Surf-Hint

AZERTY

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:26:00 +0000

AZERTY

test

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:06:00 +0000

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THE E-LEARNING 2.0 LIST

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:58:00 +0000

B4class - Group & video chat, scheduling, photo sharing & tutoring. View.
Labels: CHATTING 2.0, COMMUNITY 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0, PHOTO 2.0, VIDEOCOM 2.0

Cafescribe - Search texts, upload & share notes, subscribe to best notes & save trees. View.
Labels: E-LEARNING 2.0, NOTES 2.0

Chalksite - Bring your classroom online. View.
Labels:

Classcaster - Interact with students thru podcasts & blogs. View.
Labels: AUDIO 2.0, BLOGGING 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0, PUBLISHING 2.0

Classmarker - Create, publish & share tests and quizzes. View.
Labels: BLOGGING 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0, GAMING 2.0, PUBLISHING 2.0

Edublogs - Blog hosting for teachers (Wordpress). View.
Labels: BLOGGING 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0, PUBLISHING 2.0

Elgg - Open source e-learning software. View.
Labels: E-LEARNING 2.0, PUBLISHING 2.0

Engrade - Helps teachers, students parents to connect. View.
Labels: COMMUNITY 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0

Examprofessor - Create, publish & share exams. View.
Labels: E-LEARNING 2.0, PUBLISHING 2.0

Gradefix - Organize your homework. View.
Labels: E-LEARNING 2.0, ORGANIZING 2.0, PRODUCTIVITY 2.0

Grockit - Online exam preparation. View.
Labels: E-LEARNING

Haikuls - E-learning publishing & management solution. View.
Labels: E-LEARNING 2.0, PUBLISHING 2.0

Livemocha* - Language learning & practice community. View.
Labels: BRILLIANT 2.0, COMMUNITY 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0

Mindpicnic* - Share & learn from online knowledge. View.
Labels: BRILLIANT 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0, KNOWLEDGE 2.0

Moodle - Course management system for learning communities. View.
Labels: COMMUNITY 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0, PUBLISHING 2.0

Notemesh - Collaborate with classmates to create unified sets of notes. View.
Labels: COLLABORATING 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0, NOTES 2.0, PRODUCTIVITY 2.0

Nuvvo - Build, publish & learn from courses. View.
Labels: E-LEARNING 2.0, PUBLISHING 2.0

Palabea* - Learn languages & share your culture. View.
Labels: BRILLIANT 2.0, COMMUNITY 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0

Plateau* - Enterprise e-learning, performance & career management solution. View.
Labels: BRILLIANT 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0, ENTERPRISE 2.0, RECRUITING 2.0

Scitalks - Explore, publish & share scientific video presentations & lectures. View.
Labels: E-LEARNING 2.0, PRESENTATION 2.0, PUBLISHING 2.0, VIDEO 2.0

Scriptovia - Community for students; collaborate & receive feedback on your academic work. View.
Labels: COLLABORATING 2.0, COMMUNITY 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0, PRODUCTIVITY 2.0

Solutionwatch - Reviews & lists of school & study tools. View.
Labels: ABOUT 2.0, CODING 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0, EDUCATION 2.0

Soziety - Language-learning social network based on Skype. View.
Labels: E-LEARNING 2.0, PHONE 2.0

Starplay - Practice your music with virtual pros. View.
Labels: AUDIO 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0, MUSIC 2.0

Tutorialicious - Digg IT tutorials. View.
Labels: CODING 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0, RATING 2.0

Tutorvista* - Online education in any subject, with 24/7 live tutors. View.
Labels: BRILLIANT 2.0, E-LEARNING 2.0, IRL 2.0, SERVICE COMMERCE 2.0

Udutu - Online course authoring. View.
Labels: E-LEARNING 2.0, PUBLISHING 2.0

Visual-literacy - E-learning tutorial on visualization. View.
Labels: DATABASE 2.0, DESIGN 2.0 (GRAPHICAL -), DESIGN 2.0 (INTERACTION -), DESIGN 2.0 (PRODUCT -), E-LEARNING 2.0, TREEMAPS 2.0, VISUALIZATION 2.0

Wiziq - Connecting teachers and students for distance learning. View.
Labels: E-LEARNING 2.0, RECRUITING 2.0, SERVICE COMMERCE 2.0

international internet M&A deals 2005 to 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:56:00 +0000

First Capital has exclusively released to TechCrunch UK the information presented at its breakfast seminar this yesterday. The data contained makes for interesting reading if you are a startup trying to value your business.

They studied about 600 international internet M&A deals since the start of 2005 and found that 2007 produced very high valuations for deals, but that this was - in their opinion - unsustainable.

Put it this way, in early 05 most internet company exits were priced at three times revenues. In 2007 they were priced at 13 or 14 times revenues. Although VCs tend to aim for a 10 times multiple, even at this rate it’s unsustainable.

In addition, in 2007 there were 11 multi-billion pound deals. In 2006 there were… zero. And in 2005 only two - Ask jeeves and Skype. You can see the relaity check in that pricing started to fall at the beginning of this year.

In other words, this year will see less of those kinds of mega-deals. However, the situation today is that the sub-£100mn size exit market is still robust. Furthermore, valuations are still up on ‘05 and ‘06

Some of the First Capital findings could be described as ‘Myth busting’. Internet entrepreneurs often think of only a handful of big US consumer internet players, when considering an exit. And yes, they do make the headlines in terms of number of deals and value of these deals. But, the universe of potential acquirers is far larger and more complex than most realise. For instance, out of the deals they analysed there were almost 400 different acquirers, as opposed to the Googles/Yahoos/Microsofts that most people normally think of.

And since most acquirers of UK internet companies are OTHER UK companies, UK internet entrepreneurs would do well to build on these kinds of relationships rather than focus too heavily on the big US names.

That’s not to say that the Web giants are not active. The top eight Internet giants (Google, Microsoft, News Corp, eBay, Cisco, Yahoo, ValueClick, AOL) have done about £16bn worth of deals since 2005. To put that in context, the whole market did nearly £60bn worth over that period.

Also, Internet deals are not just about the consumer web. In truth, online data deals dominated 2007 by far. These are big boring ugly businesses - but they have a hell of a lot of data (note to all startups not concentrating on creating some kind of data!).

First Capital also identified some key trends for Internet companies:

- Social networks are going niche (Moli, Kindo, Visible Path)
- Advertising gets smarter (AdInfuse, Smaato, Consorte Media)
- Everything is going mobile (MyStrands, BetNow, Streamezzo)
- Professional content is returning (TVTrip, ONnetworks, VideoJug)
- Media is becoming more immersive (Superscape, AlamoFire, PlayFirst)
- Shopping is becoming more social (Tenga, ThisNext, ideeli)
- Software in the sky/cloud/ether! (Zoomio, Netsuite, TuVox)

Multi Billion £ Deals show that 2007 was an unusual year

2007 (& early 08)

Webex - Cisco £1.5bn 03/07
Doubleclick - Google 1.5bn 04/07
Reuters - Thomson 9bn 05/07
Aquantive - Microsoft 3bn 05/07
Gemstar (interactive TV) - Macrovision 1.5bn 07/07
Navteq - Nokia 4bn 10/7
Teleatlas - Tom Tom 2bn 11/07
Tradus (QXL) - Naspers 1bn 12/07
ChoicePOint (insurance data & analytics) - Reed Elsevier 2bn 2/08
Getty Images - Hellman & Friedman 1.2bn 2/08
Dow Jones - News Corp 2.8bn 1/07

2006

no billion pound deals

2005

Ask jeeves - IACI 1bn 3/05
Skype - eBay 2.2bn 9/05

Success

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:54:00 +0000

Quotations about Success

“There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: Those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.”

Ray Goforth

“Success is not to be measured by the position someone has reached in life, but the obstacles he has overcome while trying to succeed.”

Booker T. Washington

“One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”

Andre Gide

“It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.”

Babe Ruth

“Most people achieved their greatest success one step beyond what looked like their greatest failure.”

Brian Tracy

“Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Thomas Edison

“The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term is the indispensable pre-requisite for success”

Brian Tracy

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”

Helen Keller

“There is no failure. Only feedback.”

Unknown

“Successful leaders have the courage to take action while others hesitate.”

