of prediction issue, which she said Microsoft is working on.

Now a local advertising question and its relationship with Facebook.

Bartz grabbed this one by the horns, noting you don’t have to run to the social networking powerhouse to get you a social ad!

It’s about branding with a social component. Which would be, um, Facebook, which was part of Yahoo’s Chrysler campaign referenced by Bartz.

A question about daily deals.

It’s growing, but more at Groupon and LivingSocial, which Morse does not mention.

Finally, the last question.

Another gigantic softball on engagement and Yahoo’s new content platform and some mobile deets query about whether Yahoo can make it there.

Bartz said she was working on it. As to content, Bartz said stats show big lifts.

“The good news is that it’s all in the right direction,” she said.

Up would certainly be good.

Sweeet!: Sugar Gets $15 Million More in New Funding From IVP and Sequoia

Kara Swisher — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 04:00:42 +0000

Sassy women-focused content site, Sugar Inc., has raised another $15 million in late-stage venture funding from new investor Institutional Venture Partners, as well as its original one, Sequoia Capital.

The San Francisco-based site, which has now raised a total of $46 million, said it would “use the funds for brand extensions, acquisitions, and international growth…”

Sugar, which runs the flagship PopSugar.com site, is in a media space that is both competitive and fast-growing.

Several bigger sites, such as Yahoo, have been interested in acquiring it, but its husband-and-wife co-founders Brian and Lisa Sugar have wanted to remain independent.

In 2009, the company broke off ties with NBC Universal by buying back its shares and got a Series C funding of $16 million from Sequoia.

Sequoia was an earlier venture investor, having put $5 million into the start-up in late 2006.

NBC invested $10 million in 2007. The media giant had been selling online advertising for the site, an arrangement that had previously ended.

Onward and upward, apparently!

Here’s the official press release:

Sugar Inc. Closes Investment from Institutional Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital

San Francisco, CA, April 13, 2011–Sugar Inc., a fast-growing global media company for women, announced today that it has completed a $15 million later-stage round of financing led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), one of the premier later-stage venture capital and growth equity firms. The Company’s original and consistent partner Sequoia Capital also participated in the round.

Sugar intends to use the funds for brand extensions, acquisitions, and international growth in pursuit of its goal of becoming the world’s largest media company focusing exclusively on women’s lifestyle. This round brings Sugar’s total funding to $46 million.

Sugar is the online leader in original content, social media, and commerce targeting trendsetting women, with a global audience of more than 20 million. The company has two business segments focusing on original content and commerce with a portfolio of brands including PopSugar.com, ShopStyle.com, PopSugarCity.com, and Fashionologie.com. Sugar has 190 employees and operations in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia.

“On the eve of our five-year anniversary, Lisa and I are proud of the success and rapid growth we have demonstrated to date,” said Brian Sugar, founder and CEO of Sugar. “In the last year we achieved significant milestones, including growing our audience to over 20 million unique visitors per month, driving over $250 million in commerce to our partners, and reaching profitability for the full year. We are excited with the opportunities ahead of us as we continue to pioneer the combination of content and commerce.”

“Sugar is led by an outstanding management team that has driven impressive growth in a diverse set of complementary revenue streams,” said Dennis Phelps, General Partner of IVP. “We see an enormous market opportunity and are excited about Sugar’s ability to execute in a world of slower-moving incumbents.”

“Brian and Lisa Sugar are entertaining a new generation of women. They do so around the clock and on hundreds of millions of mobile and web devices. But Sugar Inc. is still at the beginning of what is possible,” said Michael Moritz, General Partner of Sequoia.

Another Yahoo SVP Departs–This Time, Techie Cheryl Ainoa

Kara Swisher — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 19:15:48 +0000

Yahoo is losing another longtime senior exec, this time Cheryl Ainoa (pictured here), who has been SVP of the company’s Global Service Engineering unit.

Ainoa, who was one of Yahoo’s top women executives, announced her resignation to her team earlier this week. She is apparently departing for a job at another Silicon Valley tech company.

As described for a recent “Girl Geek Dinner” at Yahoo, where she spoke on the topic of “Innovation at Scale,” Ainoa’s job was to lead “the teams that manage all Yahoo! applications in production worldwide–ensuring scalable, highly available and high performing experiences for every Y! user.”

Ainoa is a longtime Yahoo veteran and also has worked at other companies such as Broderbund Software, Genealogy.com and Healtheon/WebMD.

Earlier this week, another longtime Yahoo–VP of North American Field Sales Mitch Spolan–left for the top advertising job at social buying site, LivingSocial.

Yahoo declined to comment.

