Steve Ballmer says he doesn’t expect to do much search-related M&A, which makes sense since there’s little left to buy. But he may be willing to pay for search. Ask AOL.
There’s going to be a lot of buying and selling in the coming months, but here’s one deal that’s not happening: Contrary to market-moving rumors, Microsoft isn’t acquiring videogame giant Electronic Arts. Anyone else want to take a shot?
Remember the good old days of the last Web boom, when start-ups sold to Google and Yahoo instead of going public? They’re back!
Did a federal court just give underemployed M&A guys a boost? Could be: The United States Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., has overturned a longstanding cap on cable-system ownership.
If the decision holds up, it could well start another round of dealmaking similar to the one we saw at the beginning of this decade in which the industry consolidated to about half a dozen major players.
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.
I don’t usually write about writers landing jobs, but I did want to point out that Jeff Bercovici, last seen writing the Mixed Media blog for Portfolio.com, has landed at DailyFinance, a site run by Time Warner’s AOL. Why do I care? Because it’s yet another sign that AOL is continuing to hire experienced writers and reporters to bulk up its sites as other publishers are slimming down or shutting down. And because it’s a nice change of pace from layoff stories.
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.
Yes, there’s an obvious irony in Google’s plans to turn an obsolete Finnish paper mill into a data center. But there’s more meaningful symbolism here, too: Google’s growth plans aren’t going anywhere.
For much of 2008, the big ad conglomerates seemed unaffected by the global slowdown. But that had to stop sometime: Omnicom Group just announced that its fourth-quarter revenue and earnings dropped seven percent and 13.7 percent, respectively. The good(ish) news: The company thinks things will stink for at least another nine months, but sees a light at the end of the tunnel.
No. But by buying “hundreds of millions” of dollars worth of preferred stock, the telecom magnate can give the paper some very expensive breathing room.
The most popular record store in the U.S. is about to call it quits. When will other retailers give up selling music, too?
The Kindle may or may not be a hit–Amazon hasn’t released any kinds of sales numbers about its e-book reader, and everyone else’s guesses are… just guesses. But that won’t stop people from coming out with their own Kindle-killers or Kindle clones. And Verizon Wireless would love to help them
Too bad the New York Times waited so long to start selling off real estate on its prized front page: It could be a real moneymaker for the paper, which desperately needs one.
Media company layoffs are now the rule, not the exception, but this one is still noteworthy: The Associated Press, the workhorse of U.S. journalism, is firing 10 percent of its staff, or about 400 people. Why is this noteworthy? Because the AP, which is actually a cooperative owned by 1,500+ member newspapers, supplies the bulk of the content that fills your daily newspaper or Web site, or whatever.
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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