John Maxwell

World’s Dumbest Hacker

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:47:00 +0000

Found a forum discussing the world’s dumbest hacker and I believe you have to agree, the guy really is the world’s dumbest hacker. Below is a copy of the post made in the forum:

*** Start ***

This is a transcript of the worlds dummest hacker on an IRC channel. The original can be found here: http://www.jellyslab.com/~bteo/hacker.htm

The comments are not mine, they belong to the original poster of the dialogue.

quote:

* bitchchecker (~java@euirc-a97f9137.dip.t-dialin.net) Quit (Ping timeout#)
* bitchchecker (~java@euirc-61a2169c.dip.t-dialin.net) has joined #stopHipHop
[bitchchecker] why do you kick me
[bitchchecker] can’t you discus normally
[bitchchecker] answer!
[Elch] we didn’t kick you
[Elch] you had a ping timeout: * bitchchecker (~java@euirc-a97f9137.dip.t-dialin.net) Quit (Ping timeout#)
[bitchchecker] what ping man
[bitchchecker] the timing of my pc is right
[bitchchecker] i even have dst
[bitchchecker] you banned me
[bitchchecker] amit it you son of a bitch
[HopperHunter|afk] LOL
[HopperHunter|afk] shit you’re stupid, DST^^
[bitchchecker] shut your mouth WE HAVE DST!
[bitchchecker] for two weaks already
[bitchchecker] when you start your pc there is a message from windows that DST is applied.
[Elch] You’re a real computer expert
[bitchchecker] shut up i hack you
[Elch] ok, i’m quiet, hope you don’t show us how good a hacker you are ^^
[bitchchecker] tell me your network number man then you’re dead
[Elch] Eh, it’s 129.0.0.1
[Elch] or maybe 127.0.0.1
[Elch] yes exactly that’s it: 127.0.0.1 I’m waiting for you great attack
[bitchchecker] in five minutes your hard drive is deleted
[Elch] Now I’m frightened
[bitchchecker] shut up you’ll be gone
[bitchchecker] i have a program where i enter your ip and you’re dead
[bitchchecker] say goodbye
[Elch] to whom?
[bitchchecker] to you man
[bitchchecker] buy buy
[Elch] I’m shivering thinking about such great Hack0rs like you
* bitchchecker (~java@euirc-61a2169c.dip.t-dialin.net) Quit (Ping timeout#)

What happened is clear: That guy entered his own IP-Adress in his mighty Hack-Tool and crashed his own PC. This way, the attack on my PC was a failure. I was already starting to think that I did not have to worry, but a good hacker never calls it a day. Two minutes later he returned.

quote:

* bitchchecker (~java@euirc-b5cd558e.dip.t-dialin.net) has joined #stopHipHop
[bitchchecker] dude be happy my pc crashed otherwise you’d be gone
[Metanot] lol
[Elch] bitchchecker: Then try hacking me again… I still have the same IP: 127.0.0.1
[bitchchecker] you’re so stupid man
[bitchchecker] say buy buy
[Metanot] ah, [Please control your cussing] off
[bitchchecker] buy buy elch
* bitchchecker (~java@euirc-b5cd558e.dip.t-dialin.net) Quit (Ping timeout#)

There was a tension in the room… Would he manage, after these two failures, to crash my PC? I waited. Nothing happened. I felt relieve… Six minutes passed by until he prepared the next wave of attack. Being a Hacker, who usually cracks whole data centers, he knew what his problem was now.

quote:

* bitchchecker (~java@euirc-9ff3c180.dip.t-dialin.net) has joined #stopHipHop
[bitchchecker] elch you son of a bitch
[Metanot] bitchchecker how old are you?
[Elch] What’s up bitchchecker?
[bitchchecker] you have a frie wal
[bitchchecker] fire wall
[Elch] maybe, i don’t know
[bitchchecker] i’m 26
[Metanot] such behaviour with 26?
[Elch] how did you find out that I have a firewall?
[Metanot] tststs this is not very nice missy
[bitchchecker] because your gay fire wall directed my turn off signal back to me
[bitchchecker] be a man turn that shit off
[Elch] cool, didn’t know this was possible.
[bitchchecker] thn my virus destroys your pc man
[Metanot] are you hacking yourselves?
[Elch] yes bitchchecker is trying to hack me
[Metanot] he bitchchecker if you’re a hacker you have to get around a firewall even i can do that
[bitchchecker] yes man i hack the elch but the sucker has a fire wall the
[Metanot] what firewall do you have?
[bitchchecker] like a girl
[Metanot] firewall is normal a normal hacker has to be able to get past it…you girl^^
[He] Bitch give yourself a jackson and chill you’re letting them provoce you and give those little girls new material all the time
[bitchchecker] turn the firewall off then i send you a virus [Please control your cussing]er
[Elch] Noo
[Metanot] he bitchchecker why turn it off, you should turn it off
[bitchchecker] you’re afraid
[bitchchecker] i don’t wanna hack like this if he hides like a girl behind a fire wall
[bitchchecker] elch turn off your shit wall!
[Metanot] i wanted to say something about this, do you know the definition of hacking??? if he turns of the firewall that’s an invitation and that has nothing to do with hacking
[bitchchecker] shut up
[Metanot] lol
[bitchchecker] my grandma surfs with fire wall
[bitchchecker] and you suckers think you’re cool and don’t dare going into the internet without a fire wall

He calls me girly and says only his grandma would use a firewall. I know that elder people are much more intelligent then younger, but I couldn’t let that rest. To see whether he really is a good hacker I lie and let everything as it is. I don’t have a firewall at all, only my router.

quote:

[Elch] bitchchecker, a collegue showed me how to turn the firewall off. Now you can try again
[Metanot] bitchhacker can’t hack
[Black] nice play on words ^^
[bitchchecker] wort man
[Elch] bitchchecker: I’m still waiting for your attack!
[Metanot] how many times again he is no hacker
[bitchchecker] man do you want a virus
[bitchchecker] tell me your ip and it deletes your hard drive
[Metanot] lol ne give it up i’m a hacker myself and i know how hackers behave and i can tell you 100.00% you’re no hacker..^^
[Elch] 127.0.0.1
[Elch] it’s easy
[bitchchecker] lolololol you so stupid man you’ll be gone
[bitchchecker] and are the first files being deleted
[Elch] mom…
[Elch] i’ll take a look

In panic I started the Windows Explorer, my heart beating faster. Had I under-estimated him?

quote:

[bitchchecker] don’t need to rescue you can’t son of a bitch
[Elch] that’s bad
[bitchchecker] elch you idiout your hard drive g: is deleted
[Elch] yes, there’s nothing i can do about it
[bitchchecker] and in 20 seconds f: is gone

Yes, true, G: and F: were gone. Did I ever have them? Doesn’t matter, I did not have time to think, I was scared. bitchchecker was comforting me with a music tip.

quote:

[bitchchecker] tupac rules
[bitchchecker] elch you son of a bitch your f: is gone and e: too

Drive E:? Oh my god… All the games are there! And the vacation pictures! I instantly take a look. Everything still there. But the hacker said it was deleted….

Or isn’t it happening on my computer?

quote:

[bitchchecker] and d: is at 45% you idiot lolololol
[He] why doesn’t meta say anything
[Elch] he’s probably rolling on the floor laughing
[Black] ^^
[bitchchecker] your d: is gone
[He] go on BITCH

The guy is good: My CD-drive is allegedly deleted! Bitchchecker turned my ancient disk sucker into a burner! But how did he do this? I’ll have to ask him. Some encourage him. He himself is giving advice how to avoid the disaster on my hard drives.

quote:

[bitchchecker] elch man you’re so stupid never give your ip on the internet
[bitchchecker] i’m already at c: 30 percent

Should I tell him he’s not attacking my computer?

quote:

* bitchchecker (~java@euirc-9ff3c180.dip.t-dialin.net) Quit (Ping timeout#)

Too late… It’s 20:22 when we get the last message of our hacker with the alias “bitchchecker”. We see that he has a “Ping timeout”. We haven’t seen him since then… must be the Daylight Saving Time.

*** End ***

Geez, this guy is indeed the world’s dumbest hacker!!!

An Alexaholic Moment: Visual Search Engine ManagedQ Gets Snapped

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:42:00 +0000

This morning brings another cautionary tale for anyone trying to build a Website or a business using data from another site. Visual search engine ManagedQ is broken right now because it took images of Websites from another visual search engine, Snap, without permission. (See screenshot above). Sound familiar? Alexaholic (now Statsaholic) ran into similar trouble with Amazon a year ago for taking graphs from Alexa before they were officially available through its API (read more about that dispute here).

It is unfortunate that Snap effectively disabled ManagedQ, which is run by a few programmers out of a basement in Palo Alto. But it goes to show that just because data is becoming more freely available on the Web, you still have to be careful about building a business on another company’s data. It appears that ManagedQ based its visual previews entirely on Snap’s images. As I wrote in a review last month:

Every time you do a search on ManagedQ, a grid appears on the right of the first six results so you can visually see what is on the other side of what is normally a blue link. If you click on one of the images, it opens up a larger, browsable window still within ManagedQ. The idea is that you can surf the Web without leaving the search application.

The way ManagedQ was using the images violated Snap’s terms of service (TOS), according to Snap CEO Tom McGovern. Snap does distribute these images through its Snap Shots widgets. (We use them on TechCrunch. If you mouse over any external link in this post, an image of the Web page on the other end will pop up). After coming across the site, his engineers figured out that ManagedQ was taking the images from Snap without any attribution or link, and cloaking the fact that it had done so. After contacting ManagedQ and not getting a response, McGovern ordered his engineers to block the site’s access to Snap’s images. Warns McGovern:

Folks really need to use services per the TOS. Otherwise they will go the way of ManagedQ or Alexaholic.

