Steve Woda's blog

Daily Roundup for 2008-02-29

• New York Comes to Silicon Valley
  The relationship between the venture capitalists of Sand Hill Road and the securities firms and power investors of Wall Street has long been a cozy one. VCs hoping for a return on their investments will need banks eventually, while Wall Street needs VCs to nurture the most promising startups until they're ready to go public.  Or do they?  Lately, some of New York's biggest players have been cherry-picking the best pre-IPO investments for themselves.


• Yelp Critiques Heard and Heeded in D.C. - washingtonpost.com
  Although the tiny, family-run Joy's Spa and Nail Salon in Adams Morgan may never get a critique in a newspaper, it's received 42 reviews on Yelp.com.  Reggie Tull, the owner's son and a massage therapist, said he noticed an increase in traffic with every new review posted on the recommendation site. He's also surprised by the time writers invest in each posting.

Daily Roundup for 2008-02-27

• A CEO Manning the Phones Each Day?
  When Alden Kellogg discovered a glitch on Wesabe, he went to the personal finance tracker's home page, looking for a tech support number or e-mail. Instead, he found a link labeled "Talk to Jason, CEO of Wesabe." The page invites users to reach CEO Jason Knight by phone during a four-hour period seven days a week. Kellogg, a 35-year-old attorney in New Orleans, called the number in July, and Knight picked up.


• Amazon.com Tests Retailer Ads - Seattle Times Newspaper
  Amazon.com Inc. is testing a new paid advertising program that will drive shoppers away from products on its own Web site.  When shoppers click, the advertiser's site opens in a new window.  And Amazon makes money for sending the user along _ sometimes more than if it had held onto the shopper.  Razor-thin retail margins have prompted Amazon to look beyond directly selling and shipping merchandise to customers.

Daily Roundup for 2008-02-25

• Microsoft's Yahoo Bid Ruffles China's Alibaba - WSJ.com
  Alibaba Group, the Chinese Internet company part-owned by Yahoo Inc., has hired advisers to help it negotiate for expanded management independence in the event its U.S. partner is acquired by Microsoft Corp., a person familiar with the situation said.


• US Retail E-Commerce Set for Growth - eMarketer
  eMarketer predicts that online retailers in the US will ring up over $100 billion more in sales in 2012 than they did in 2007. Sales growth will come mainly from consumers who are shifting their spending from traditional retail stores to the Internet.

The eMarket for Lemons at The Wharton School

I had the opportunity to speak at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania last week about an article that Dr. Eric Clemons recently authored for the Journal of Management Information Systems, "An Empirical Investigation of Third-Party Seller Rating Systems in E-Commerce: The Case of buySAFE".  My presentation was focused on marketplace economics and specifically about information asymmetry, signaling, the "Market for Lemons" concept, and buySAFE.  In addition, I was able to share a few thoughts about my entrepreneurial experience with buySAFE.

As always, I had a great time as the guest of Dr. Eric Clemons, and I enjoyed hearing the passionate questions, insights and feedback from the students.  One of the students posted an article about my visit on his blog, The Un-Wharton. 

Daily Roundup for 2008-02-11

• Would Microsoft-Yahoo! Mean More Competition? - eMarketer
  On the surface, Microsoft's $44 billion offer to acquire Yahoo! seems to simplify the US search market share race. The combined firm would be second in online ad revenues to No.1 Google, and ahead of AOL. In 2007, Google rang up nearly $6 billion, while Yahoo! had about $3.4 billion and MSN had $1.4 billion net revenues.


• McAfee's New Secure Web Platform Steers Millions of Consumers to the Secure Internet
  McAfee, Inc. today announced that it is making the Internet safer for all users by completing the acquisition of privately held ScanAlert, Inc. ScanAlert is the creator of the HACKER SAFE web site security certification service, which protects over 50 million e-commerce transactions per month and proactively advises consumers about which sites are safe for shopping. The ScanAlert technology will be integrated into McAfee's award-winning safe search and surf technology, SiteAdvisor(R), which just reached a significant milestone of its own: It has been downloaded more than 100 million times by consumers who request SiteAdvisor's Web site ratings more than a billion times each day.

Arthur Benjamin's Mathemagic!

I have been sitting here this morning working on a financial model in Excel, and after completing one, particularly complex formula, I was reminded of a video I recently saw on the web.

Arthur Benjamin's mathematics skills are absolutely amazing!  Check it out below...

If you want to learn to count like Arthur Benjamin, check out his academic homepage as well as his Mathemagics site.

Daily Roundup for 2008-02-06

It has been a big week of news related to Microsoft's unsolicited bid for Yahoo!.  Today, I thought I would try to provide you with a link to series of articles and analysis on this big Internet development.

• Little Reason To Shout Yahoo! - Allan Sloan
  Most of the talk about Microsoft's hostile offer for Yahoo has focused on whether the deal could tip the scales in the battle for Internet dominance. Today, I'd like to steer the conversation to something a little more basic that almost everyone has overlooked: the numbers.


• In Heavyweight Battle, Trying to Avoid a Knockout - washingtonpost.com
  On its own, Yahoo is a stumbling Internet giant. But to Microsoft and Google, two of the world's most powerful technology companies, control of Yahoo has come to represent an unmatched strategic prize. Now the duel over Yahoo, initiated by Microsoft's surprise $44.6 billion offer last week, has set off a policy and public-relations battle between the corporate rivals that revolves around a simple question: Which company, Google or Microsoft, most threatens to become an Internet monopoly?

Daily Roundup for 2008-02-04

• Microsoft Makes Grab for Yahoo - WSJ.com
  The battle for supremacy in the Internet era is entering a tumultuous new phase. Microsoft Corp. placed a bold $44.6 billion bet that buying Yahoo Inc. can transform both companies' flagging efforts to catch Google Inc. The software giant's unsolicited offer for Yahoo represents a 62% premium over the Internet company's recent share price and is a sign of Microsoft's determination to narrow Google's growing lead in the online advertising and Web search-engine wars.


• Quick Tips for Reaching Influencers - Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog
  Lots of people have ideas about the best way to reach influencers but Rick Bruner, Director of Research and Industry Relations for Doubleclick, gives three quick tips for how to reach the people who affect the thoughts of others.

Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion in cash, stock

Microsoft has decided to step it up!  Today, Microsoft offered to acquire Yahoo! for $44.6 billion.  This is a 62% premium over yesterday's closing price.

Many industry experts, including Scot Wingo, have long rumored that both Microsoft and Yahoo! were both considering acquiring eBay whose battered stock price has increasingly made it an attractive acquisition target.  As recently as three weeks ago, Yahoo! was rumored to be in discussions to buy eBay.

With Yahoo!'s recent challenges, Yahoo!'s stock has continued to slide, and therefore, it has become a more attractive target as well.  Microsoft's bid is very bold, but to be quite honest, it was inevitable.  Microsoft and Yahoo! have both fallen woefully behind Google in the search game, and they both need to find a way to shake it up.  Today, Microsoft took a leadership position in that effort.

I will do a more in depth analysis in a subsequent post.