Viral Video: James Bond As a Lady

Kara Swisher — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:56:08 +0000

This is perhaps the oddest video in honor of the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, in which James Bond–played by actor Daniel Craig–puts on a dress.

No, really.

It’s worthwhile to note all the dire statistics for women today, although I am not sure this is the best way to illustrate the issue.

Well, you only live twice:

Liveblogging Demand Media's (and Richard Rosenblatt's) First Earnings Call: The Avocado Difference!

Kara Swisher — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:08:13 +0000

BoomTown always enjoys the maiden voyage of a newly public company, so liveblogging Demand Media’s first quarterly earnings seems like a must-do.

It’s also the first public outing for CEO Richard Rosenblatt, who has sold off his previous entrepreneurial efforts.

And it seems like a good start, as the Santa Monica, Calif.-based online content company, which had its IPO in late January, finally out to rest some controversy about how much is actually earns by posting $1 million in net income in the last three months of 2010.

Okay, that is a weensy amount, to be sure, but it beat expectations, as well as for revenue, with sales of $73.6 million for the fourth quarter.

Of course, Demand wants Wall Street to look at “Adjusted OIBDA” results, which was up 88 percent, and which it is a much prettier $20.1 million in earnings.

Also on deck, as MediaMemo’s Peter Kakfa noted today:

“Expect to hear at least one riff on whether or not the company feels threatened by Google and changes the search engine is making to push “content farms” out of its results. CEO Richard Rosenblatt insists that his company is not a content farm, and that Google is just fine with his stuff, but I have a feeling the issue won’t go away just yet.”

We’ll see–here we go:

2:05 pm PT: It took me a bit to get into this conference call, since I could not get the live broadcast from the Web site at all and the teleconference operators were snoozing.

And I tuned in just as Rosenblatt (pictured here) was talking about how Demand was helping people get information about how to ripen avocados.

No, really.

(Memo to self: Curb the snotty journalist tone, especially since I love me a good, ripe avocado.)

Rosenblatt, who seems only a little nervous, pressed on by talking about its massive eHow site, as well as Cracked.com and other major branded sites Demand has.

The latest is TypeF women’s health and beauty site, which is guided by supermodel Tyra Banks.

Rosenblatt then linked it all to advertisers and how much they want to spend on sites like this.

“We are not limited to just a few key verticals,” he said, touting its sales staff, including Rosenblatt’s daring raid of Chief Revenue Officer Joanne Bradford from Yahoo.

“The company is well positioned to capture an increasing share of brand revenue,” said Rosenblatt.

2:18 pm: Rosenblatt then zeroed in on the juicy issues, which center around the quality of the content Demand churns out.

Or, as critics have argued, lack of quality.

“The level of specificity is arcane to some,” noted Rosenblatt, using the example of flying paper lanterns and how to make a roof rake as examples of the kind of niche content Demand produces.

Arcane is right, but it takes all kinds!

Plus, insisted Rosenblatt, it’s good! Accurate! Edited! Useful!

He took the gloves off here, which made me want a Demand piece about taking care of leather gloves (linseed oil?).

“We’re just getting started,” said Rosenblatt, about the company and not the glove care tips.

2:24 pm: The CEO turned it over to the CFO, Charles Hilliard, which meant I was off on my critical Web search about taking care of my gloves.

That’s because he immediately said: “Adjusted OIBDA.”

Which-let’s be honest–sounds like a communicable disease.

Essentially, said Hilliard, it’s up, up, up for Demand, in terms of revenue, earnings, page views and more.

You can read all these gory financial details in the press release here.

For some reason, Hilliard is using the retail term, “same store sales,” as a comparison. I covered retails for years, so it is a surprise for this to be the metaphor, but Demand obviously sees itself as a content store.

2:39 pm: Q&A time and the Google-fights-spam question came first!

Rosenblatt said he welcomed it and appeared unconcerned. His avocado-ripening, roof-rake-making, flying-lantern company needed to make no excuses!

The next question is about expansion, including internationally. Sure, Western Europe.

Then, a sneaky follow-up on content farms.

“We consider ourself very white hat,” declared Rosenblatt.

I wonder what the best way to clean a white hat is?

Voila! It’s right here on eHow:

“1. Wash your white hat in the washing machine if it is made of cotton or polyester. Just add laundry detergent and one cup of bleach. Wash the hat using the hot water setting. Do not put the hat in the dryer. The hat will shrink and then it won’t fit your head.”

Call the Pulitzer Prize committee!

(Wait, snotty again! I also love clean, white hats.)

