Healthy Blog Reviews

It seems that every time we report on Google’s quarterly performance it’s about disappointment in the investment community over numbers that most companies would kill for even in good times. It’s an interesting exercise that never ceases to amaze. Google, who offers no guidance to the investment community, had a good second quarter as net revenue rose by 25%. No, that is not a typo but that was also not enough to stop the stock from slipping 4% in after hours trading. Here are the numbers as reported by the New York Times In a sign of their impatience, Google’s stock price has sunk 17 percent over the last three months. It fell about 4 percent, to $474, in after-hours trading on Thursday after its announcement that both revenue and net income rose 24 percent in the second quarter, which ended June 30. The company said its net income rose to $1.84 billion, or $5.71 a share, from $1.48 billion, or $4.66 a share. Excluding the cost of stock options and the related tax benefits, Google’s second-quarter profit was $6.45 a share. Its revenue rose to $6.82 billion, from $5.52 billion in the year-ago quarter. Net revenue, which excludes commissions paid to advertising partners, was $5.09 billion, up from $4.07 billion a year ago. Google said that in the second quarter, paid clicks on Google sites and other sites that run Google ads grew 15 percent from the same period last year, and decreased 3 percent over the first quarter of 2010. So despite increases the headlines read Google Earnings Disappoint Investors – New York Times Google’s Second Quarter Profit Misses Target, Shares Slip – LA Times Blog Google’s Big Profit Jump Doesn’t Meet Expectations – paidContent.org Google’s Profits Fail to Meet Expectations – Financial Times Ads Buoy Google; Profit Disappoints – Wall Street Journal It’s interesting to watch this happen this happen quarter after quarter because whenever ‘expectations’ are missed they are not something that Google has set themselves. Google doesn’t provide guidance to the investment community on what to expect moving forward. They never have and are smart in doing so. Why? Because when everyone starts to cry about missed expectations it can be said that those expectations are based on speculation by the investment community (what isn’t when it comes to predicting the future about anything?). Sure the stock suffers but it has for the first half of the year as a whole. I am the last person who says we need to be polly-annish about anything in business. In fact, I think it is better to error on the side of skepticism in most cases. What I don’t get is this need to knock down an important company when it is doing something (increased revenue and profits year over year) which everyone wants to do and needs to see that at least someone is doing it! Instead the investment industry and those reporting would rather take the “Let’s pee on their Corn Flakes” approach and continue the negativity that is today’s economy. Personally, I liked the AdAge headline on this report which trumpeted “Google Profits Surges As Marketers Return to Search” They got the same information as everyone else and their headline told a truth about the report. In fact, it told the story that everyone needs these days. A story of hope coming from private industry in the free market. That’s desperately needed because it’s rooted in reality vs other hopeful messages from elsewhere that are only rooted in politics.

Tags: expectations, financial, financial-times, google-earnings, google-profits, investment, numbers, related, report, Search, stock, street, the-investment
Posted July 16, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

It looks like Carol Bartz has decided that the way for Yahoo to survive is to add to the proliferation of content that is being produced for the sole purpose of garnering search traffic. That ‘content’ is often just glorified keyword wrappers that do little to actually help a reader but plenty to sucker them into an advertising trap. Oh happy day. The deal for Yahoo to purchase the content factory Associated Content was reported yesterday and is said to be for $100 million. Just imagine how many $5 dollar articles can be sourced with that kind of money! Associated Content is well-known for its producing content on the cheap. Some might even say it is infamous for its concern for high quality ‘reporting’. Advertising Age reports The deal, which will be announced later today, is part of an effort to shore up Yahoo’s content offerings and underscores the increased use of low-cost, crowd-sourced content, a strategy that AOL is pursuing through its SEED content factory, as well as by Demand Media, which reportedly hired Goldman Sachs to explore an IPO this summer. Associated is in the business of generating a great deal of freelancer-produced content that can earn as little as $5 a story, and is optimized for search. (Examples of stories include “Guide to Reducing Stress in Daily Activities” and “Five Hollywood Career Revivals Waiting to Happen.”) Now be careful how you categorize this kind of content creation because the people responsible for it can get a little testy if called to the mat for producing content that is less than journalist grade. I did a post in December of last year and drew the ire of Associated Content’s founder and president, Luke Beatty. His comments for the post included As a firm believer in the idea that anyone is a content creator and everyone has the right to publish their thoughts and opinions, I totally respect your hostile commentary. That being said, I am going to defend over 300K contributors who use the Associated Content platform to produce thousands of content assets every day. These people range from trained, experienced media professionals to first-time content creators with experience or an opinion to share. You assert that they produce “crap.” That assertion that Mr. Beatty refers to is far from a lone voice in the crowd. There are many people who bemoan this new model that both Associated Content and AOL are specializing in which involves a ‘produce content and knock on wood for quality’ mentality. This technique is concerned about search traffic and advertising money with journalistic integrity being pushed to the back of the bus if it’s given a seat at all. Also, it looks like AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong is the big winner in all of this due to his investment in AC (at least he was still invested in December of ’09). So he is now going head to head with Yahoo in the race to produce as much content as possible but at least he is making some money on the deal in both directions. Ad Age confirms that producing high quality content isn’t cheap so the new direction for Yahoo gets them into another ballgame altogether in which they are already participating. The deal signals a new approach to content for Yahoo, which tried an expensive, Hollywood-style approach under former studio boss Terry Semel, but has since dialed back those efforts to low-cost production of content such as Yahoo Sports and OMG, its entertainment-focused site. So it looks like the signal has been given that if you find enough desperate people who will produce ‘content’ for next to nothing that you can get rich. Of course, one man’s getting rich is another man’s cluttered Internet. Get ready for boatloads of ‘great’ content from Yahoo in the future. Can’t wait!

