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Posted
Jun 03 2009, 07:41 PM
by
Catherine Holahan
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The market's recent thaw has again opened the window for
initial public offerings. But investors
hoping that a gust of IPOs will fuel the market's rally are due for disappointment.
The hottest tech companies are unlikely to make a public exit any time
soon. In fact, investors hoping to buy
stock in popular social sites such as Facebook,
Digg and LinkedIn will likely have to wait until 2010 and beyond.
"We have no plans to go public," said Facebook
spokesman Larry Yu in an interview. His comments echoed earlier statements by Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg that an IPO is not on the horizon.
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Posted
Apr 01 2009, 03:09 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Ousted General Motors (GM) boss Rick Wagoner might consider this an April Fools' joke, but The New York Times reports that the Obama administration is looking to ease the distressed automaker into “controlled” bankruptcy -- that's "somewhere between a prepackaged bankruptcy and court chaos, by persuading at least some creditors to agree to a plan that would cleave the company into two pieces."
Essentially, the government plans to use its considerable leverage of being the de facto lender of last resort to calm the fears of potential creditors. GM's new chief executive, Frederick "Fritz" Henderson, also telegraphed the government's plans in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, saying, "They think that I can lead this company inside or outside of bankruptcy court."
The administration appears to be drawing in part from its experience with troubled banks, the goal being to create "a new, healthier GM, but leaving behind its liabilities and less valuable assets, perhaps for liquidation," writes the Times.
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Posted
Jul 06 2009, 03:59 PM
by
Tobin Smith
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Back in the '70s and '80s, baby boomers were at the forefront of a new wave of consumer demand. They were also the early adopters of new media technologies. Their TV viewing habits, purchasing habits, likes and dislikes were tracked intensely by the corporate world to help them determine which products, services and technologies were wanted most.
But fast forward a few decades to the 21st century -- are baby boomers still at the forefront of today's media technology?
Given the radical changes in media, particularly over the last decade, including the ubiquitous use of the Internet, social networking services and now even video content delivery over the Web, you wouldn't think baby boomers would be leading the charge forward.
Well, think again. A recent ChangeWave Alliance survey points to a powerful shift occurring among baby boomers from traditional TV to new types of online entertainment.
But what, if anything, are media companies doing to keep up with changing demand? As it turns out, they're doing plenty. And it could mean a boom for the biggest media firms out there.
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Posted
Nov 07 2007, 07:47 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Facebook is going to have its members start shilling for products. The idea is brilliantly evil.
How does it work? If I tell Facebook that I like Diet Coke, all my friends on Facebook will start seeing ads for Coca-Cola with my picture and the fact that I like Diet Coke.
What's more, companies will be able to track what Facebook users are doing on the Web and send them targeted ads. If I buy something from a retailer like Amazon, my friends will know about the transaction.
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Posted
Dec 05 2007, 09:16 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 The Facebook debacle-in-the-making may have peaked today, now that founder Mark Zuckerberg has come out of hiding and apologized. To quickly recap: The social networking upstart rolled out an advertising push that was so invasive and abusive that 50,000 members signed a petition to protest the move. The ad program, called Beacon, ushered in a tidal wave of bad publicity for the company. Read my earlier post for more on Beacon.
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Posted
Oct 30 2007, 09:53 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
There have been rumors far and wide that Google is working on its own social network. Turns out the company is working on something better, though it's no threat to social networking darling Facebook.
OpenSocial, which Google will introduce this week, lets programmers make applications for many different social networking sites at once. Doesn't sound like a big deal. But first you have to understand that part of Facebook's appeal are the 5,000 programs people have built for the site. You can compare movie tastes with other users, share music, ask questions and pick your top friends. Those programs -- as silly as some of them are -- keep users on Facebook and keep the ad revenue flowing. They're a big reason why Facebook is raking in the cash from Microsoft and others right now.
Developers are busy creating programs for Facebook and ignoring all the other social networking sites out there, including Google's own Orkut, a network popular in Brazil but not in the U.S. So Google bands together with other social networks and figures out a way that developers can write programs for all of them at once.
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Posted
Nov 25 2008, 06:27 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Google's obscene five years of hyper-growth may be coming to an end. So far, the evidence of that in only anecdotal. Here and there advertisers are saying that the search engine does not get them the kind of results they are used to. Maybe it is the recession.
To further disturb those who worry about Google earnings, the internet company said it would be cutting contract workers. The could be a lot of people. Google has about 10,000 freelancers. According to The Wall Street Journal, Google Inc. said Monday that 'it is "significantly" reducing the number of contract workers it uses, but the Internet search and advertising company said it has no plans at this time to lay off employees.'
Of course, the internet is not dead. But, it becomes more wounded every day. Search is supposed to be the engine which drives online revenue growth forward. Traditional display advertising is not doing as well as it used to. That leaves Google. If its earnings for the current quarter are poor, the league of one will have been disbanded.
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Posted
Apr 01 2009, 03:59 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The business of having online sites with content created by amateurs to be viewed by other amateurs never had a reasonable chance of making money. The fact that Facebook once had a $15 billion valuation, and that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWS) bought MySpace, and that Google (GOOG) bought YouTube only proves the “greater fool” theory.
YouTube was started in 2005 and MySpace in 2003. Normally, having a social network where people go to share profiles of themselves, write blogs and submit videos would not seem like much of a business. But MySpace has well over 100 million users. People viewed over 5 billion videos at YouTube last month.
Investors assumed that any medium with such a large number of users had to become a huge business. Millions and millions of users must be worth something. They can’t be worth nothing. That couldn’t be possible.
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Posted
Jun 30 2009, 03:49 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Facebook is becoming one of the most dangerous places on the Internet. According to Reuters, “scammers break into accounts posing as friends of users, sending spam that directs them to Web sites that steal personal information and spread viruses.”
Since Facebook has, by some measures, more than 200 million members, the problem is extremely serious and could undermine the growth of the social network and cut into the time that current members spend on the site.
The cybercrime issue could also damage Facebook’s reputation with marketers, a reputation is just beginning to build in the hope of increasing its modest revenue by bringing in large national advertisers. Industry sources suppose that Facebook will lose a modest sum of money on $500 million of revenue this year, a tiny sum compared to the size of its audience.
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Posted
Mar 02 2009, 02:14 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Six months after first stepping in to save American International Group (AIG), the U.S. government has once again agreed to bail it out. The federal government will offer an additional $30 billion in taxpayer money to AIG just hours before the "battled insurer" is expected to announce a $62 billion loss, the biggest quarterly loss in history. Given that the government already owns nearly 80% of AIG's holding company, it's not surprising that this latest plan will expose U.S. taxpayers to more financial risk. Yesterday's agreement raises the prospect of breaking up the 90-year-old giant into various units and relaxes the stringent loan terms set in September by "wiping out interest in hopes of preserving AIG's value over a longer period," writes the Wall Street Journal. Simply put, with credit-rating agencies on the brink of downgrading AIG's shares, the Treasury felt it had no choice but to prop up AIG "because its business and trading activities are so intricately woven through the world’s banking system," writes the New York Times. Now that we the people have a majority stake in AIG, perhaps it might reconsider the lawsuit it filed Friday against the federal government over a disputed $306 million in taxes, interest, and penalties?
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