A Fuller View

Well, its only the middle of the work week and there has been a lot of interesting stories and posts already. More stuff than I can keep up with. Here are some of the tidbits I think are interesting…

No, Google Won’t Buy the NYT. But Google.Org Could - I like this mini-post form John Battle’s search blog. I completely agree, lets put and keep the best news organizations in a trust. Living in the UK you sort of take it for granted, but I gotta say the BBC rocks and papers like The Irish Times and The Guardian also very cool and not run to make a profit for share holders.

Search Stocks & The Stock Crash: GOOG, YHOO & MSFT - this post is over on SEL. My opinion is all 3 of the majors are solid. I’ve got to think ad dollar$ continue to go into search during a down turn year, but that probably display gets hurt… This means Google could fair a bit better overall but they still have to finish the DoubleClick deal and they are still way over valued. I would sell GOOG short, hold YHOO or buy if it dips under $17 and buy MSFT all the way its cheap :-). Disclaimer: do NOT trust my stock tips. This is just fun.

The parent company of WordPress - Automattic - secures B round funding - this report from the NYT. Great news. I love WordPress! Related to this is a post by Greg Sterling - Harnessing Blogs for Local - this one has got me thinking about new micro-publishing mash-up business ideas… More on that after a few more beers.

Enteprise search provider Endeca closed funding from SAP and Intel - this over on TC. This interesting in light of the MSFT FAST deal and the Sun MySQL deal. Doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but lets see what happens with Endeca. I keep wondering when will someone do a “redhat” version of open source Lucene?

Internet Trumps Print Directories in Britain - this post again fro Mr Sterling based on a neat report from UK based welovelocal. I Love it, lets recycle all those print directories! Save the trees.

Publishers’ vertical search can rival Google, says AOP forum - not sure I agree, but I have to say job well done to my buddy Simon Baptist who gave one of the presentations. My sources tell me he did a great job. Nice one!

Nothing new in this post. This is just a list of some of the interesting things I noticed over the past couple of weeks and want to dig into when I get some down time over the X-Mas holiday…

Ask release 2007 search data:

Ask.com’s Top Real Deal Searches of 2007
1. MySpace 6. Cars
2. Dictionary 7. Weather
3. Google 8. Games
4. Themes 9. Song Lyrics
5. Area Codes 10. Movies

Greg Sterling has a summary from GYM, Ask and AOL… Also on GS a guest piece from UK based We Love Local guy. The power or power searchers at JB’s searchblog. Facebook v. Newspapers.

Apparently total measurable ad spend is slowing, this is interesting has having spent time blogging and exploring the social media side of the Web over the past couple of months I can see that smart advertisers and marketers will be doing other types of activities that support advertising. This is meme that ties into the global microbrand idea and what Buzzmachine posted as well. This requires some digestion.

I read about this in today’s printed edition of the Guardian. The original post by Jeff Jarvis is a very interesting piece. The model that Glam are using sounds like a very solid and one all media groups should seriously consider - I like it. However, I believe there are many other smaller networks attempting similar strategies.

Both of these news sites/services look very cool. I am going to try them both out. They both look very different. Daily Me looks like a great approach for pulling together a personalised newspaper online and even gives you the option to print (they work with many major news organisations). While News at Seven is a very Web 2.x looking service - as you get an avatar to read your news show. This could be fun…

There is an interesting rumor reported on Mashable about a possible newspaper ad network alliance:

Five of the nation’s largest newspaper publishers are rumored to be working on their own online advertising network. Such a network would allow advertisers to buy advertising from one central destination, and include 7 of the top 10 markets in the US according to the report.

This would sync up with news of the Yahoo! newspaper partnerships being on the ropes. R/W also has a piece on this.

News International has invested an undisclosed sum - but said to be in the multi-million pound range (= ~US$4M+) - in a new property search engine. The full PR is here - the following excerpt is very interesting:

Daniel Lee, CEO of Globrix, said: “Globrix is about answering a fundamental need in this marketplace – creating a Google-style model for the property search industry. By enabling agents to list for free we cover virtually every property in the UK, which in turn provides a hugely compelling proposition for consumers and creates a new opportunity for an ad-funded model.”

“News International is clearly the partner of choice for a business of this sort. As well as the scale and resources they can offer us in the UK and, potentially, through News Corporation, overseas, they also bring a massive experience of property markets to the table.”

Clive Milner, Group Managing Director, News International, said: “Through its digital and print media, News International is one of the largest single players in the UK property media market, so this investment is about us remaining at the forefront of what’s happening commercially and technologically.

“Globrix is set to be a truly disruptive business in the online property search marketplace – it essentially turns the economics upside down and creates an unparalleled consumer offering from an innovative business model.”

The 2 founders of Globrix - Dan Lee and Ian Parry - have a lot of serious search experience (they have worked at both FAST and Autonomy in the past). I know that they have been working on this puppy for the past 12 months or more. Should be a great addition to the highly competitive and dynamic UK property search market. I am looking forward to seeing and using the new service. I know the founders personally - so once they get it launched I will see if I get an interview with them.

This is a smart investment by News International (NI). For Globrix the cross channel distribution and the offline to online synergy will be a big advantage for the site. News Corp continues to expand its online portfolio with one of the more innovative strategies around for a “traditional” big media company. Now they just need to infuse the print newspapers will some new ideas (see this post by Mr Sterling “Newspapers, Timing and Human Nature“ for inspiration or latest from Monocle [paid content]). 

Apparently the Valley is awash in money and valuations are getting crazy… No surpise there really. The graphic (which is under copyright so I am not posting a copy here) on this NY Times piece - Silicon Valley Start-Ups Awash in Dollars, Again - is cool and worth a 1000 words. All I want to ask is “why did they copyright the graphic?”.

Over a lunch meeting recently in London a friend told me about this new company 2adpro - which was founded in 2006 in Southern California. I am guessing they are expanding in Europe and starting to get traction in the advertising community in London.

Here’s a brief excerprt from the company’s website:

2AdPro is a provider of off-shore advertising services for print and online media companies. We provide high quality and cost efficient services designed to enhance advertising revenue and reduce production costs for our customers.

From the website is appears that 2adpro is focused on medium and larger advertisers, but I have to guess they might also look to roll out a product for small businesses in the future. The ad production products are aimed at newspapers, directories and magazines - so there is a link to local for sure.

I think this will be an interesting company to watch.  This is in the same general area as the Logoworks - I see these as companies in the fast growing emerging Enterprise 2.0 space which will have a direct impact on how businesses manage and execute advertising online.

I was recently at a classified publisher’s conference in Europe and got to talking with a fellow attendees about the impact of on-line services like Craig’s list, eBay and others. The impact in terms of “more” traditional and offline classified publications. When I mentioned the phenomenon of Freecycle, or at least the fact that is seems to be growing in usage in the UK and especially in London, it was the first time many people had herd of the service.

Freecycle is a service where users post up “stuff” they want to give away (for free of course) and then people who want it make a request. It is a great way to recycle (or get rid of stuff) that is still useful but that you don’t want and/or can’t be bother to auction on eBay (or you don’t have a way to sell via garage, flea market or car boot). My wife uses the Freecycle service in London all the time to get rid of things such as old rugs, a kids wendy house, light shades and a juicer.

Interestingly Freecycle uses Yahoo! Groups to power most of the interaction between “givers” and “receivers.”