TechCrunch

Three Years Later, Buying MySpace Looks Like One Of Murdoch’s Smartest Bets
Erick Schonfeld Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:31:22 -0000
Three years ago today, Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace and its parent company Intermix for $580 million. That turned out to be money well spent. The last time we ran the numbers, we figured that MySpace alone is worth between $3 billion and $20 billion, depending on how much you value each user. Fox Interactive Media (which is mostly MySpace) accounted for about $850 million in revenues last fiscal year (which ended in June), and is projected to hit $1 billion next year. It was supposed to hit $1 billion this year, but never mind. Unlike other social networks, MySpace is actually making a profit. The company now employs 1,600 people worldwide, compared to 150 in October, 2005—more than a tenfold increase. The social network has grown as well. MySpace now has 73 million unique visitors a month in the U.S., according to comScore, compared to 24 million three years ago. (Facebook has 41 million). That means MySpace reaches about 40 percent of the online population, compared to 14 percent three years ago. Those visitors, on average, spend 263 minutes a month each on the site, versus 83 minutes in 2005.
Blip.fm, The “Twitter for Music”, Gets Its Own API
Mark Hendrickson Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:23:35 -0000
When Fuzz launched a microblogging service for music aficionados called Blip.fm last May, no one in the company expected it to rise above the status of an experiment. But before long, Blip.fm's traffic began to eclipse that of Fuzz's main site, which provides an altogether different service for bands that want to cultivate their fan base. Fuzz's attention has now turned primarily to Blip.fm as a result of its popularity, although it will continue to maintain its other service as well. Since May, its developers have added several distinguishing features, such as badges for members who accumulate a horde of followers. The idea behind these badges is to recognize the most popular DJs and identify them for new members. In the same vein, members can also give each other "props" points whenever they like the songs that others have shared.
Sonoa appliance knits APIs and Cloud together
Steve Gillmor Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:03:32 -0000
Enterprise IT looks at the emergence of cloud computing with mixed emotions. On the one hand, financial tough times breed layoffs, consolidation, and outsourcing away from IT's control. On the other, a new breed of cloud-aware managers look to rationalize the metrics, security, and regulation challenges a distributed model brings. In the middle are companies such as Sonoa Systems, who just announced the closing of a $10 million Series C round of funding, led by Third Point Ventures with current investors Norwest Venture Partners, Bay Partners and SAP Ventures. Sonoa sits in the middle of the API party, with a $50,000 box that proxies and manages a company's cloud computing services. The ServiceNet appliance, or a virtual VMWare image for those who have their own hardware at $30K, lets IT manage customers of a company's APIs with a single policy management system located at the edge of the enterprise. The product provides a library of out-of-the-box policies for content-based metering, profile-based access control, credential mediation, protocol interoperability, and governance, security, compliance, and audit tools.
Help Eliminate Poverty, Make a Microloan to An Entrepreneur
Erick Schonfeld Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:19:29 -0000
The financial crisis in world markets over the past few weeks has been a real eye-opener, but even those of us who have seen our stock portfolios decline by 30 percent or more don't have much to complain about. It could be worse. It could be a lot worse. A third of the world's population lives in poverty, and 20 percent lives in extreme poverty, meaning they are always hungry. What can you do? How about making a microloan of a $20, $50, or $100 to an entrepreneur in a poor country? Today is Blog Action Day, with blogs around the world making a concerted effort to raise awareness about global poverty and ways to fight it. What we've decided to do is to start a TechCrunch lending team at Kiva.org. Anyone can join.
Technorati Acquires AdEngage Advertising Network
Michael Arrington Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:02:46 -0000
San Francisco based Technorati has acquired AdEngage, a twelve person advertising network based in Los Angeles, in an all stock transaction. The AdEngage platform will remain a free standing, branded service, and Technorati will also launch a version of the platform under its new Technorati Media brand. The size of the transaction is not being disclosed. This follows Technorati's August acquisition of BlogCritics, a network of blog content. AdEngage, which was founded in 2004, sells advertising for 4,000 sites, and has 13 billion ad impressions per month, says Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra. Many of those sites are adult oriented, so Technorati isn't merging it with its core service. Instead, they'll launch a separate version of it under the Technorati Media brand in a few weeks. The screen shot below shows what the current, password protected version of the site looks like.
All Eyes On Google This Week
Michael Arrington Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:58:00 -0000
Google, who's stock is down 45% this year, announces third quarter financial results tomorrow, and Silicon Valley will be watching. Analysts expect revenues of a little over $4 billion and EPS of $4.79 - and most have price targets for the stock, which closed yesterday at $363, to bounce back up to the high 500's. For now, the big factors affecting Google are the strengthening dollar (half their revenue is outside the U.S.) and general pessimism about the advertising market moving forward. There are also concerns about the intense regulatory scrutiny of the Google/Yahoo search deal.