Tags: advertising, aol, Business, cloud-computing, daily, Hollywood, investment, people, proliferation, race, reducing-stress, summer, thoughts, Yahoo
Posted May 18, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

Google Ventures has recently invested in Southlake, TX-based mobile payment provider Corduro . The amount of the investment was not disclosed. According to Corduro’s website they offer “a range of payment services, for Internet, mobile, and traditional retail transactions, including support for recurring payments.” TechCrunch reports that “The service offers everything from electronic checks and bill pay to recurring payment support.” Google Ventures announced the investment yesterday—just one day before mobile payment app Square launched on the iPad. Square’s iPhone app is scheduled for release later this week. Square uses an attached credit card reader to essentially turn any iPad or iPhone into a cash register. Investing in a competing platform to Square makes a lot of sense for Google as they battle Apple for mobile supremacy. One could argue that this is just another example of Google playing catchup with mobile; however, playing catchup is not always such a bad thing. Google wasn’t the first search engine and look at them now. Sometimes playing catchup helps set a benchmark for innovation and can help illuminate pitfalls along the way. Of course, playing catchup with Apple is a whole other story. In the mean, time I wish good luck to my fellow Texans over at Corduro and congratulations on scoring an investment from Google Ventures!

Tags: along-the-way, Apple, cloud-computing, cloud-hosting, corduro, google-ventures, internet, investment, ipad-or-iphone, mobile-payment, over-at-corduro, playing-catchup, search-engine
Posted May 4, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

Wow. A site / concept that is barely 1 ½ years old that hits the $1 billion valuation mark? I had to see if I stepped into some worm hole that took me back in time to the late 1990’s. Apparently I have not and neither has Groupon who, by landing $135 million in an additional funding through Digital Sky Technology and Battery Ventures, has attained a standing that very few sites in the world can claim: a $1 billion valuation. As reported at All Things Digital and the press release of this news: Chicago/Moscow, April. 19, 2010–Groupon, the leading social commerce site, today announced that DST, a leading global internet investment group, will lead an investment round of $135 million in the Company. A portion of the investment will be used to fuel Groupon’s global expansion, and the rest will be used to facilitate liquidity for employees and early investors. Good day to be part of that group for sure. Groupon started out as The Point by Founder Andrew Mason. For a Groupon history lesson check out this explanation of how Groupon got to where it is. Just a reminder, Digital Sky Technology, the primary investor in this round of financing is that same company that put $200 mil into Facebook last year. To this point the company had received about $36 million in total with $30 million of that coming from Accel Partners and the initial approximately $6 million coming from an angel investor and New Enterprise Associates. After watching an interview with Groupon’s Mason , it’s hard not to root for him considering his attitude and demeanor. He doesn’t act like the typical Internet high flier and his self-deprecating style (he says in the interview kind of under his breath that “It’s all a mistake”) makes him likable. In a world where bravado and chest-thumping rule the day, his approach is refreshing. Of course, once this kind of success hits you have to do a “wait and see” if it’s going to stick. So despite many copycats in the marketplace Groupon moves on. It would be interesting to hear any stories from Pilgrims about using Groupon and your experience with it. Tell us in the comment section now.

Tags: accel-partners, digital, enterprise, Groupon, groupon-logo, investment, marketplace, press-release, technology, things-digital
Posted April 19, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

One of the many nagging questions that many online marketers face is trying to show just how well search ads do as compared to social media ads. Well, beginning on April 12, Clickable is giving advertisers the ability to compare their search ads’ performance against that of ads on Facebook. If this works as advertised this could provide some valuable insight into just how well ads on social networks perform. TechCrunch provides some more details It will soon be possible to compare the performance of search and social ad campaigns side by side. Clickable, the ad management platform that lets search marketers measure and track the performance of their online marketing campaigns across different search engines and advertising networks, will be adding Facebook Ads as an option on April 12. What that means is that an advertiser buying pay-per-click ads on Google can test the performance of those search ads against pay-per-click ads on Facebook targeted to particular social demographics. Clickable customers will be able to create, upload and manage Facebook Ads through Clickable. Using the Facebook Ads API, Clickable has made it easier for advertisers to see not only how their search campaigns compare to each other but also how search does vs. at least one social media outlet. This could be risky business for Facebook. Of course, it could turn out to be an incredible boost as well. What will determine that direction will be the numbers. How will Facebook ads fare against search ads? People come to a search engine for information first and anything else that happens along the social side of life is a bonus. People, however, are going to Facebook to be social for the most part. As a result, the mindset of the user is different with respect to receiving advertising. I know that personally, I rarely give Facebook ads a glance. There is not a ton of variety in the ads I am offered and they are often just way off the mark with regard to my needs and tastes. As a result, I have developed a classic case of Facebook ad blindness. I know where they will appear in the layout and I have, on some level, just blocked them out. Occasionally something will catch my eye but not often. Of course, that is just one person’s experience. What about your experience with Facebook ads? As an advertiser how effective are they for your investment? As a Facebook user, how engaged are you in the ads offered on the site? In your opinion, how different are the two mediums, search and social, when it comes to advertising?

Tags: api, experience, facebook, investment, made-it-easier, numbers, Search, search-engines, Social, user
Posted April 1, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media