Category: Media/Tech Business Models

The details are out: AOL owns warrants to exercise 1.9 million or so shares of Google at a price of $22 million. A quick calculation says that’s a price of roughly $11.50 a share. This is due to a deal the two companies struck as part of their 2002 partnership. It came to light in Time Warner’s recent 10-K filing.

So…if Google goes all Priceline on its opening day and stays there (there’s probably a lock up on selling), that stock just might be worth ten times that amount, or more than $200 million. About as much as AOL is spending on marketing this year….

Note: Yahoo also owns shares – a lot more – in Google.

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Feedburner purports to solve a problem which I noted here. Should a blogger know who is reading them via RSS? As a publisher who has had loads of email newsletters, I like knowing who is subscribed. But shouldn’t RSS readers have the right to anonymity?

Feedburner, which I heard of from Fred Wilson, creates a feed which provides information on readers back to the publisher. Seems to me, publishers can give the reader a choice, and provide more service if the reader chooses to declare the relationship.

From the site:

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I’m tired of the prideful, ignorant, and painfully slow death over at AOL. How can you have the largest ISP/content site in the world, at a time when the entire sector is boooming, and manage to fuck it up so masterfully? The stink is starting to rise not from AOL, but from the folks really calling the shots, the top brass at Time Warner. And that means something must give, and soon. Time Warner is starting to realize, they can’t do any better with AOL than Case and Pittman could back in 2001.

It seems to me like the Time Warner execs, who clearly are still pissed that AOL bought them in the first place, are either killing it through supremely benign neglect, or are trapped in a morass of their own pride. Let me state what seems obvious: the right thing to do is call a spade a spade, and spin AOL out. The folks running Time Warner have other things to do, and they clearly are the wrong people to be driving strategy at AOL. The folks who report to them and run AOL on a day to day basis need independence – otherwise they simply will not be able to compete with Yahoo and Google. Note to the TW Board: swallow your pride and cut AOL loose. Just do it.

Readers know I distrust Comcast. Salon today runs a roundup of why. It’s sub required, but I think you can also get in by watching an ad….

The NYT has caught onto web video ads. (For my initial report on this, read my column in 2.0 from last year). The news: The ads seem to be working….The caption from the Times piece says it all, in terms of how Big Media views this: “Such ads have annoyed far fewer viewers than expected.” What do you know!

An online survey of 1,700 Internet users who saw the full-motion commercials, which ran from late January until late February, showed that viewers found them less annoying than some marketers had expected. Indeed, just 28 percent found them annoying – compared with 38 percent of TV viewers, on average, who found commercials annoying in three separate studies. The survey on Web commercials was paid for by the advertisers.

MediaPost reports that “Moms” view the internet as the most important medium in their lives. 84% said they’d miss it the most if they had to give it up, more than TV. That tells you something about today’s moms… Certainly true in our home.

I’m not sure I buy this, but I really like Mike Ramsay, and I sure love my TiVo….We can dream…

In his most recent research note, Piper analyst Safa Rashtchy says based on conversations with advertisers and industry executives, the average “click charge” (or cost per click – CPC) could double from where it is now, at about .45 cents. He points out that advertisers are getting more sophisticated in their approach to paid search, and in fact are willing to “go negative ROI” in their campaigns, in order to gain a lifetime customer.

More data supporting the decline of television and print, and the rise of the web as an advertising vehicle. Self serving though it is, Doubleclick’s “Touchpoints” survey has some pretty impressive findings, according to Mediapost (scroll down to sixth item):

The survey analyzes how media affect initial product awareness (First Learn), research and information gathering (Further Learn), and the final purchase decision. Consumers were asked about their purchases during the last six months for products in the following categories: Auto, Credit Cards/Retail Banking, Electronics, Home Products, Mortgages/Investments, Movies, Personal/Household Care, Prescription Drugs, Telecom Services, and Travel.

TV advertising plays a major role in establishing early awareness of Movies, Personal and Household Care items, Telecom products, Autos, and Prescription Drugs. However, Web sites and online marketing make bigger dents when it comes to building awareness of Travel and Mortgages/Investments. In the First Learn phase, the survey found that TV’s influence dropped 8 percent in the Electronics category and 7 percent in the Movies and Automotive segments in the past year. In comparison, print drives First Learning in the Personal/Household Care and Home Products segments, while direct mail most heavily influences awareness of Credit Cards/Retail Banking offerings.

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