ENN Investing and Corporate Social Responsibility

Study Suggests Carbon Market Encourages Chopping Forests
The current carbon market actually encourages cutting down some of the world's biggest forests, which would unleash tons of climate-warming carbon into the atmosphere, a new study reported Monday.
Technology Companies Tout Greener Credentials, but Significant Improvements Are Distant
With energy costs high and environmental friendliness making for good public relations, more tech companies are touting ways they are "greening" data centers, which serve up Web pages, swap Internet traffic, and process and store business information.
Westinghouse Seals Mega China Nuclear Deal
U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric signed on Tuesday a multi-billion-dollar deal with Chinese partners to build four nuclear reactors in eastern China, finalising a pact agreed between Beijing and Washington seven months ago.

The Financial Page

James Surowiecki: The commercial paper chase.
James Surowiecki Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:00:00 -0000
In December, 1912, J. P. Morgan testified before Congress in the so-called Money Trust hearings. Asked to explain how he decided whether to make a loan or investment, he replied, “The first thing is character.” His questioner skeptically suggested that factors like collateral might be more important, but Morgan . . .
James Surowiecki: What drives market volatility?
James Surowiecki Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
American investors are frazzled. True, oil prices have fallen from their most vertiginous highs, the dollar is a bit stronger, and the stock market has actually risen over the past month. But none of those things have happened in a smooth and steady fashion. The stock market’s “ascent,” in particular . . .
James Surowiecki: Too many stakeholders can be a deal-breaker.
James Surowiecki Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
In the second decade of the twentieth century, it was almost impossible to build an airplane in the United States. That was the result of a chaotic legal battle among the dozens of companies--including one owned by Orville Wright--that held patents on the various components that made a . . .

NYT > Your Money

Economic Scene: Next Victim of Turmoil: Your Salary
Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:08:38 -0000
The next stage of the downturn is likely to revolve around the worst slump in worker pay since the Great Depression.
Thriftiness on Special in Aisle 5
Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:22:09 -0000
Several chain stores have concluded that providing information about how to manage a household on a budget can spur loyalty.
Across the Country, Fear About Savings, the Job Market and Retirement
Sun, 12 Oct 2008 08:50:43 -0000
As the market continued its steep slide, many Americans say they are sensing losses beyond the short-term hits to their portfolios.

The Economist: The World Bank and the IMF

The world economy: Bad, or worse
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
At best, the world economy is on the brink of recessionDEPRIVE a person of oxygen and he will turn blue, collapse and eventually die. Deprive economies of credit and a similar process kicks in. As the financial crisis has broadened and intensified, the global economy has begun to suffocate. That is why the world’s central banks have been administering emergency measures, including a round of co-ordinated interest-rate cuts on October 8th. With luck they will prevent catastrophe. They are unlikely to avert a global recession.According to the IMF’s most recent World Economic Outlook, published on October 8th, the world economy is “entering a major downturn” in the face of “the most dangerous shock” to rich-country financial markets since the 1930s. The fund expects global growth, measured on the basis of purchasing-power parity (PPP), to come down to 3% in 2009, the slowest pace since 2002 and on the verge of what it considers to be a global recession. (The fund’s definition of global recession takes many factors into account, including the rate of population growth.) Given the scale of the financial freeze, the fund’s forecast looks optimistic. Other forecasters are convinced that a global recession is inevitable. Economists at UBS, for instance, expect global growth of only 2.2% in 2009. ...
Chad: Breaking the bank
Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:08:08 -0000
A vaunted model development project goes awryWHEN the World Bank agreed to help finance a controversial pipeline from oilfields in Chad to a port in Cameroon, it claimed to be raising the bar for transparency and good government in the extractive industries. It insisted that the government of Chad spend almost all its revenue from the project on development; to make sure it did so, the oil firms involved were to pay royalties into an escrow account monitored by an independent agency. Eight years later, the bar has fallen with a thud. Rather than comply with the bank’s strictures, the government of Chad has repaid its loans in full. It will now do as it pleases with its oil money.The project did not get off to an auspicious start: the government spent a chunk of its $25m signing bonus on arms. As local rebel movements grew stronger, and the conflict in neighbouring Darfur began to spill over into Chad, the government’s urge to funnel cash to the army only grew. It bickered frequently with the bank and the oil firms about the terms of the deal. The lockbox for revenue proved insecure, since the government simply took the money disbursed for education and health care and diverted it to less worthy causes. “Ultimately,” says a World Banker, “these projects depend on the political will of the governments involved.” ...
Poverty: The bottom 1.4 billion
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:35:37 -0000
The world is poorer than we thought, the World Bank discoversCorrection to this articleIN APRIL 2007 the World Bank announced that 986m people worldwide suffered from extreme poverty—the first time its count had dropped below 1 billion. On August 26th it had grim news to report. According to two of its leading researchers, Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion, the “developing world is poorer than we thought”. The number of poor was almost 1.4 billion in 2005. ...

 

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