Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Execs Talk About Who They’d Buy And Why


On July 29th senior corporate development executives from Cisco (Derek Idemoto), Facebook (Michael Brown), Google (Amin Zoufonoun), Microsoft (Fritz Lanman), Twitter (Jessica Verilli) and Yahoo (Taylor Barada) convened at Startup2Startup to talk about what kinds of companies they want to buy, and why.

The panel was moderated by CODE Advisors founder Michael Marquez, who was also a former corp dev executive at both Yahoo and CBS.

Monday, September 6, 2010

College Tuition: The Next Bubble to Burst?

This is a major problem. Those of you paying college tuition already know this.

Those of you who only casually think about what is best for the nation might come to the conclusion that there's a "bubble" here that has to burst.

Alternatives can, and must be found.

Web TV Heats Up




The Wall Street Journal’s Sam Schechner and Spencer Ante weigh in on what Apple and Amazon’s pricing moves mean for the ongoing battle for online media.

MarketWatch’s Dan Gallagher discusses videogame publisher Take-Two, which saw shares jump today after reporting surprise earnings from a new title.

Prepaid Market is Segmenting

Long viewed as a niche for credit-challenged or immigrant workers, the prepaid space is developing some new niches.

While some consumers will remain satisfied with low-end, low-cost prepaid services, many more will require higher end voice, messaging and data services, and access to more-advanced devices. That is likely going to lead to some pressure on postpaid plan penetration, as millions of users downgrade to prepaid plans.

Android Mobile Web Usage Climbs, Others Fall

Android's U.S. market share is growing at a huge rate in all categories, Quantcast data indicates.

While Apple's iOS still holds the lion's share, Android is growing fast, and iOS is dropping. Whether you look at the numbers by the month, the quarter, or the year, Android growth is obvious.

If the trend continues, Android will have the majority of the U.S. mobile browser market within a year according, Quantcast data suggests.

Mobile and TV are the Growth Areas for U.K. Internet Users

Mobile web use and television are sharply growing new activities for U.K. Internet users.

Some 31 percent of U.K. web users said they went online using mobile phone in 2010, compared to 23 percent in 2009, eMarketer reports. Among younger users (ages 16 to 24), an estimated 44 percent browse the internet on their phones. In addition, researchers reported, 2.7 million people used wireless hot-spots in early 2010.

TV also is a growing application, with roughly 17 million people streaming television content from the web. The U.K. Office for National Statistics recently found that 52 percent of male web users had used video-on-demand services like the BBC iPlayer and Channel 4’s 4oD, compared to 23 percent of women.

What Big Brands Are Spending on Google

Advertiser search spending on Google show a large number of smaller firms use search ads, in addition to a relatively small number of firms spending more than $1 million a month, Ad Age reports.

Some 47 advertisers that spent more than $1 million in June; 71 spent between $500,000 and $1 million, and 357 spent between $100,000 and $500,000, a study finds.

In addition to those direct-billed customers, there are many more thousands of small self-serve advertisers that make up Google's $23 billion global annual revenue.

The Roots of our Discontent

Political disagreements these days seem particularly intractable for all sorts of reasons, but among them are radically conflicting ideas ab...