In This Update:
• Yahoo Sells Off European Comparison Shopping Site Kelkoo To PE Firm
• WebVisible Acquires Adapt Technologies
• Evernote Passes 500,000 Registered Users, Most of Them On The iPhone
• The Latest Iteration Of Honey Magazine
• PC Magazine, a Flagship for Ziff Davis, Will Cease Printing a Paper Version
• PE Obama’s Phone Records Breached By Verizon Employees
• Google Chrome May Be Pre-installed On New PCs
• YouTube Tests Out High Quality, Stereo Surround Videos
• Salesforce.com Beats Expectations in Q3
• Online Ad Growth Slows in Q3
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Yahoo Sells Off European Comparison Shopping Site Kelkoo To PE Firm
PAIDCONTENT
Yahoo, which has been trying to sell off its European comparison shopping service Kelkoo for a while now, has finally found a buyer, according to a report: it has been sold to a little-known UK-based private equity firm called Jamplant, for something less than euro 100 million ($126 million). Yahoo bought the service in 2004 for a price then of about 475 million euros (now $598 million). Also, the founder and ex-CEO of Kelkoo Pierre Chappaz wrote about the deal (in French) on his blog. Yahoo UK confirmed the sell off to us. Chappaz refused to name the price but said it was “below 100 million euros” – that means Yahoo makes a loss of at least 375 million euros (now $472 million). Chappaz said: “The difference is the price of management incompetence that led Yahoo’s (stock price to fall) below $9.”
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WebVisible Acquires Adapt Technologies
SOCAL TECH
Irvine-based WebVisible announced today that it has acquired Pasadena-based Adapt Technologies, a developer of search engine marketing tools. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. WebVisible is a provider of local online advertising services, which helps small and midsize businesses place search engine marketing. Adapt Technologies was venture backed by Concept2company, Emergence Capital Partners, and Mohr, Davidow Ventures; the firm had raised $9.8M in 2005. WebVisible is venture backed by Redpoint Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures.
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Evernote Passes 500,000 Registered Users, Most of Them On The iPhone
TECHCRUNCH
Some apps wander around the wilderness for a while until they can find the perfect home. For Evernote , that home is the iPhone. The note-taking, picture-capturing, voice-recording, handwriting-recognizing universal memory service has been under development for years and launched last February in private beta on the PC. But it wasn’t until May 29 that it debuted on the iTunes store as an iPhone app . That’s when it started to take off. Now Evernote has 512,000 registered users, who have created 13.8 million notes. In addition to the iPhone app, Evernote offers its service thorugh a PC client, a Mac client, a Website, and other mobile devices. The iPhone app is the most popular, being used 57% of the time. It is followed by the Web (51%), the PC client (32%), the Mac (28%), and other mobile clients bring up the rear (8%). These numbers add up to more than 100 because nearly half of all users access the service via more than one app.
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The Latest Iteration Of Honey Magazine
PAIDCONTENT
Urban lifestyle publication Honey Magazine, which has had something of a tortured history, is back again, but in a new format: Honeymag.com, slated to go live in Q109, will blend fashion, entertainment and other content (including video) with social-media features from as-yet-unlaunched sister site TheHiveSpot.com. Parent company Sahara Media Holdings, Inc. actually rolled out a version of Honeymag.com in June 2007, though it mostly served as a central hub for about 35 blogs.
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PC Magazine, a Flagship for Ziff Davis, Will Cease Printing a Paper Version
NEW YORK TIMES
Ziff Davis Media announced Wednesday that it was ending print publication of its 27-year-old flagship, PC Magazine, and would take the title online only. It is the latest of several magazine publishers to drop a print edition, as advertising plummets and the cost of printing a paper version rises. While most magazines make their money mainly from print advertising, PC Magazine derives most of its profit from its Web site. More than 80 percent of the profit and about 70 percent of the revenue come from the digital business, Mr. Young said, and all of the writers and editors have been counted as part of the digital budget for two years.
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PE Obama’s Phone Records Breached By Verizon Employees
GIGAOM
Verizon Wireless today admitted that some of its employees had been looking into President-elect Barack Obama’s cell phone billing records. This is a good enough reason for all of us to question the privacy policies of our phone companies, which have time and again shown that they are ready to play lose-and-easy with their customer’s privacy. Of course, they are known to use underhanded tactics to position themselves as the good guys, though they are anything but.
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Google Chrome May Be Pre-installed On New PCs
READ WRITE WEB
How did Internet Explorer become the number one browser in the world? Simple – it came with every new computer you purchased, pre-installed and ready to go. Now it seems Google is contemplating doing the same with their browser, Google Chrome. According to Google VP, Product Management, Sundar Pichai, the browser’s beta period will end in January and then they “will probably do distribution deals,” he says. In an article that ran in yesterday’s The Times, Pichai revealed details on what he called Google’s plans to make Chrome the browser of choice for the everyday user. A big part of that plan includes distribution deals with computer manufacturers.
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YouTube Tests Out High Quality, Stereo Surround Videos
WIRED
YouTube has quietly started testing out real HD quality videos on a smattering of its content, a development that is getting attention from viewers in message boards and blog forums this week. The new format could be a big move for YouTube, as the video size is over 80MB, which means that they are probably the same H.264 encoded mp4 files available in the iTunes store.
Getting premium quality video available on the site is integral for YouTube’s success as the company struggles to turn a profit from its vast array of content available online.
The new formats have been available on a few videos for a few months now, and a small hack can upgrade any video taped at a high enough quality. YouTube confirms this is part of their efforts to test out different video formats.
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Salesforce.com Beats Expectations in Q3
VENTURE BEAT
Salesforce.com, considered the standard bearer for the software-as-a-service business model, announced unexpectedly strong third-quarter earnings today. Total revenue was $276.5 million – a 43 percent increase from the same period last year – and total income was 8 cents per share. Revenue and income beat out analysts’ estimates of $273.6 million and 7 cents per share, respectively. That’s good news for Salesforce, of course, particularly at a time when the economy is tanking and traditional business software companies like SAP are underperforming. That’s also a good sign for the many startups that have built their businesses around SaaS or cloud computing. After all, analysts and entrepreneurs in this space like to predict that SaaS and cloud computing may actually benefit from the downturn, or at least avoid getting hit as hard, because they provide a low-cost alternative to traditional hardware and software for businesses. It’s nice to see some numbers to back that up.
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Online Ad Growth Slows in Q3
VENTURE BEAT
Internet advertising revenue reached $5.9 billion during the third quarter of 2008. That’s the second-highest number ever, but quarter-to-quarter growth is slowing, according a new report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. These numbers lend support to the last few months’ speculation that online ad numbers are about to fall off a cliff. Gawker Media owner Nick Denton offered perhaps the most pessimistic take, saying businesses should prepare for a 40 percent drop in advertising spending. But he’s hardly the only one who thinks ad-driven businesses will be hit hard next year.
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