Ouch. At least his engineers didn’t replace the Website snap shots with goatse images. But the reaction does seem a bit harsh, especially for a tiny site like ManagedQ. Was McGovern justified in his response? Here’s what ManagedQ looked like before:

Update: ManagedQ founder David Stat has provided the following comment on their shutdown at the hands of Snap:

As we’ve been developing ManagedQ, we looked at several different
thumbnail services and decided on Snap due to their speed and high image
quality. ManagedQ is an experiment with visual Search, not a high volume
Search site. As such, we believed that Snap would not mind our use of
their service and may even encourage its novel and interesting
application. Before using Snap for our site, however, we performed a
traffic analysis and found that ManagedQ would consist of only about
0.01% of Snap’s traffic at most - hardly a share that would affect them
in any meaningful way.

It is most unfortunate that Snap has decided to block us, but I
understand that they are perfectly within their rights to do so. We did
not, however, receive a notice beforehand. We would certainly be
interested in pursuing an agreement with Snap that is outside the bounds
of their normal TOS, but we haven’t yet done so because we thought
ourselves too small for them to consider such a partnership.

Our focus is on continuing to create a new Search Experience with broad
appeal. We believe data should be open by default. We are at a loss
as to why a relatively big startup like Snap would feel threatened by a
small Search experiment like ManagedQ.

Update 2: Snap CEO Tom McGovern has also added these remarks to the situation:

We want sites to use the service in an unadulterated manner where the
actual Snap Shot is shown. There are lots reasons (server load,
business model, end user confusion) that this is important to us. For
developers that are working on a project or offering a commercial
service there are many other companies that offer a developer API
(Girafa, thumbshots, Alexa).

Could Drought Kill Israel's Electric Car?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:15:00 +0000

The Sea of Galilee, one of Israel's strained water sources.

The public discussion of Israel's water problems intensified this week, with Israel's most respected newspaper, Ha'aretz, calling on water authorities to shift to regulating demand for the scarce resource. Also this week, we reported on a new study suggesting that a shift to electric cars could seriously impact water consumption in countries where this technology is adopted.

The crux of the study's argument is that, as cars rely on the national grid for energy instead of on gasoline, national electricity generation (currently based on non-renewable sources) must increase, which will significantly elevate power plants' demand for water resources.

As Andrew wrote earlier this week, yes, it takes water to produce electricity - but this does not have to be a deal-breaker. However, in Israel, where ambitious entrepreneurs aim to put 100,000 electric cars on the road by the end of 2010, authorities would be wise to heed the advice of the researchers, and consider the broader impacts of large-scale adoption of the plug-in vehicle.

Located downstream from other regional consumers of water, and with no precipitation for around half of the year, Israel has never been a land flowing with water (unlike milk and honey, which still flow in abundance). And, as Israel approaches the end of the current rainy season, the country is facing the worst crisis the national water economy has seen in a decade. The agricultural sector, already in crisis mode, will probably be the first to suffer the economic effects of the drought, and the local effects of global climate change are only expected to exacerbate the situation over the coming years.

On top of the energy demands of the cars themselves, the factories that manufacture them will likely be built in Israel, and, despite the welcome boost to the country's green economy, will also become major consumers of energy and water. Although Israeli water authorities and green groups have held up transport projects in the past, it is not yet clear how the various groups involved view the electric car project at this stage.

The researchers behind the study on electric cars and water consumption, Carey W. King and Michael E. Webber of the University of Texas at Austin, offer these words of caution to policy-makers:

Overall, we conclude that the impact on water resources from a widespread shift to grid-based transportation would be substantial enough to warrant consideration for relevant public policy decision-making. That is not to say that the negative impacts on water resources make such a shift undesirable, but rather this increase in water usage presents a significant potential impact on regional water resources and should be considered when planning for a plugged-in automotive economy.

The best solution to the dilemma may be a wholesale shift to renewable energy. While Israel currently gets most of its energy from fossil fuels, King points out that, in an energy economy based on wind or solar energy, the electric car's additional contribution to water consumption would be "essentially zero."

Israel is well-positioned to take advantage of one of its only major natural resources, the sun, with considerable academic, technical, and business prowess in the solar field. The solar economy is just beginning to take off, with new regulations allowing private citizens to sell power produced by their solar panels to the national grid and new solar power plants planned in the southern Negev and Arava regions.

Bebo Founders Made About $600 Million

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:13:00 +0000

Bebo founders and husband-wife team Michael and Xochi Birch made about $600 million in the sale of the social networking site to AOL (NYSE: TWX) for $850 million. The two founders are reported to have about 70 percent stake at the time of the sale. This for less than three years of work. We reported earlier that VC firm Balderton Capital will reap about $140 million - nine times what it invested in Bebo less than two years ago - by selling its 15.7 percent stake.

Photobucket's new tagging feature takes a hint from Facebook and Flickr

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:16:00 +0000

Tomorrow Photobucket is finally rolling out smarter way to tag your photos. If you've ever used Facebook's system of tagging other people that lets users draw a box around their friends, Photobucket's new implementation isn't too far off. You simply need to draw a box around any people or objects in a photo and give it a tag. Users who see the photo can mouse over the shot and get little boxes that denote the tagged area--similar to Flickr's notes feature. You can also add URLs that will jump users off to someone's social networking profile or other related links if they're one of your Photobucket contacts.

The service supports up to 20 names and links per photo, which is a far cry from Flickr's limit of 75, but likely more than enough to meet the needs of most users--and plenty enough to fill a shot. Like normal tags, the new inner-photo version will get added to Photobucket's existing pool of tags, meaning you're not going to have to tag a shot twice. Users will also be able to search by tag through Photobucket's search tool.

Like Facebook, when adding tags you have the option to e-mail anyone who has been tagged to let them know they're Internet famous. The real killer app however, is the fact that the tags will come with the photo no matter where it goes, a lot like that cool 2view service that I checked out in April. In their demo of the service Photobucket is showing off the new feature on a MySpace profile (imagine that), but it will work with any social network that lets you embed. I can see some cool uses come out of this for blogs and personal Web pages, although the only negative is that Photobucket embeds a big "get your own" link below each photo to advertise the feature to others.

I'm a huge fan of Facebook's tagging feature, and I've always enjoyed Flickr's notes, so to me this seems like a perfect blend of ideas from both of those services into one package. The fact that you can take it elsewhere should make things a little more interesting and add context to a shot, even if there isn't a proper caption, title, or description.

If you want to play with the new feature, Photobucket will have a demo available around 8 am EST at this page: http://tagging.photobucket.com

Tag individual parts of shots with Photobucket's new advanced tagging feature. You can even notify people to let them know, and add URLs like Flickr's notes feature.

Widgetbox's App Accelerator gets more Facebook-friendly

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:15:00 +0000

Just over a month after releasing Widgetbox's App Accelerator, a shortcut for turning blogs and other Widgetbox widgets into Facebook apps (review), Widgetbox announced an upgrade that enmeshes its apps more completely into Facebook profiles.

According to Widgetbox, creating a functional Flash widget that lives in and operates from the user's profile page was the top developer request. It was mine, too. I wrote that:

"Most Facebook applications launch in a separate window when you click them, taking interaction off the user's profile page (the Facebook-developed Wall is a notable exception). It is therefore tragironic that my Webware blog, whose sole purpose is to make reading headlines instantaneous, never graces my Facebook profile page, and instead is stationed one click in."

Now, however, users have the option of creating new Widgetbox widget-apps in Flash, which means that they'll fully integrate into the profile rather than run in JavaScript on a rerouted page.

To sweeten the deal, Widgetbox has also dangled the golden carrot of customization. Users can now access two areas in the Facebook app-creator to finesse the app's appearance and to craft the profile's story feed and the invitation for friends to join. These dubiously named "viral settings" offer more control over the app's tone, but require a little bit of actual code development, unlike the previous App Accelerator process that required only copying and pasting links. To lighten the burden, Widgetbox lists the syntax and a menu of values for you to emulate when customizing your news feed. Tailoring the feed and invitations' look and feel brings the experience much closer to that of an organic Facebook developer.

Take control of your online identity, with Wink

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:14:00 +0000

People search engine Wink, the less bubbly but more filling competitor to Spock, is adding an interesting antilibel feature. Now, if you search for yourself on Wink and find a result you don't like, you can ask Wink to ignore it, and when other people search for you they won't see that result either.

You can delete feeds, results, and pictures from Wink search results.

It's a very useful feature--providing people are searching for you on Wink. While you can get that embarrassing party photo removed from the Wink results, it will still show up on Google. Wink CEO Michael Tanne makes two points regarding this. First, he says, about one third of the 3-billion-plus people searches done each month are now done on people search engines, with the other two-thirds split between general search engines and social networks. Wink is not a major force in people search yet, compared to online phone books, but it is making headway. Second, Wink results show up, to varying degrees, on general-purpose search engines. Tanne told me Wink results show up fairly reliably on Yahoo and that his team is working hard on Google optimization. So the upshot is, if you search for yourself on Wink and find a result or two you don't like, it's a good idea to "claim" your identity on the site and ask it to exclude those results. It can't hurt, and over time, it might help.

