Filed under: Business, News

According to a new report from the Newspaper Association of America, on the internet readership for newspaper web sites grew by more than 3.6 million in 2007, up 6 percent from 2006. So, in spite of traditional newspaper sales drying up, the newspaper companies are finding ways to grow their readership.

At this point, you might be asking, “what’s a newspaper?” It’s that easy collection of ink on thin paper that sometimes waits for you on your stoop and is often found in spring-loaded machines that’ll either take your quarter, or, if you’re not fast enough, your hand.

Okay, so maybe we haven’t completely forgotten what a newspaper is, but we do know that hardly any of us read them anymore. Why read something that’s a whole day old when you can get minute-to-minute news from the internet?

Thankfully, newspaper companies have gotten wind of the shift from traditional print media to online media. Many massive newspapers have made most if not all of their content available online; and, as the study shows, the move has paid off. People still trust the traditional news media, the traditional news names; they just wanted the news delivered through a different, more expedient medium.

In the last quarter of 2007, 39% of web viewers visited newspaper Web sites. How about you?

[via Communication Overtones]

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Filed under: Deals, Private equity, Clear Channel Commun (CCU), SLM Corp (SLM), Blackstone Group L.P (BX)

For the private equity space, it’s been a mixed bag this week. The good news is that the $17.1 billion acquisition of Harrah’s Entertainment got done (the largest casino deal in history). The buyers included TPG and Apollo Global Management LP.

But there was some bad news too — it looks like Blackstone (NYSE: BX)’s proposed buyout of Alliance Data Systems (NYSE: ADS) is on the rocks.

So, in this environment, it’s understandable that Wall Street is jittery with buyout deals. Just look at the pending buyout of Clear Channel Communications (NYSE: CCU).

Despite reassurances from the private equity sponsor — Thomas H. Lee - the deal still has an enormous spread. In other words, the buyout price is $39.20 and the current market price is $29.69.

What’s going on?

Well, investors should be concerned. Besides the ADS transaction, there have been other deals that have imploded - such as United Rentals (NYSE: URI), SLM (NYSE: SLM) and Harmon (NYSE: HAR).

What’s more, the slowing economy is prone to negatively impact marketing spending, which should be a drag on radio. Clear Channel has already talked about this.

Besides, the credit markets are still tight, making it difficult to raise large sums for buyout transactions.

True, Clear Channel still has strong competitive advantages and it looks like there is room to cut costs, but right now, Wall Street traders certainly are not in a risk-taking mood.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar On the internet Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

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Filed under: Deals, Bank of America (BAC), Countrywide Financial (CFC)

A piece in today’s Wall Street Journal recommends [subscription required] that Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC) was driven into the arms of Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) also by fears of a regulatory crackdown.

According to the Journal, “Though the huge home-mortgage lender faced big and unpredictable losses on defaults, the more immediate danger was pressure from regulators, politicians and rating firms, these people state.”

The acquisition of Countrywide by the much larger Bank of America will ease the company’s liquidity problems, making it less reliant on the Federal Home Loan Banks for funding. According to the Journal’s source, the company was near the cap for funding, and a scandal surrounding the company might have jeopardized its capability to secure additional cash.

The company had been paying far-above market interest rates on CDs and savings to attract further cash — a sign of its desperation for money.

Bank of America can easily solve the mortgage-home lender’s liquidity problems because of its sheer size. But given the regulatory heat surrounding Countrywide — shareholder lawsuits, attorneys general in Florida, California, and Illinois investigating, and an SEC investigation of its bookkeeping — Bank of America may have inherited some pretty significant liabilities.

Of course, BofA will have attempted to figure out the extent of the possible damage before it agrees to the deal, but multiple federal investigations are a pretty serious wild card.

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Homebuilders’ confidence, as measured by their leading trade organization, the National Association of Home Builders, is way down. Turns out, there’s good reason for this.

According to this report from the Associated Press, the sales of new homes dropped by a record amount in 2007, while sales prices had their weakest showing in 16 years. If that’s not enough to shake builder confidence, what’s?

According to the AP story, sales of new homes dropped by 26.4 percent in 2007 t0 774,000. That is the highest year-to-year drop on record.

At the same time, the median selling price of a new home barely moved at all last year. New home prices inched up 0.2 percent in 2007 to $246,900.

Here’s more evidence, as if anyone really needed it, that our current housing slump is a serious one. Real estate professionals may be preaching that the slump is nearing its end. The evidence, though, doesn’t support this view.

Tags: Associated-Press, national-association-of-home-builders, new-home-sales

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Filed under: Business, Internet, E-mail, Productivity, Web services, Google

Registering domain names and enabling your managing those domains is what a registrar should do. Making those tasks logical and intuitive is gravy for personal users but is the deal-breaker for small business. It still amazes us that businesses register domains based solely on price without foreseeing the nickel-and-diming a registrar does or worse, prevent you from fully managing your domain. You probably won’t find out the hidden costs until you’re ready to launch your new Web site.

If you’ve a single fun or personal domain, skip this article. If you’re in business with an online presence, there are five services a registrar should provide without charging extra. But first, let’s speak about price.

Low price is no longer the decision-maker
Domain registration varies from about $8 to $35 per year but rock-bottom pricing can no longer be your sole criterion. It’s bait-and-switch: you get the domain for a low price but you’re charged to do each day tasks. Look beyond the price and itemize the services that you can do for free at a low-cost registrar. A low registration price does not guarantee you’re going to get services you need without paying per additional service. As managers of nearly a thousand domains, this is our list of the five can’t-live-without features a registrar must include in the registration price.