I was so riveted by the white-hat thing, I completely missed the next question, but tuned in again to one about revenue momentum.

Essentially, Bradford–who looks great in a white hat, I might add–is on the case.

Then some internal technical questions and about guidance for Q1. CFO Hilliard said that the company was guiding for growth, despite more public company expenses.

(Needless to say, you can find out about how to run a public company here on eHow.)

The last question was about how much branded advertising will make up total revenue. Between five and 10 percent of 2010, said Hilliard, but it is the fastest category of growth.

And also one about curation of content and use of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter for feedback.

Rosenblatt said that feedback can even become content, which will be part of new eHow redesign to come.

Want some tips on that? Of course, Demand Media has the answer, at least to this easy question.

Nordstrom Acquires Flash Sales Site HauteLook for Up to $270 Million

Tricia Duryee — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 22:11:23 +0000

Nordstrom has agreed to acquire four-year-old HauteLook, marking the department store’s first foray into online private sales.

Nordstrom will acquire the company for $180 million in stock. However, the transaction size could jump to as much as $270 million over time if the company meets certain performance goals and vesting requirements for the existing management team.

At that price, the transaction gives a lot of weight to a burgeoning new area of e-commerce, fueled by private/flash sales and other group-buying trends.

Los Angeles-based HauteLook offers discounts of 50 to 75 percent off home, beauty, travel and local services for women, men and kids. In the last two years, HauteLook says it has conducted 2,500 private sales events for 1,000 high-profile brands.

Seattle-based Nordstrom said HauteLook will operate as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary, to be managed by its current leadership. The HauteLook brand and Web site will remain separate from Nordstrom, and there are plenty of incentives to keep the management team in place.

While Nordstrom is primarily a physical department store, it has a fairly sizable online presence and recently has spent time integrating its online and store presence, so customers can see what inventory is online and what’s available in the store.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011 and is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory and HauteLook shareholder approval.

Arianna Huffington on Her New AOL Job: "I Want to Stay Here Forever"

Peter Kafka — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 13:55:58 +0000

Tim Armstrong and company spent yesterday explaining their $315 million Huffington Post purchase to the press. Now they’re doing the same for Wall Street, via a conference call.

AOL CFO Artie Minson prepped investors for the call with a memo laying out expectations. Short version: AOL thinks HuffPo will earn about $10 million on revenue of $50 million this year (as long as you’re okay with using “adjusted OIBDA” as a proxy for “profit”). It also thinks the purchase will save it $20 million a year, but it’s going to spend around $20 million on restructuring charges when the deal goes through.

I’ll liveblog the call below:

8:02 am: Greetings! About to start now.

8:03 am: On the call: Tim Armstrong, Arianna Huffington, Artie Minson.

8:03 am: Armstrong makes a Super Bowl joke that I can’t quite follow, and I like football. But now praising Arianna, co-founder Kenny Lerer and outgoing AOL CEO Eric Hippeau.

“The Huffington Post is one of the best properties on the Internet.” Armstrong, Huffington and Minson are all BlackBerry users.

8:06 am: On revenue: This gives an opportunity to serve more brand marketers, who are “very interested” in the scale this gives us.

8:07 am: Spending next 30 days on integration. “Really synergies to be had.”

Next steps: Next 72 hours communicating with employees, talking to partners. 1,500 AOL workers on the phone this morning explaining deal to others.

“This may be the smallest disruption” internally of any deal I’ve worked on. Majority of integration done within 35 to 40 days.

8:09 am: We’ve looked at a bunch of companies, though we’re mainly going to concentrate on organic growth. But Arianna is great [many superlatives] and she “also happens to be a woman.”

8:10 am: Here’s Arianna.

8:11 am: “Amazing” how aligned two orgs are.

8:11 am: HuffPo was profitable last year. We were thinking about bringing in additional investors last year, and an IPO down the line. But this made perfect sense.

8:12 am: This deal provides a “dramatic acceleration” for the plans we already had.

8:13 am: Some praise for Patch, AOL’s local strategy.

8:14 am: Can’t wait to start!

8:14 am: Alrighty, then. Here’s Artie Minson with some nuts and bolts.

Actually, it’s some color on the deal. But a lot of it is in the prepared remarks he put out earlier this morning.

8:15 am: Again, $20 million in cost savings here. And again, we’ll have to pay up for restructuring: $20 million for cuts, and $10 million for purchase price.

8:17 am: Still basically reading from prepared remarks. Some bookkeeping talk re: compensation accounting.

8:18 am: Remember, display ad growth coming will finally start showing up second half of this year.