Wink also has some other new and interesting features. The most out there is a message board for people who haven't yet used the service. It works like this: Say you find an old friend via Wink, in a Web story or something, and you want to contact them. You can post a message to their name, and it will lie there waiting for them. If and when the person logs into Wink and claims their identity, they'll see your message. Tanne agrees this is a "last-resort" method for contacting people, but it's a clever idea and if Wink integrates with other social nets through OpenSocial, it could become a useful way to leave little message bombs around the Web for people you haven't communicated with in a while.

Finally, Wink now has a feature that lets you "friend" people and follow all their activies in a feed much like the Facebook "wall" and Plaxo's Pulse. By the way, Both Wink and Plaxo offer a widget that will you can use to tell people what you're doing online. Wink's only shows where you have accounts, though: Plaxo reports actual activity, such as Twitter updates.

Wink is working on an OpenSocial implementation, which could be very powerful. Conceptually, using Wink as an aggregation point for your social network activities makes a lot of sense. I'm curious to see what the crew comes up with.

My takeaway: Wink is worth using as a people search engine. It's also worth taking the time to claim your profile and edit out all the stuff about you that you don't like.

Salesconx sells your contacts, but gently

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:07:00 +0000

Finding potential business clients is easy on the internet. From Jigsaw (our coverage) to ZoomInfo (our coverage), new services provide a wealth of contact information you can use to reach into the bowels of companies, from the CEO of a Fortune 500 company to a manager of an Arkansas Wal-Mart.

Finding and winnng a great new client is more difficult. Just possessing an email or phone number doesn’t guarantee that the person on the other end will be interested in talking, or be a promising customer.

Evan Sohn started Salesconx to provide fewer, but higher-value new business contacts for people who will pay more for quality. It’s the equivalent of targeted advertising, which increases the likelihood that the people who see the ad will respond, and in exchange raises the rates advertisers pay per thousand views of the ad.

It’s a small, exclusive social network for people who want to use, but also want to protect, their business contacts. For example, say you’re a salesman with the CEO contact mentioned above, but you don’t want to drop their info onto Jigsaw. The information is worth something, but so is helping the CEO — so if you introduce a new person, you’d better introduce someone worthwhile.

On Salesconx, the emphasis is on finding the right new person. First, you’ll start an auction for the information, with a fixed price (generally around $100). The price stays the same; instead of picking the highest bidder, you’ll be able to glance over the credentials of various bidders and pick the best one. Once the sale is finalized, you’ll make a personal introduction between the buyer and your contact.

Sohn says his site is for the “ground troops” of business — the highly engaged sales people and small business owners who benefit from intelligently networking. Contrast its method with Jigsaw’s practice of opening all of a user’s contacts to every member, a practice many think is abusive of business relationships.

The company launched a closed (alpha) testing of its product two months ago, and has several hundred professionals actively using it, Sohn says. Users include sales people and partners at businesses like design and law firms, who need to secure quality leads.

However, the service won’t explode into growth. It can’t, because most new members come through referrals, and all are given a phone interview about their professional background before acceptance. And once they’re on, the site continues to protect against bad apples by holding money in escrow until both parties are satisfied, and allowing members to give dishonest or ineffective sellers bad ratings.

The entire process requires extensive investment of time and capital by Salesconx — a nearly unheard-of move on the Internet, where most startups strive to automate as much as possible, keeping costs low.

Sohn says the investment is worth it because each lead generated on Salesconx is worth much more than a random name pulled off a site like Jigsaw, thus returning a higher cut to his company. He compares the service to business networking events that took place more often before the Internet era.

The site will be highly successful, and generate a large profit, if it can hit 50,000 active users, according to Sohn — again, far smaller numbers than most other sites require. It has so far picked up 719 members, as of this writing, in limited alpha testing, and is launching into beta today.

Salesconx is funded with about $500,000 from Sohn and several angel investors. It’s in the process of raising a venture capital round.

TrueKnowledge Demos Its Semantic Search Engine

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:01:00 +0000

Venture funded UK semantic search engine TrueKnowledge is unveiling a demo of its private beta today and looks like an interesting site to watch. One cannot help but think of the still-unlaunched Powerset, but it's also reminiscent of the very real Ask.com "smart answers".

Though the video the company published this morning speaks quite well for itself, the gist of what's happening is this. TrueKnowledge combines natural language analysis, an internal knowledge base and external databases to offer immediate answers to various questions. Instead of just pointing you to web pages where the search engine believes it can find your answer, it will offer you an explicit answer and explain the reasoning patch by which that answer was arrived at. There's also an interesting looking API at the center of the product. "Direct answers to humans and machine questions" is the company's tagline.

It sounds very interesting and I'd love to get my hands on it. Unfortunately, the company isn't allowing general access to the site and hasn't given me a login yet either. I hope it's real and really performs as advertised. It takes a very special technology to get coverage of a screencast and coverage again of an actual product release later. This might be one of those technologies. With the sense of self-importance that's implied by the act of unveiling your private beta to the world, one hopes there will be some meat here.

Founder William Tunstall-Pedoe says he's been working on the software for the past 10 years, really putting time into it since coming into initial funding in early 2005. Hopefully there won't be a Powerset style wait for the actual product. Keep an eye on our network blog AltSearchEngines for coverage of TrueKnowledge and the rest of the search engine world as soon as information emerges. See also Alex Iskold's excellent write up on a top-down approach to the semantic web and our coverage of semantic app Twine.

MySpace Voted Most Likely to Be Blocked at Work

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:55:00 +0000

The New York Times reports that a study by security firm Barracuda Networks, which polled 2,400 of its customers, has found that more than half block access to social networking sites from employees on their work networks. Interestingly, though, MySpace was blocked far more often than Facebook.

43.9% of companies block access to MySpace, while just 25.6% of companies block access to Facebook. Just 6.3% of companies blocked only Facebook while allowing access to MySpace. Why is that? A snap analysis might lead one to think that companies are just more comfortable with the more orderly nature of Facebook -- and the fact that it is being used for legitimate business networking by some folks (myself included) -- whereas, the vanity-focused MySpace has no work value. But that's not what's going on here, according to Barracuda.

"Anecdotally, it just appears MySpace is better known," Barracuda’s chief executive officer Dean Drako told the Times. "Some of our customers didn’t know what Facebook was." Even though we recently reported that MySpace as a trend is cooling off, search volume for the site still crushes all other social networks, and news mentions, according to Google Trends, are still in line with Facebook. It's certainly not inconceivable that a lot of corporate IT types just haven't yet heard of Facebook (though that can be hard to imagine while operating in a blogosphere that mentions the site 12 billion times per week).

Image from Barracuda Networks.

In general, though, Barracuda thinks that more companies will begin restricting employee web access in the future, as social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are seen as a productivity drain. The good news for me, is that playing around with those sites on a daily basis is something of a job requirement. For most of the rest of the working population, though, I've always thought that lost productivity numbers might be based on slightly fuzzy math. In my personal experience, even when there weren't any fun diversions (like Facebook) at office jobs I have worked, it didn't mean I spent all that extra time working -- it just meant the breaks I took were spent doing things like folding an arsenal of paper table-top footballs.

Similar to the way the recording industry can't legitimately claim that every downloaded song is lost revenue because not all of those downloaders would have made that purchase if downloading hadn't been available, companies can't make the claim that every minute spent on a social networking site is lost productivity because not all of those employees would have spent those minutes working.

Every March in the US there are stories run in the mainstream media about how many billions of dollars will be lost while employees fill out brackets for NCAA basketball tournament pools at work. But is the twenty minutes it takes most people to fill out a bracket time diverted from actual work or from goofing off that would go on anyway? Is goofing off even such a bad thing? Who is more likely to put out quality work, the employee that spends 8 hours straight working, or the employee that works 6 hours, and keeps sane by having a little fun along the way?

Forbes’ Growing Family: Clipmarks & RealClearPolitics Acquired

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:52:00 +0000

Forbes Media has finally acquired Clipmarks. The acquisition that was first mentioned a few months back has officially gone down. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but Clipmarks CEO Eric Goldstein will remain in his current position, heading up the company.

The integration of Clipmarks will be used as an added feature for Forbes’ online news content, in what looks to be an internal implementation of Clipmarks’ technology. I imagine with a full acquisition of this sort, the clipmarking tools would be offered to end users and frequent readers of Forbes’ content across its online network.

We’re seeing more tools being extended to users from publisher sites, for printing purposes or retention purposes, and I think that Clipmarks would tie in to most individual and personalized needs that the publisher would offer, whether this is associated within its own social network or through third party applications or Clipmarks’ network itself.

And speaking of Forbes’ network of online content, that’s not the only web property that Forbes has gotten its hands on. The company has acquired a 51% stake in RealClearPolitics, for an undisclosed amount. The political website’s founders well remain owners and continue to manage the site.

The website is primarily an information hub for the occurrences of the political world and its current events. It will be joining the Forbes family of publishing websites for travel, autos and investing. The acquisition of a large chunk of the company’s stake is prime time, as the elections near.