Continue reading Five Services to Expect from Your Registrar (or get a new one)

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Filed under: International markets, Deals, Competitive strategy, Commodities, Oil, Agriculture

CME Group is preliminary speaks to purchase energy/precious metals market Nymex, CME announced Monday, in a statement.

Under terms being discussed, CME Group Inc. (NYSE: CME), the world’s largest derivatives exchange, would pay Nymex Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: NMX) $36 per share in cash and 0.123 of a CME common share, which would value the deal at about $11 billion, Reuters reported Monday.

Nymex shares rose $9.01 to $116.17 on the news, while CME’s shares fell $12.77 to $616.01 in Monday afternoon trading.

CME Group was created in July 2007 via the merger of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade in a $9.3-billion deal. Nymex, which is short for the New York Mercantile Exchange, went public in November 2006.

Nymex is the world’s largest, physical commodities futures exchange, and features contracts for crude oil, gasoline, natural gas, and electricity; and precious metals such as gold, silver and copper. CME’s product strengths include interest rates, foreign exchange, stock indexes, and agricultural commodities.

A logical deal

Independent stock analyst C. Leonard Bauer told BloggingStocks Monday a potential CME/Nymex could get done, “as the logic is there”. Bauer added that he does not have a rating on either company, nor does he own shares of either company.

Nymex’s products have almost no overlap with CME’s strengths in interest rates, foreign exchange, stock index and agricultural commodities, he said. Nearly, he underscored. However, a CME/Nymex deal would have “an 80% or better market share in U.S. futures and futures on option volume,” he said. Any proposed deal is subject to review by the U.S. Department of Justice.

“The onus would be on CME to demonstrate to public officials how in the electronic age, the number of electronic exchanges would counteract CME’s market dominance in that segment,” Bauer said. “The issue isn’t one of global competition. The issue is ‘how will a CME/Nymex merger lower trading prices and improve services?’ If they can demonstrate that, then that dimension, and the product mix, and economies of scale points would most likely put the deal in motion.”

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Filed under: Deals, Next big thing

Only eight months old, the Rubicon Project has already raised roughly $21 million. In fact, this day the company announced its latest infusion: $15 million. The investors include: Mayfield Fund, IDG Ventures Asia, Stanford University, University of California Berkeley, Matt Coffin (founder and former CEO of LowerMyBills.com) and Clearstone Venture Partners.

Essentially, the Rubicon Project helps companies manage the complexities of on the internet advertising networks. The system is getting lots of traction, with more than 3,000 websites signing up.

“We are seeing huge demand,” said Frank Addante, CEO and Founder, in an interview with me on Friday. “Customers also want a way to benefit from advertising networks in global markets.”

I asked Frank about the concerns of a slowdown in online advertising (especially in light of the cloudy economy in the U.S.). His take? Well, he is not seeing a slowdown. “I experienced the downturn in 2001,” said Addante. “That was mostly the result of dot-coms running out of money. As of now, things are different because it’s traditional companies that are buying online advertising.”

Interestingly enough, the genesis of the Rubicon Project’s funding came from Frank’s trip to Hawaii - which he wrote about it in his blog.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar On the internet Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

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Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services

There’s a reason we love to shop on eBay and other auction sites that sell new and used goods. It’s cheaper to buy second hand stuff than to walk into a store and purchase it in a shiny new package. How can you put a value on that? Pretty easily it turns out.

Two researchers at the University of Maryland found that consumers saved more than $7 billion in 2003. While the team didn’t look at all of the data from last year, their model estimates that the number may have climbed to $19 billion in 2007.

What’s interesting about these findings is that the researchers looked at data from Cniper, a web service that places last minute bids for eBay users. By comparing the maximum amount users were willing to pay with the actual ending price of auctions, the researchers determine that the average customer was willing to spend $4 more per auction than they actually spent.

So on the one hand, eBay and similar sites are proving their worth by allowing users to save some serious money. On the other hand, the study shows that sellers could be making a lot more money than they currently are. Can we blame eBay for the impending recession? Probably not. But it’s always fun to have a few more places to point your finger, isn’t it?

[via ZDnet/Reuters]

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Filed under: Business, Features, E-mail, Office, Productivity

This day we’d like to introduce the first in a new weekly series of posts at Download Squad called Emailers Anonymous, a series for anyone that’s addicted to email as part of their daily life. We’re going to explore email from all angles - everything from email clients to email etiquette, email productivity to email formatting. And anything else you have questions about.

Today’s post will focus on email etiquette, and how to be a good email neighbor.

It’s easy to feel frustrated with friends and co-workers when they make basic email mistakes like sending messages with no subject text, or referencing an attachment but not actually including one. But are we totally innocent of making email offenses ourselves? Have a look at the ones listed below; maybe you could be a superior email neighbor.

Links without context

This is maybe one of the most common, and most egregious faux pas that can be committed online. It happens on instant messaging programs and frighteningly often on Twitter, but it also happens very often in email. Consider the last time you came across a website you really wanted a friend to see. When you emailed it to them, did you give any descriptive text so that they had a clue as to what they were about to see when clicking on your link, or did you simply give the a link and anticipate them to blindly follow it? This is tantamount to saying “close your eyes and open your mouth” - no thanks! If you really want people to follow your links, take a moment to explain what they are about to see - a sentence or two is enough.

Continue reading Email Etiquette - Emailers Anonymous

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