All Things Digital

Skip to main content.

MediaMemo

Thursday, November 19, 2009

AOL: We Need to Fire 2,500 “Volunteers”

tim_armstrong_lgAOL, which has already told investors it will spend up to $200 million firing a good chunk of its staff, has now told employees. The company is looking for “up to 2,500 volunteers,” CEO Tim Armstrong told his staff today. That’s a third of AOL’s payroll.

Read More »

Friday, November 13, 2009

Google Makes AOL’s Turnaround Task Even Harder

tim_armstrong_lgLittle by little, AOL is offering investors more and more details about what the company will look like after it spins off from Time Warner. But the more AOL discloses, the less attractive the company looks. The newest problem: AOL’s steady flow of Google money is going away.

Read More »

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

More Money for “Real Time” Ad Tech: AppNexus Raises $5 Million

exchangeAppNexus, an ad-buying “platform,” has raised $5 million in round led by Kodiak Venture Partners, along with Venrock and First Round Capital. The company is one of many trying to take advantage of “real-time” bidding for Web display ad inventory.

Read More »

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Comcast Won’t Talk About NBCU, Will Talk About Internet Video

fancastComcast couldn’t mollify Wall Street about its pending deal to buy NBC Universal this morning, because it refused to talk about the deal at all. The company did spend time, though, explaining the peril and possibilities that Web video poses for the cable giant.

Read More »

Friday, October 30, 2009

Bad News From the Washington Post: Ad Sales Slide Again

newspaperlessMany newspaper publishers say the ad sales slump has stopped, but not at Wapo: Both print and Web ad declines accelerated over the last quarter. Newsweek, meanwhile, saw its ad sales drop by half.

Read More »

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

NBC Grabs a High-Profile Blogger to Boost Its Local Site: Eater Co-Founder Ben Leventhal

leventhalNews for the foodie/NY blog scene: Ben Leventhal, co-founder of the influential Eater blog, is headed to GE’s NBC Universal, where he’ll oversee “lifestyle content” for NBC’s growing local Web unit.

Read More »

Monday, October 26, 2009

BusinessWeek’s Fire Sale Nets McGraw Hill $5.9 Million, or $15,000 Per Staffer

dark-knight-burningMcGraw Hill isn’t quite done with BusinessWeek–it isn’t supposed to formally hand off the magazine to Bloomberg until later this year–but it is just about there. Today the company told investors just how much it will net from the sale of the 80-year-old title: $9.3 million, or $5.9 million after taxes.

Read More »

Friday, October 23, 2009

Investors Bet on Another Real-Time Start-Up. Next Up for Hot Potato: Product, Users.

hot potatoHere’s a good way to get your hands on scarce venture capital money: Create a start-up geared around Twitter-like “real-time” sharing and conversations. The newest entrant: Hot Potato, a buzzy start-up that’s supposed to let users converse about a particular event, whether they’re attending it in person or watching from afar. When it’s up and running, that is. The five-man crew doesn’t have users or a product just yet. But it has just raised around $1 million.

Read More »

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Rise of the Machines: Why Demand Media Is Worth More Than the New York Times

chaplin-modern-timesThe New York Times’s model for content creation, which revolves around well-paid professionals who rely on their experience and judgment, looks increasingly threatened. What does a new model look like? Perhaps one where a computer spits out assignments to day laborers who work furiously for low pay.

Read More »

Friday, October 16, 2009

NBC Cleans Up Its Earnings Act for Comcast

zuckerAfter 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.

Read More »

Friday, October 2, 2009

Wall Street to Comcast: No NBC for Us, Thank You Very Much

the_office_promo_pic_nbcMaybe this is why Comcast rushed to knock down a story that said it bought NBC Universal from GE: It knew Wall Street would hate the idea.

Read More »

Friday, September 25, 2009

Early Twitter Backer Union Square Sits This One Out

rocketNot included in the long list of investors betting $100 million on Twitter today: Union Square Ventures, one of the messaging service’s most prominent backers. What happened? Best guess: The $1 billion valuation priced the early investor out.

Read More »

Some More Positive Murmurs for Web Ads

sunshine-cloudMore upbeat–but not too ecstatic–chatter about the state of the Internet advertising market this morning from Wall Street: Barclays Capital analyst Douglas Anmuth is raising his estimates for Google, citing “improving macro conditions [and] a stronger ad market.” Other online advertising bulls: Investors, who have been pushing up Google stock for months, and CEO Eric Schmidt, who has declared that the worst is over.

Read More »

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Good News, T. Rowe Price! Twitter Users Really, Really Love Ads.

times-squareGood news (potentially) for T. Rowe Price and the other investors plowing $100 million into the revenue-free start-up: The service’s users absolutely love clicking on ads, says a new study.

Read More »

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Yahoo’s Bartz: Microsoft Deal Was “Very Clever”

092209ATDbartz

More from the post-Q&A Q&A: Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz says major investors like Gordon Crawford support her, and that she’s in the market for medium-sized M&A. Here’s what she had to say.

Read More »

Latest MediaMemo Videos

More Videos »

About Peter

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 »

Ethics Statement

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.

Read more »