It will be interesting to see how the major media companies as well as startups will continue to take advantage of 2008 as an election year, and holding a portion of that built-up audience for the next 3 years. The past year has been key for the distribution of information regarding politics, and some campaigns have even been built on this level of web integration.

Yahoo and Hotmail “Ban” Themselves from Iran

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:50:00 +0000

As US sanctions against the Islamic Republic increase, Yahoo and Microsoft have removed iran from the country lists for their webmail services. You’ll still find Iran as an option for Google Gmail, though.

With more pressure from US administration on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government, there’s a lot of tension between the two countries right now, and this makes it more difficult for companies like Yahoo and Microsoft to comply with the restrictions being brought forth by Iran, and in compliance with the US sanctions they can no longer operate in Iran.

The details of these constrained business practices were not disclosed, but Google has said that the sanctions don’t keep it from including Iran in its country list and insists on its own compliance with US sanctions. This is all in addition of the fact that Iran is pretty vigilant in regulating Internet access for certain websites like, Facebook, already.

So why have Yahoo and Microsoft removed themselves from Iran while Google remains? Considering the amount of trouble Yahoo got into with the government in the past week, it’s not surprising that it’s taken the sanctions seriously. And any avoidance of stressing the already tense situation may be due cause for Microsoft’s light treading as well.

CNet Acquires FindArticles: Part of its Refocus?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:25:00 +0000

CNET has made an acquisition today, purchasing FindArticles from its parent company, LookSmart. The acquisition totaled about $20.5 million. With its online resource archiving approximately 11 million articles from 3,000 sources, FindArticles is a search tool that dates back nearly 10 years to 1998.

As LookSmart’s primary consumer service, FindArticles was an important part of LookSmart’s suite of online properties. But as we saw less than two months ago with the phasing out of WiseNut, LookSmart seems determined to trim down its services in order to focus on its core advertising network and publisher service operations.

So what’s got people scratching their heads is the fact that CNet, which has also been in the process of refocusing its direction with the selling of Webshots for $45 million, has taken on another large acquisition. Perhaps this is part of Cnet’s attempts to enhance its core structure, as an online resource for information. Not to mention, FindArticles has a very high SEO value for Google and other search engines, so this is likely a major consideration for CNet as well.

As IAC goes through its own restructuring, the changes going on at CNet and other companies like AOL emphasize the shifting, weeding out and return to core competencies that many are currently experiencing.

AOL Does Buy Contextual Ad Provider Quigo; Reported Around $340 Million

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:11:00 +0000

As has been reported previously, AOL, part of Time Warner, has bought New York/Israel-based ad targeting provider Quigo, for an undisclosed sum, though previous reports have pegged it at around $300 million. Reuters (NSDQ: RTRSY) reported earlier today that the price was around $340 million.

Quigo's two main ad serving products include AdSonar, which is similar to AdSense in terms of providing targeted placements on websites and through searches, and FeedPoint, a search engine marketing tool. Quigo has raised $45 million since opening its doors in 2000. The bulk of the investments, about $30 million, has been secured over the past year from existing backers, including Steamboat Ventures (Disney), Highland Capital, Leon Recanati's Glenrock Ventures, IVP and Meritech Capital Partners.

Quigo will be the fourth ad company AOL (NYSE: TWX) has acquired in 2007. Earlier in the year, AOL acquired Third Screen Media (mobile advertising), Adtech AG, an ad serving platform based in Frankfurt, Germany, and Tacoda, the behavioral targeting company. All of them roll into Platform-A, AOL's recently announced ad platform division.

10+1 powerful video speeches

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:30:00 +0000

During my daily surf on the web I, from time to time, come across content that are worth being shared. Sometime it’s a stupid, but funny, video on Youtube, sometime it’s an amazing picture found on Flickr, some other time it will be a nice article…

But sometime it’s something truly captivating, something that have a real impact. It’s the kind of content that last more than the 30 seconds smile watching this funny advertisment.

So here is a list of 10+1 video recorded speeches that I believe make such difference.

Are featured in those videos the following persons:
- Severn Suzuki (Ecology)
- Guy Kawasaki (E-Business / Entrepreneurship)
- Markus Frind, James Hong, Marcus Kazmierczak, Dave Lu and Karen Northup (E-Business)
- Steve Jobs (Life)
- Stephen Colbert (Society)
- James Nachtwey (Journalism)
- Seth Godin (Marketing)
- Robert Byrd (Politic)
- Robert Bussard (Physic and Energy)
- Sir Ken Robinson (Education)
- Hans Rosling (Health)

I think there is one common point to all those great speeches. They are told by passionate people. No surprise here. Those guys love what they are doing. They are good at it and they have talent sharing it.

I hope you will enjoy those speeches as much as I did.

1. Ecology:

Probably my favorite speech. Severn Suzuki is an environmental activist. When she was 12 she received a standing ovation for a speech that she did in front of the UN Earth Summit delegates in Rio De Janeiro. Here is the speech.

Severn Suzuki: “Even when we have more than we need, we are afraid to share, we are afraid to let go of some of our wealth“.

2. E-Business:

This speech features a bunch of successful entrepreneurs. They all have great stories to tell and they all share the passion of doing things instead of thinking of doing it and actually never do. A must see for everyone interested in starting an online business.

Marcus Kazmierczak: “No plan, No model, No problem“.

3. Society:

I could have classified this speech within “Politic” instead of “Society”. But I think “Society” suits it better, “American Society” would probably be even better. Isn’t Stephen Colbert’s speech a perfect illustration of modern media show? As a matter of fact, you can see in this video a talented speaker, Stephen Colbert, mocking his president, George W. Bush, pretty much in front of Mr Bush himself.

Stephen Colbert: “I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq“.

4. Journalism:

Documentary photographer, James Nachtwey, explains why he decided to become a photographer and he also talk on how important is the documentary photographer role in our society.

James Nachtwey: “Photographers go to the extreme edges of human experience to show people what’s going on. Sometimes they put their life on the line because they believe your opinions and your influence matter. They aim their pictures at your best instincts, generosity, sense of right and wrong, the ability and the willingness to identify with others, the refusal to accept the unacceptable“.

5. Entrepreneurship

Guy Kawasaki is an Internet guru. He has a priceless experience on e-business and his passion equals probably his bad taste when it comes to choose a shirt

Guy Kawasaki: “The essence of entrepreneurship is about making meaning“.

6. Marketing:

Seth Godin, another modern guru. Seth could be the “great cardinal of the marketing church”

Seth Godin: “All marketers are liars“.

7. Life:

First I was thinking of showing here one of Steve Jobs’ show/speech during his famous “keynotes”. He is actually great at that. He is a fantastic talker, jumping around with the last Apple product in front of a room full of groupies.

Instead I decided to show here a video of him doing an introduction speech for Stanford University. And here it’s not question of iPhone, but simply Life with a capital letter.

You could find it quite egocentric, but well, isn’t it what you are actually expecting? As Guy Kawasaki said “I consider the Macintosh Division the largest collection of egomaniacs in the history of Silicon Valley. And that says a lot in this Valley”.

Steve Jobs: “Stay hungry, Stay foolish“.

8. Politic:

You can like or dislike Senator Byrd for many reasons, but still he’s doing here an impressive speech in front of a nearly empty Senate. Interesting.

Robert Byrd: “Frankly many of the pronounces made by this administration [Bush’s] are outrageous; there is no other word. Yet this chamber [the Senate] is hauntingly silent, SILENT!“.

9. Health:

Health statistics presented as they were a horse race Interesting and entertaining.

Hans Rosling: “The improvement of the world must be highly contextualized and it’s not relevant to have it on regional level, we must be more detailed“.

10. Education:

This is fun, this is interesting. Sir Ken Robinson talking on Education matters. Don’t miss this one.

Sir Ken Robinson: “Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it as the same status“.

10+1. Physic and Energy:

Well I have to confess that I’m not too fond of this one. I guess you need a PhD of Physic to truly enjoy it. But if you do have a PhD of Physic I bet you will like it That’s why I kept it.

Robert Bussard: “Should Google go Nuclear?“.

What about you? Do you have any favorite speech? Which speech would you recommend the viewing of?

Facebook’s music effort is live

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:07:00 +0000

There’s been rumors of Facebook’s music services. Here’s a screenshot of one of them, Discography (click through to full screenshot), an application that is apparently live and available for those who have advertiser “pages” to install.

Its description says it helps your “fans track the history of your records,” a place where you can “list your albums as well as the tracks each one included.” It’s designed specifically for musicians’ advertising “Pages” not normal profiles.

What’s not clear is how this will impact developers — there are currently 318 third-party applications on Facebook that are experimenting with music, listed by Facebook here.

Here’s what Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said about there being a level playing field for developers, at last month’s Web 2.0 conference:

“There may be something in ads. In the next few months there will be a lot more on that. We reserve the right to create anything and launch any application, but we want to work from a level playing field.”

