News & Opinion for Media and Tech Investing

2010 was a huge year for Facebook; the movie, the man of the year, the most visited site on the net. All the media attention has contributed to the buzz of the highly anticipated IPO. So what’s holding back the most popular site on the internet from going public? What more is there to do for the hottest media company out?

Well here’s the scary truth: Facebook is just getting started.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent the last several months spreading his vision of all consumer product and service industries having a social component. At the Web 2.0 conference in Silicon Valley last Fall he said, “A social version of anything can almost always be much more engaging and out-perform a non-social version…Our view is that we should play a role in helping to re-form and re-think all those industries, and we’ll get value proportional to what we put in.”

To some the vision may seem a little too general or far fetched, but after closer examination it’s clear that Facebook has already begun to execute on that vision. The Open Graph was announced in April of 2010 with the goal of enabling the integration of Facebook with third-party sites. The advantage to an average Facebook user is an opportunity to have a personalized web experience on other sites they users regularly visit. The advantage to the average website developer is the ability to easily allow visitors to share information with their friends on the social network, thus increasing more traffic to the developer’s site.

The advantage to Facebook, however, is exactly what has been holding up the company from going public. By having Facebook integrated with millions of sites across the web they will have effectively  Continue Reading…

Just a decade ago (that’s 10 human years, but about 70+ ‘tech years’) AOL seemingly owned the internet. The general public even viewed the then CEO Steve Case the way they view Steve Jobs in 2010. But what a hard road AOL has suffered since it’s merger with Time Warner in 2000.

The rebranding effort that took place at the end of 2009 was the perfect metaphor for where they stand as a company.  The replaced the AOL ‘triangle’ logo with nothing. Literally, nothing. It is simply a white font that appears as ‘Aol.’ only when you put something behind it. The intention was to have a brand that is “uniquely dynamic.” According to a press release, “The new AOL brand identity is a simple, confident logotype, revealed by ever-changing images. It’s one consistent logo with countless ways to reveal.” That’s PR speak for ‘Well, we’re still trying to figure out a plan for ourselves.”

Well if spinning off of Time Warner was the first step, it appears as though cutting the fat is the second. They are selling internet properties for pennies on the dollar to make this new company lean and focused. It started with instant messaging service called ICQ was sold for $100 million less than the purchase price in the late 1990′s. The social networking site Bebo, which AOL acquired in 2008 for $850 million, was reported to have been sold for only about $10 million in June. Ouch.

And though the once gargantuan internet company is making very drastic moves, it is still difficult to determine what direction will lead them to profitability. At the D8 conference last month Tim Armstrong indicated that Aol’s big opportunity was in “bridging journalism and technology.” Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz described it best when she called the new Aol “Mini Yahoo” noting their shift from an internet service provider to a content aggregation portal.

While I would love to believe this is going to be a great turnaround story there are a few facts I can not overlook:

1. According to AOL’s most recent 10Q, “our subscription access service represents the source of the vast majority of our operating income.” For those of you that don’t understand, Continue Reading…

Though there had been much speculation about a ‘Google TV’ product over the last few months nobody knew exactly what it would look like in it’s final form. Would it be a hardware product, a software service, or just a platform for third party content providers to utilize? Would they charge for the service or continue with their free strategy? Who and what will it’s competitors be? Google’s annual developer conference answered most of those questions, and it started with this simple video.

This fall Google will release this service directly integrated into Sony TVs and available as an external device that connects with other TVs through an HDMI cord. Once you have the hardware, the service is free of charge. Their hope is that the experience will be much more Continue Reading…

The buzz is deafening… The pre-orders have sold out… And with only 48 hours until launch, the die-hard fanboys are probably starting to form a line right about now. With the support of their cult-like following, no company in history is as effective at the product launch. But the question is; What happens next? Sure they’ll get half a million units off their shelves in the next week. But is this sustainable? Let us not forget this is a new product in a budding market with no success guaranteed. So can this ‘entertainment device’ really be expected to do iPhone numbers? Continue Reading…

Welcome to Media Tech 10Q, the blog dedicated to news and opinion on media and technology investing. Our goal is to provide investment insight and begin constructive discussion on the companies we cover… and have a little fun while doing it. Please feel free to reference any of our content on your blog, just as long as you provide a link back to us.

Feel free to contact us at info@mediatech10q.com if you would like us to feature us as a guest blogger.

Thanks and happy investing!

Austin Clements
Editor in Chief