Every year, media moguls gather at the Allen & Co. Sun Valley conference to listen to each other gab, parade around in casual wear and occasionally make deals. And for the last several years, the New York Times has provided excellent on-the-ground coverage, usually via Dealbook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin. Not this year.
Another vote for the “we’ve seen the worst of the recession” camp: Google CEO Eric Schmidt, talking to reporters at the big advertising festival in Cannes, says the economy should start picking up in a few months.
Google has already shut down its radio and print advertising programs–because “they didn’t work well enough,” in CEO Eric Schmidt’s words. But the company is still hoping that its foray into TV pans out. Latest (small) milestone: The search giant is boasting that it has gotten marketers to commit “upwards of seven figures to buy ads” through its automated system.
Just to be clear: Google still doesn’t plan on bailing out the New York Times or any other paper. As a buyer, at least. CEO Eric Schmidt reiterated that position, which he’s already made a couple times this year, in an interview with the Financial Times. Schmidt did allow, though, that Google had at least mulled the idea at one point.
It’s back-to-school time for Google’s executive team, which is fanning out across college campuses to impart words of wisdom to the classes of 2009. Via Google’s YouTube, here are clips of co-founder Larry Page, CEO Eric Schmidt (twice!) and search boss Marissa Mayer. And some bonus advice, circa 1967.
David Geffen, who had previously tried to buy the Los Angeles Times, has been trying to buy a chunk of the New York Times. It’s not clear why. Also unclear: Why Google would have “looked seriously” at the opportunity to buy the Times in the last few weeks, as Fortune says it has.
Remember last week when Google was forced to explain why it wasn’t single-handedly destroying American newspapers? Turns out the company is in talks with some of the country’s biggest newspapers to…well, save them. But that isn’t the right phrase either. In fact, it’s not clear how to describe the talks. But we do know that Google is chatting with both the Washington Post and the New York Times, because that’s what employees of the Washington Post and the New York Times are reporting today.
Here’s the other shoe that hadn’t dropped following Tim Armstrong’s move from Google to run Time Warner’s AOL. Omid Kordestani, who was the official head of Google’s sales, has been moved aside in favor of Nikesh Arora.
As predicted, Google saw its revenue decline from the last quarter of 2008 to the first three months of this year. The search giant said it generated net revenue of $4.07 billion, which is down from the 4.22 billion Google notched in the previous quarter, and it’s a tad shy of the $4.08 billion consensus. But investors are going to be pleased with the non-GAAP earnings number: $5.16 share, up from $5.10 per share in the previous quarter and way, way above the $4.90 per share consensus. Bottom line: Google has cut back on its expenditures and that’s boosted profits.
Google’s new 2008 proxy statement looks a lot like Google’s proxy statements from previous years: It tells us that the company’s top executives received nice bonuses, though slightly smaller than last year’s. And Google’s ruling troika–CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page–all took home salaries of $1. One smallish change: Eric Schmidt’s friends and families spent a lot more time with him on the company jet last year.
Eric Schmidt says he’s going to pick an internal candidate to replace Tim Armstrong, the Google sales star who’s leaving to run AOL. And lot of people say David Rosenblatt, the former DoubleClick CEO who started working for Google a year ago after the acquisition, is his best choice.
Wall Street bonuses have shrunk, but they haven’t gone away. And at Google, top executive bonuses look pretty much like last year’s. Here’s the list of who got what.
Here’s another eye-poke delivered to Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes from Google CEO Eric Schmidt: The search company has asked the media giant to refund the money it invested in AOL three years ago. That means $250 million in cash–or perhaps it wants to rework the search deal between the two companies, in order to stymie Microsoft.
Three years ago, Google invested $1 billion in Time Warner’s Web operation and said the entire business was worth $20 billion. Now, it’s shaving that estimate by 73 percent. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes can’t be pleased.
The billionaire investor explains why a recession is an excellent time to invest in start-ups–and how to manage a Gmail account that gets up to 5,000 messages a day. He’s also got a request for Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
Don't miss a post! Sign up for our Daily Email and get AllThingsD.com delivered each day.
Get columns, blogs and video from D and All Things Digital on your iPhone. Download now »
