Say what you will about Microsoft executives, they have been consistently on message during the past year or so. That message: Things aren’t getting better any time soon. Today: More of the same, from South Korea.
So now that the economy is officially growing again, when will marketers start spending again? It can’t happen soon enough for ad-supported companies (and their employees). Today’s unpleasant news: Magazine heavyweight Meredith says things are getting better, but they’re still worse than last year, which was pretty bad to begin with.
It’s all well and good for Google to say the worst is over. But what about media companies that survive on revenue streams other than search ads?
Things should be better for them, too, says Publicis, one of the biggest advertising companies in the world. The French holding company, which announced its results today, says things bottomed out this summer.
After a couple of miserable quarters, NBC Universal finally has some good news to announce: Boosted by a one-time gain, earnings actually increased in Q3, even though the entertainment conglomerate’s revenue kept dropping. Perhaps those numbers will cheer Comcast investors, who have been beating up the cable company ever since news of its talks to buy NBCU surfaced last month.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt couldn’t be any clearer: He’s been saying, over and over, that he thinks the recession is in his company’s rear-view mirror. And Wall Street has been listening: It has been steadily pushing up the search giant’s shares for months. Today we get to find out just how good Google’s growth story is.
Hey Googlers! All those perks the company is famous for: The great food, the high-end daycare, the fancy bathrooms? Overrated, your bosses say. So is the dream of getting insanely wealthy at your job.
Instead, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said today, you ought to be happy to work at Google…because it’s Google.
Here are the long-awaited cuts that Condé Nast has been mulling: Modern Bride, Elegant Bride, Gourmet and Cookie are all closing. More details via an internal memo from CEO Chuck Townsend.
Is Twitter a billion-dollar company? It is now, according to its investors. People familiar with the company tell me it has raised around $50 million in a funding round that values the start-up, which has no real revenue to speak of, at about $1 billion.
Waiting for the economy to come roaring back? So is Google. The search giant had a decent quarter, but not one that’s going to blow away Wall Street or convince anyone that the economy is roaring back. But it’s an okay performance for a media company in a recession.
Remember all those stories about Web sites buckling under the weight of all that Michael Jackson traffic? Here’s the flip side, now being promoted by those same Web sites: Look at all of our Michael Jackson traffic! Yahoo, for instance, wants us to know that Jackson’s demise has been its good fortune. “Michael Jackson rushed to hospital” was the site’s “highest clicking” story, while Yahoo News set a record for hourly visitors.
The founders of Last.fm, the London-based Web music start-up CBS snapped up for $280 million two years ago, are leaving the company. No word yet on whom CBS will appoint to replace the founding trio of Felix Miller, Richard Jones and Martin Stiksel, or what any of the men intend to do next.
Miller announced the deal in a short blog post today. More shortly….
Looking for lots of specifics about the $200 million at $10 billion valuation deal that Facebook and Digital Sky Technologies just announced? Then you have come to the wrong conference call, my friend. But for what it’s worth, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did sound fairly upbeat and confident during his chat with reporters Tuesday morning–the way you’d expect someone who just cashed a check for a couple hundred million to sound.
The big picture: Even though Facebook’s official valuation has slid from $15 billion (November 2007, when Microsoft invested) to $10 billion, Zuckerberg is OK with that, arguing that 1) that deal was done at the peak of the market, and 2) it was never really a financial deal, but a way for Microsoft to partner up with Facebook.
Here comes the second round of layoffs at Microsoft, following a first round that started in January. Today’s cuts will likely end up costing about 3,000 workers their jobs. Microsoft had previously warned that it would cut up to 5,000 jobs by 2010. The good news, says CEO Steve Ballmer: The newest round means “we are mostly but not all done” with layoffs. Here’s Ballmer’s memo to the troops.
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.
Yes, everyone who invested in Twitter and everyone who runs it wants to figure out how to make money from it one day. But for now, Twitter’s growth–now pegged at 131 percent a month–is the real story.
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.
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.
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