Top Merge and Acquisition Deals of 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:04:00 +0000

According to The Jordan Edmiston Group Inc.’s October 2007 Client Briefing report, the number of deals through the first three quarters of 2007 exceeded full year 2006 figures: 637 transactions with $95B in value thus far. Do the math and that is $150M per deal, quite rich.

As such, publishing our list in November 2007 is a bold and potentially premature thing to do. Regardless, why wait?

What started off as a Top 10 list turned into a Top 27 list: then it got out of hand because we were comparing apples with oranges. We’re at over 30 M&A deals in web-oriented sectors that stood out.

The deals are not listed by size or order of magnitude, just a combination of value, strategic fits and long term potential. Others made the list due to the storylines, frankly, or because they took a while and garnered the media’s attention.

At least one, you’ll see which one, has yet to be finalized, but we expect that it will.

Enjoy, feel free to add, criticize, re-order etc. Surely we’re missing some major ones… some time in December, using emails, comments, suggestions and votes I’ll probably publish a top 10 list of 2007 acquisitions…

ONLINE/OFFLINE PRODUCTIVITY SUITES & COLLABORATION TOOLS

- Yahoo! acquires Zimbra for $350M

Yahoo!’s email service remains the most popular in the world, but when it comes to online meets offline office suites, it was sorely lacking, in particular due to Google’s encroachment onto Microsoft’s terrain against the backdrop of Yahoo!’s dead silence on the front. But, in one move, Yahoo! staked its claim to the party.

- Google acquires Postini for $625M

Google is trying to dethrone Microsoft’s grip on productivity suites while Microsoft is trying to encroach on online advertising. Google has bought Writely, launched a spreadsheet program and while these initiatives and acquisitions have gotten the vocal minority excited, they have failed to win the hearts and minds of corporate IT decision makers.

While we doubt one decision alone will make a change, the acquisition of Postini - makers of corporate email security tools and anti-spam software - could technically make a difference over time. Let’s face it, Gmail is indeed pretty cool, but corporations won’t be caught dead using it. Maybe by meshing Postini with Gmail, offices worldwide will stand up and take notice.

- Facebook acquires Parakey

In 2007, Facebook grew synonymous with hype. Anything the company touched, or sought to touch, quickly turned to gold. Mind you, the company’s torrid growth rate was nothing short of breath taking. But when Facebook announced that it had acq-hired Parakey, a yet-to-launch web operating system developed by Firefox co-founders Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt for an undisclosed price, people noticed because this meant that Facebook had MSFT in its cross hairs. Over time, MSFT made a $240M investment in Facebook, creating an alliance between the two firms, and suggesting that Google, and not Microsoft, was Facebook’s true nemesis.

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here.

- Cisco buys Webex for $3.2B

Webex was the first stock I bought, and the reason was simple: companies spend so much money on travel and phone calls are not always easy. Webex was a simple way to bridge the gap between people who needed to at least be on the same page when it came to sales calls and phone meetings etc. Webex who for the large part of the 21st centuy traded slightly above $1B in market cap ended up fetching quite a premium from Webex, selling for a whopping $3.2B.

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here.

PUBLISHING

- Answers.com acquires Lexico for $100M

Answers.com, whose parent GuruNet Corporation paid $57,000 for the URL moniker, turned around and paid $100M for the parent corporation of Dictionary.com and Thesarus.com, fitting for a company who bills its Answers.com site as the world’s largest Encyclodictionalmanacapedia.

Of course, Answers.com got far more than two sexy URLs, Lexico did decent revenue and earnings, too. But any way you dice it, the deal was rich, translating to:

- 35 times earnings
- 15 times revenues
- $9 per unique

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here.

- Discovery Holdings acquires How Stuff Works for $250M

How Stuff Works has been around for what seems to be forever. It raised $50M for expansion this year and many expected the company to be the one signing the checks, but by year’s end, the company’s interest in all things video led to its sale to Discovery Holdings for a whopping $250M.

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here and here.

- CBS acquires Wallstrip

On the one hand, as a fellow video producer at WatchMojo.com myself, I was happy to see Howard Lindzon’s Wallstrip exit successfully to CBS: it showed that one can create something of value in video content and, in all honesty, it created a floor price and a comparable… But, by the same token, I think Wallstrip sold too soon and for too little (nothing against CBS).

Ultimately, in the year when marketers spoke loudly against user generated content, it created a first example that professional made video could represent a valuable business if done right. If I dare say so, we’re now going to show just how much a video content creation and syndication business can scale and grow if you stick to your guns… but that’s for a separate post.

- Hearst acquires UGO for $100M

Men don’t read magazines. They’re watching less and less TV. Where are they? Apparently, online and playing video games. If that hypothesis and premise is true, then Hearst made a much needed investment to get into a video game publishing network targeting men, that of UGO. Incidentally, when Viacom and News Corp. vied for IGN Entertainment [disclaimer: my one-time employer after it bought the company where I was a partner], Hearst balked at the price tag, which hit $650M. But two years after that deal, the trend lines were clear: Hearst needed to get serious about reaching men online and the $100M acquisition of UGO was to serve as the spring board. UGO had raised $90M since its inception.

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here.

- CBS acquires Max Preps for $43M

High school athletics is a hot sector. High school sports are a key part of local content and local advertising has always been a huge market, and one that is up for grabs, particularly as newspapers see ad dollars flow to the Web. More importantly, high schoolers don’t spend as much time watching TV (not suggesting that all high school sports fans are actually high schoolers, of course). Combine these trends and you see why CBS’ acquisition of Max Preps was a smart one. After the deal, Max Preps was rolled into CBS’ College Sports Television (CSTV) and its network of websites. It’s always very important to hook consumers early on, and there ain’t a better time frankly than before the college years.

- Yahoo! acquires Rivals.com for $100M

$100M for a sports site geared towards college sports seems like a lot, for sure, especially when the previous year, News Corp. bought Scout for $60M and CBS bought Max Preps for $43M.

But when you consider that said company has raised $75M in venture funding and run by CEO Shannon Terry who made the list of SBJ’s Top 20 in Online Sports, you know the deal’s final price will get high.

Ultimately, by making the deal, Yahoo! leveraged its massive audience to become a main player in sports, rivaling FOXSports.com, SI.com and ESPN.com. Mainly, by holding out and seeing CBS and News Corp. buy Max Preps and Scout respectively, Yahoo! not only saw a floor being created for Rivals.com but also had to pay a premium to ensure that the company not fall in another media company’s hands.

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here.

- News Corp. acquires Dow Jones for $5B

I know what you’re thinking, ~~did he fire six shots or only five~~, “Dow Jones is not online. I mean, it’s flagship product, the Wall Street Journal is not even free!”

My friends, Wall Street Journal has the single most successful subscription business and gets 10m unique users per month. For decades, lest centuries, media moguls and tycoons have pushed the mantra of synergies. Rupert Murdoch in one single transaction:

- acquires one of the two assets he’s always fancied (WSJ, other being the Financial Times),
- he gets the best springboard for his new Fox Business Channel,
- acquires 10M uniques on WSJ.com, or 17M in all if you include Marketwatch and Barron’s,
- has the right, but not the obligation, to open up WSJ.com and make it into the most valuable place advertisers can reach the world’s wealthiest and most influential readers.

If you consider all of the variables, that’s one helluva deal.

SOCIAL MEDIA

- American Greetings acquires Webshots for $45M

Forget the fact that Webshots remains a strong brand that just a few years ago was bought by CNET for $70M, but Webshots is actually very complementary with American Greetings’ business. Photosharing has become a huge market, and while in CNET’s hands Webshots needed to be a leader in its space, under a company like American Greetings, it need not be. Moreover, while in the hands of CNET Webshots needed to generate sizable ad revenues (given how many pageviews it generates), in American Greetings’ hands, it need not. In other words, American Greetings is buying a large online property that is very strategic to its core business at a discount. That’s a great deal.

- CBS acquires Last.fm for $340M

Extra! Extra! Read all about it: CBS’ (and traditional media in general) core businesses are shrinking. CBS is the world’s largest TV company in terms of ratings, the largest outdoor company and second largest radio company. But like TV (and print), traditional radio is shrinking, so CBS made the prescient move to buy Last.fm. Similar to Pandora, Last.fm allows users to find new music based on their tastes and the overall community’s listening patterns. Was Last.fm the absolute best and biggest site out there? Probably not, but when you are CBS, you cannot pull a Bertelsmann and invest in a Napster-esque company that has burned more bridges than [won’t go there but insert anything you wish here].

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here.

- Cisco acquires Tribe

Cisco is no stranger to acquisitions, of course, but it usually acq-hires teams of engineers or technology. But by buying Tribe, one of the earlier social networking sites, did Cisco signal a shift away from Sun Microsystems’ mantra that “the network is the computer” to social networking is the Web? Perhaps, time will tell.

Ultimately, it’s a tacit admission that the web will become central to, well, everything.

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here.

- Nokia acquires Twango for $96.8M

Twango combines online storage with social networking, allowing users to organize and share photos, videos and other personal media.