8:19 am: Q&A:

Q: Talk about content strategy. Does HuffPo become hub for content going forward? Does it replace Seed? And how long is Arianna’s contract?

A: “The press” has been talking about our content strategy, so let me be clear–we’re focusing on premium content. Things like Seed and StudioNow are platforms–you can do whatever you want with them, different quality levels, at different types of scale.

And then the other thing that is important about those platforms is the ability they give us to work with advertisers.

One of our main interests in HuffPo is their technology and publishing system. So now we have multiple systems [which he is saying is a good thing]. “Our content strategy hasn’t changed.” The “stuff that was out in the press about the AOL Way” was just one way of doing things. [This is not very convincing]

Arianna, tell us how long you’re going to stay.

8:24 am: Arianna: “I’ve told Tim I want to stay here forever. I want this to be the last act of my life.” Anything I want to do I can do here.

[Sorry, missed next part but it was a defense/explanation of content strategy.]

8:26 am: Armstrong: Arianna has a multiyear contract, but it’s open-ended.

8:27 am: Arianna: By the way, we’re going to bring back commenting to AOL stories, and socialize them.

8:28 am: Q: Why buy instead of partnering? Were there other bidders? Also, how will HuffPo politics affect AOL?

8:28 am: Armstrong: We do partnerships where there is “limited upside to those arrangements” so ” we can really spend time on the areas we want to win”–i.e., we don’t care about sports, we do care about women.

“Arianna is somebody we’d rather have inside our building than outside our building.”

“If there were or weren’t bidders on the other side,” I think we got the right price.

8:30 am: Arianna. “As we’ve said, again and again, Huffington Post was not for sale….Nobody was in a hurry to cash out, everybody believed that we could do an IPO down the road.” It’s just that Tim gave us a great offer. [hrrrm.]

On politics–we used to be all about politics, now we’re not. Just 15 percent of our traffic. We have a divorce section now.

Talking up AOL’s “college” section.

8:33 am: Q: For Arianna: More on Patch, please. What do think about what AOL’s done with it, and what you can do with it?

8:33 am: [Every time Arianna says "local level" I think she's saying "locker level." It's happened at least twice, maybe more, on this call.]

There’s a “greatest person of the day” feature we have, and I think Patch should use that. [Or maybe vice-versa, sorry.] I also like their five percent “giving back” rule, cause marketing, etc.

8:35 am: Armstrong: Again, we can do national and local. That’s important. NFL rights are important, and so are local news stories.

8:36 am: Q: Who’s going to sell what? And can you talk about pricing disparity between AOL and HuffPo?

8:37 am: Armstrong: “We would like to maintain all the people from both sales forces [except for Greg Coleman!]. I think we will end up with a large-scale, large-property organization–I don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like, though.

On sell-through rate: Slightly lower at HuffPo, because they’ve been ramping up traffic, and sales force. On CPM, same story. So we can bring up sell-through rate and CPM, and have a larger sales force. [This is pretty much the best argument for the deal that Armstrong can make.]

[BTW: Good back-channel discussion on Twitter right now about AOL's SEO skills, and the people behind it. None of that coming up during this call right now.]

[Sorry, I meant HuffPo's SEO skills, much of which stem from blueprint BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti set out.]

Q: Why not use equity for this deal?

A: Because our equity is priced too low, essentially. But HuffPo employees did roll over 25 percent of deal consideration into AOL options. So as that equity gets more valuable, they’ll get upside.

8:45 am: Q: In your statement, you talked about OIBDA growth in 2013. More on that please.

Minson–probably going to stick to my prepared remarks on that one.

8:46 am: Last Q: Your acqusitions have been about toolsets or content. As you think about others going forward, what else do you want?

Armstrong: We have long-term vision. On plumbing: We’ve wanted to get platforms and plumbing straightened out, and we’re doing that now. Think about the bones or foundation of a very large property. That’s why we’ve been doing infrastructure, like with video–5Min and GoViral and StudioNow.

Going forward, we’ll be doing infrastructure. And we’ll continue to look at “media properties and media brands” that fit our strategy. [Remember, Web site owners: HuffPo just got 10x revenue.

8:50 am: Minson: But we're very price sensitive and we've walked away from deals.

8:50 am: Arianna: And we like women!

8:51 am: Armstrong sums up: Success "in the Internet space" requires vision and execution. That's this deal. And remember, content and brands become more valuable as tech gets faster, more advanced. And "expect us to stay on strategy and on point" going forward. "We're going to overcommunicate" with both sets of employees as we integrate. [You've been warned!]

And we’re done. Thanks for reading.

[Photo credit: Arianna Huffington]