Twango was founded in 2004 by former Microsoft employees and has around 10 employees. The deal is estimated to be just under $100 million, $96.8 to be precise. That’s right, it weighed in at $10M/employee. Twango is a small step in the seamless transferring of files from handsets to PCs. The fact that Nokia made the acquisition suggests that Finland’s most valuable company should not be seen as a telecommunications hardware company alone.

- News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media/MySpace acquires Photobucket for $250M

Photobucket’s acquisition by MySpace makes the list mainly because the storyline behind it was pretty soap opera-ish. Photobucket builds business - according to MySpace and FIM executives - a la YouTube by leveraging MySpace’s audience and community, then adds insult to injury by trying to run ads in their slides.

Then Photobucket’s M&A advisors Lehman Bros. whisper their asking price: $300-400M. A lot of people scratch their heads. Of course, fearing a repeat of YouTube, where a company grew thanks to MySpace but sold to someone else, News Corp. blows a gasket and its MySpace site blocks Photobucket.

Suddenly, value of widget-driven businesses and Photobucket in particular plummets. Back channel diplomacy ensues, coup de theatre follows in the shape, form and fashion of a $250M buyout by News Corp.

In fact, the rumor of an impending deal broke out in early May, and the deal was formally announced on May 30th.

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here.

- Hi-Media acquires Fotolog for $90M

When European online marketing juggernaut Hi-Media announced its acquisition of Fotolog, eyebrows were raised. On the WTF? side of the argument were those who said: “using Fotolog’s forecasted 2007 revenue of$2.3M, a net-of-transaction fee sale of $90M implies a pretty rich 39 prices-to-earnings ratio. That’s rich. But, the counter-argument was that Hi-Media was acquiring a community of image-crazed users for 1/3 of what News Corp. paid for Photobucket; yes, call it the reverse fool theory. With $15M in financing, a $90M payout was part of the lure, turned out that the institutional shareholders of Fotolog decided to hold on to their stock holdings of Hi-Media. It should be noted, that just before the acquisition, Fotolog had signed a $75M advertising deal with Google, over 36 months, or roughly $2M per month.

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here.

- MSNBC.com buys NewsVine

What does this mean for Digg? We don’t know, but last year, the leader in social bookmarking and news, Digg, supposedly asked for $150M from News Corp. Rupert Murdoch balked, launched MySpace News. I’m not sure how well MySpace News is doing, I suspect Digg is doing quite well, but the fact remains, I doubt Digg will get $150M (then again, a sucker is born every second) because Stumble Upon’s $75M price tag and NewsVine’s price tag imply a lower value for Digg.

Of course, this is a post on NewsVine, not Digg. I can’t understand really the logic and prevailing wisdom to sell NewsVine, a company who had raised less than $2M in financing and who was riding high as America is about to enter an election season and NewsVine’s core focus seems to be political… but, I digress. On MSNBC.com’s part, this marked the NBC/MSFT joint venture’s first acquisition, ever.

E-COMMERCE

- Hearst acquires Kaboodle for $40M

Hearst bought a handful of companies this year: UGO for $100M, which was pricey but not very expensive for a company that raised $90M of funding since inception. But given Hearst’s traditional business focus in magazine, the deal for Kaboodle is intriguing because it allows fashion and retail advertisers - two of Hearst’s main clients - to tippy-toe online and connect branding with purchasing. If Hearst can pull this off, the combination can become powerful, and valuable. Will they? Big old media doesn’t have the best track record, admittedly, so time will tell.

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here.

- eBay acquires Stubhub for $310M

eBay = auctions, Stubhub = scalping. It didn’t take the MBAs very long to see fits. Speaking of graduate degrees, founders Jeff Fluhr and Eric Baker owned roughly 35% of the company and with $15M in funding over the years, they managed to build a controversial but successful company that did $100M in sales and $10M in EBITDA. The company’s backers included Allen & Co, Blue Water Capital, Pequot Ventures and Staenberg Venture Partners.

SEARCH, NAVIGATION & DIRECTORIES

- R.H. Donnelly acquires Business.com for $345M

When word got out that Business.com might be selling for over $300M, the natural reaction was to think “the bubble is back”. After all, just a few years ago, founders Sky Dayton and Jake Winebaum acquired the URL for $7.5M from Marc Ostrovsky. At the time, even I thought “will they ever generate $7.5M in revenues off the site, over the course of its lifetime”? Of course, when Dayton and Winebaum bought the URL, Google had yet to create the keyword ecosystem that today underwrites much of online advertising. While critics maintained that by 2007, Business.com was little more than a directory of resold Google text ads, R.H. Donnelly saw salvation for their shrinking print directories and agreed to acquire the firm for $345M.

See HipMojo.com’s posts on the deal before it happened here and afterwards here.

- eBay acquires Stumble Upon for $75M

Stumble Upon’s 2.3 million users and 5 million daily recommendations caught the attention of AOL, Google and eBay, and ultimately, after valuations ranged from $40-75M for a few months, eBay walked away the winner. When the rumor popped up and few understood the logic, though technically, like eBay’s Skype acquisition, the prevailing wisdom of the leading auction community to acquire a leader in “stumbling navigation” makes sense. Of course, that’s what was said about Skype too, and this year eBay wrote down a chunk of that acquisition, even though the fit was even stronger there. Stumble Upon raised less than $2M, which means that founders Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, Justin LaFrance and Eric Boyd walked away with a nice payday each. Lesson for entrepreneurs: success did not come over night, the site was founded in 2000!

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here and here.

- Microsoft acquires Medstory

For all of the talk about vertical search engines being the next great thing, very few case studies proved to be profitable exits. Then came along Medstory and the battle for health information, which led Microsoft to acquire vertical search player Medstory as Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft all vied for search market share and to become the gateway to users’ health information online.

COMMUNICATIONS, WIRELESS VOICE SERVICES

- Google acquires Grand Central for $45M

Let’s face it, financially, Google remains a on-trick pony with 99.9% of its revenues coming from paid search ads and the two related products: Ad Sense and Ad Words. But Google’s product assortment has grown very attractive, from GMail, to Maps, Google Earth, YouTube and soon Doubleclick, Google is certainly laying down the foundation to become a diversified new media and technology company. In that vein, the acquisition of Grand Central to arm users with one number on any platform is consistent with Google’s global and multi-platform ambitions. In fact, at $45M, the deal was cheap and provided good value to Mountain View.

- Microsoft acquires TellMe for $800M

TellMe is “a leading provider of voice services for everyday life, including nationwide directory assistance, enterprise customer service and voice-enabled mobile search.” If the price tag weren’t so darn high, it would surely be higher on this list. Regardless, this catapults MSFT into voice services and voice-enabled mobile search, which a few short years from now will actually help it quite a bit against the #1 and #2 in search, Google and Yahoo!, respectively. While $800M is a large price, if it can execute on that alone, the deal can be a enormous coup for Redmond.

MOBILE AD NETWORKS

- AOL acquires Third Screen Media

Indeed, to quote the Wall Street Journal’s Kara Swisher, new CEO Randy Falco has been busy torching AOL’s Dulles, Virginia’s HQ, but while he’s been doing that, he’s also been making some bets on the next growth area: wireless. In 2007, AOL bought Third Screen Media, a mobile advertising network and ad-serving management platform provider. Will this be a repeat of Advertising.com’s $435M which today drives most of AOL’s top line? Who knows. I doubt it, wireless is way too embryonic, today. But one day, when cars fly and everyone has a pony, wireless entertainment and mobile advertising shall inherit the earth. Time will tell if Randy Falco will be ruling the fiefdom when that happens.

- Nokia acquires Enpocket

In the emerging mobile content and advertising market, Nokia hopes to expand its footprint beyond hardware. To achieve its goal the handset manufacturer agreed to acquire Enpocket to build its advertising platform.

Though Nokia has a content and advertising presence in Europe, its wanted to expand there and elsewhere, including the U.S., through internal development and acquisition. The Enpocket acquisition follows Nokia’s buy of social media sharing service Twango, as well as internal moves toward content publishing.

Enpocket has customers in the US, Asia, and Europe, including Vodafone, Telefonica, British Telecom, and Sprint. It delivers advertising across a variety of mobile formats, including SMS, MMS, mobile Internet, and video. Its customers include both carriers and the companies with which they do business, most notably Pepsico.

In some ways, this deal was in the same vein as Microsoft’s acquisition of European mobile ad firm ScreenTonic with the intention of integrating its capabilities into adCenter: “We want to deliver a platform that helps advertisers buy across all digital mediums,” said Joe Doran, GM of Microsoft’s digital advertising solutions. “As we build out the breadth of our platform, we are continuing to invest against that vision.”

- Nokia acquires Navteq for $8.1 Billion

Nokia is the world’s largest manufacturer of cell phones. Nokia owns this market, basically, and any acquisition it makes is bound to have ripple effects. NAVTEQ is a leading provider of comprehensive digital map information for automotive navigation systems, mobile navigation devices, Internet-based mapping applications, and government and business solutions. NAVTEQ also owns Traffic.com, a web and interactive service that provides traffic information and content to consumers. The Chicago-based company was founded in 1985, generated 2006 revenues of $582 million and has approximately 3,000 employees located in 168 offices in 30 countries. Incidentally, “Internet and wireless” make up only 5% of Navteq’s revenues, compared with 25% from mobile devices and a whopping 62% from in-dash navigation systems.

Translation? Lots of upside in Web and mobile revenues and the creation of a very powerful wireless and local ad network, perhaps?

AD NETWORKS

- AOL acquires Tacoda for $275M

One of the bigger and hyped phenomenon (fairly or unfairly) of web advertising remains is behavioral targeting (BT). Rightfully, to better optimize inventory and users, and to make the promise of web advertising a reality, BT has a role to play. But AOL’s acquisition of BT also demonstrated BT’s inherent limitations: few sites want to partner with BT firms, they want to own the data and underlying IP. Will it be an Advertising.com type of payoff? Time will tell, but Tacoda within AOL is worth far more than outside, in that sense, this deal made sense…

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here.

- Google acquires Feedburner for $100M

Google paid $100M for a company with $10M in revenue. Regardless of the financial merits of the deal, the fact is that had Google sought to emulate Feedburner (even had Feedburner not existed), the media companies that partner with Feedburner would not have allowed Google to access such private and valuable data. In other words, Google bought something that was worth many times more to Mountain View as in a year where it had become more and more enemy than friend.

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here, Google Buys Feedburner and Encroaches on Organic Ad Results.

- Yahoo! acquires Blue Lithium for $300M

Blue Lithium’s focus on introducing large, sexy brands to the virtues of advertising networks is legendary. Before more and more larg, Fortune 500-type marketers embraced running online ads - let alone using ad networks - Blue Lithium stood out of the clutter with a product and service that appealed to both sides of the online advertising ecosystem. Once upon a time, Blue Lithium’s management even talked of its advantages and strengths over online ad champion Google, but then lo and behold, Yahoo! acquires Blue Lithium for $300M to maximize the monetization of its ad inventory and to bolster its online advertising network both outside Yahoo!’s burgeoning media properties.

Given that the next wave of growth in online advertising will be display / banner ads (after video) and that will come from Fortune 500 marketers, this is a move that can pay off considerable dividends to Yahoo!

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here and here.

- Google acquires Doubleclick for $3.1B

Technically, this deal has yet to go through. But we added it onto this list because it shows that Google is completing its arsenal of web tools. Starting off with search, then video (YouTube), then email/newsletter (Feedburner) and now display/banners (Doubleclick), Google has the potential to circle the loop of online advertising.

We’ve covered this deal ad nauseum, so we’ll simply link back and leave you with this quote from one of our posts:

“When a lot of people said Google just hit a home run in online advertising by buying DCLK, they were wrong because saying DCLK is an online advertising play is akin to saying MSFT is strong with ad agencies because ad agencies use powerpoint in their client pitches. DCLK sold all of its media assets to L90/MaxOnline when ad rates were low and no one really paid CPM rates, and got into software only”

But, that notwithstanding, Google buying Doubleclick is a key deal because it bolsters Google’s online advertising software suite, which in itself helps it attack MSFT on many more fronts.

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here:

- Google Buys Doubleclick for $3.1 Billion; Blocks MSFT Acquisition
- Questions in Wake of DCLK/GOOG Deal; MSFT/YHOO Repercussions?
- Two Variables in DCLK/GOOG Deal: Dart for Publishers/Advertisers; All Cash Deal
- Why GOOG’s DCLK Makes Little Sense (To Me)
- DCLK Winners: Hellman & Friedman; Losers? DCLK’s Shareholders?
- aQuantive Under Spotlight

- Yahoo! acquires Right Media for $750M

Technically, Yahoo! paid $45M for 20% of Right Media first, then less than a year later, it paid $680M for the 80% it did not own. Right Media was unique in that it worked with other ad networks to allow publishers to create an auction process for a publisher’s long tail inventory. On a property like Yahoo! alone, with billions upon billions of remnant, unsold ad inventory, such a platform can be worth billions each year.

And, as Yahoo! develops its network online (away from Yahoo!-owned sites), Yahoo! liked what it saw enough to justify pushing up the price of the asset four times in less than a year.

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here.

- WPP acquires 24/7 Realmedia for $649M

WPP is one of the largest agencies in the world, a marketing behemoth with huge ambitions in digital advertising. It got one step closer to that when it bought 24/7 Realmedia, getting an advertising network, an email newsletter business, search marketing tools and much more. With its extensive advertiser relationships, WPP is sure to get enough bang out of its $649M bucks.

See HipMojo.com’s post on the deal here.

- Microsoft acquires aQuantive for $6 Billion

Microsoft generates very little from advertising. In the future, all advertising will be planned, bought and managed on digital platforms. And digital advertising will be larger than all offline advertising. Furthermore, targeted/tracked (web) advertising will command a considerable premium to non-targeted and untracked advertising. As such, for MSFT to win aQuantive - the crown jewel in the sector - it had to pay a commanding premium.

Like it or not, the market determines how much an asset is worth, which in turn is a function of demand and supply. aQuantive had a range of suitors, and the company that wanted it most ended up paying for it. MSFT’s acquisition of aQuantive can be a game-changer for MSFT if it does not botch it up.

Talk, Google, Talk!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 09:59:00 +0000

Another day of autumn, another bloated new version of Yahoo Messenger. Very few people remember that Google launched back in 2005 an instant messenger that promised to enhance people's lives. The Windows application with a non-standard interface and the strange installer that didn't give you any option.

Google Talk's silence gave birth to a Flashy gadget that can be embedded into any web page, even if the only effect is that the page loads slower. The gadget took over Google Talk's homepage and even added some features that weren't available in the stagnant desktop client.

10 months have passed since the last Google Talk release and people expect to see all the features from the bloated Yahoo Messenger in the same simple interface. The promised integration with AIM, Skype and the "traditional phone systems" should also be added.

For the moment, the original Google Talk got back the homepage and has yet to add an entry in the "What's new" page. Despite its acute lack of features, Google Talk is almost perfect because it didn't make too many mistakes.

Probably the biggest mistake was to promise things that couldn't be accomplished in a timely manner.

"Your #1 feature request was file transfer, which we're happy to have launched. Look for updates to the form, and make sure to vote again! Now, we're off to the next version. I can't tell you what your #2 and 3 suggestions were, but I do know that they're on the way." (Google Talk Blog - August 21, 2006)

"Just as exciting are our plans to explore interoperability between Google Talk and Skype, making it easier for our users to chat with one another. This is just another step in our commitment to interoperability via open, industry standards." (Google Talk Blog - August 28, 2006)

The second mistake was the lack of communication and that's hard to understand, especially if you consider that Google Talk is a communication app. It's actually "a Google approach to instant communications".

Add Windows Live Messenger to Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 09:03:00 +0000

The Windows Live Messenger Team posted on their blog about an easy new way to create an IM button to put on your website, blog, or in your email signature. To get started, click here and begin to customize your button. You can pick different shapes, colors, taglines, and then you enter in your Live ID and snag the code for your button. The button code works on Spaces, Blogger, Facebook, MySpace, Outlook 2003/2007, MSN Hotmail/Windows Live Hotmail/Windows Live Mail beta or it can be added to your website. When your friends and family click on the button, you are automatically added to their contact list. Cool.

Major Newspapers Consider Ad Alliance

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:39:00 +0000

According to a New York Times story this morning, circulation across the US newspaper industry fell about 3 percent over the spring and summer compared with figures from the same period last year. The drop in paper sales is indicative of a change in the way people consume news content, shifting especially toward the Internet, where traffic to newspaper web sites has risen. Even paid online content is doing well, with the Wall Street Journal reporting over 1 million paid online subscribers, now accounting for about half of its paid circulation.

Newspapers are not taking this shift in news consumption behavior lying down. The Chicago Tribune reports that five major US newspaper publishers are considering forming a joint online ad network. Gannett Co., Tribune Co., Hearst Corp., Media News Group and Cox Newspapers are in talks to form an ad sales consortium that would, according to a Tribune source, capture seven of the top ten US newspaper markets.

The alliance would compete with the newspaper ad network that Yahoo! has been building since last November. Yahoo!'s network includes both Hearst and Cox, and has a reach of over 400 newspapers. Though Yahoo! initially formed partnerships with newspapers to push their HotJobs career classifieds service out to a broader audience, they have plans to expand to search advertising by the end of this year, and display ads sometime in 2008. Tribune and Gannett co-own chief HotJobs rival, CareerBuilder.

Cox and Hearst say that talking to the Yahoo! rivals does not signal a rift with Yahoo!. An unnamed executive at one of the Yahoo! alliance papers seemed to indicate that while papers may be pleased with the Yahoo! partnership, they're not opposed change. "Fundamentally, there is a need to make it easier to buy ad space on our Internet sites," said the executive. "Yahoo still has the best technology platform. But why shouldn't the newspaper industry have its own [ad sales] firm? Don't you want to get out and tell your own story?"