Internet Business News

AT&T fortifying its US Internet business with real bricks and mortar

2007-06-15T05:13:00.000-07:00

In a bid to raise its standing in the US broadband market, AT&T announced yesterday the addition of Internet service to the inventory at 789 retail stores in 13 US states. Turning back the clock on the way most telecoms companies engage customers nowadays ATT is banking on “face-to-face expertise and new services for mom and pop” business customers to give it an edge in a tight market.

The retail-ization plan presages no change in the type of service or its packaging, the company is merely exploiting its new real estate, i.e. numerous former Cingular wireless stores. Its SMB broadband product, AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Business Edition, will be available at US stores in the states of Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana,Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin.

In addition, AT&T will offer its so called FastAccess(R) Business DSL in retail stores in the former BellSouth's nine-state local service area (Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee) by the end of the year.

The SMB Internet product comprises downstream speeds of 1.5 Mbps to 6.0 Mbpsstarting at US$34.99/month. The business edition also includes Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and what the company calls “Business Class Technical Support”.

This though is no more than window dressing compared to the aggressive moves made by the US carrier over the last couple of years as it consolidates its position on several telecoms fronts. Aside from launching the IPhone this June 29th, which is generating massive publicity for its wireless division, the carrier also recently moved into several TV markets including the hotly contested California, where it won regulator approval just last month.

AT&T’s California dreaming came true when it was bought by SBC communicationsin a 2005 landmark $16 billion deal. It made AT&T the largest provider of high speed Internet services, voice services and data services in the US.

According to Point Topic research, the merger also “enabled [the company] to leverage its voice over IP platforms and other technological innovations to enhance its IP-based network capabilities and offer value added services to its customers.”

Bellsouth Corporation was the next target, acquired by AT&T in December of 2006. This deal facilitated the consolidation of both Bellsouth's wired and Cingular's wireless services.

Talk about turning back the clock, AT&T is to all intents and purposes the “natural” monopoly that was originally broken up in 1982 by an act of Congress when "Ma Bell" very reluctantly agreed to divest its local exchange service operating companies.

And though this might seem to be a case of history repeating itself , “This is actually the AT&T camel’s nose poking under the tent” said Stan Schatt VP of ABI research. (What? If you can understand the point this fellow is making here, you are a better man than I am, says Martyn Warwick, Telecom TV's Editor-in-Chief)

Mr. Schatt added, “Considering the way wireless and wireline are being drawn together it makes sense to get people into stores for broadband and then try to sell them various flavours of wireless. Generally small businesses are going to be the first ones to adopt fixed mobile, which is will be coming into play in a big way."

But, given all that frantic rationalising, it seems that perhaps the most important reason AT&T is offering Internet in stores “is because they they can,” said Stan Schatt.

The Next Internet Millionaire

2007-06-06T06:06:00.000-07:00

Wired.com:

Now that Donald Trump’s “Apprentice” show is cancelled, there’s suddenly a void in our watch-people-sit-up-and-beg-for-fame-and-wealth viewing menu. To the rescue comes "The Next Internet Millionaire." It took me a while to figure out if this was a spam site, an elaborate parody, or the real thing. For now, I’m assuming it’s a real online show looking to produce interesting reality content. I’ve already sniffed out the first tricky part of the show which is that the actual prize is $25k, contestants then have “the opportunity” to make a million dollars. Good job, they've already got the Trump hustle down pat.

Full episodes aren't available yet, but the audition tapes are pretty entertaining (scary?) on their own. But before you get your fill of wanna-be dot comers mugging for the camera, first take a look at the show’s creator and his video that looks and sounds like a mashup of "Fantasy Island" and "Battle Royale." Cue stock video footage of: helicopter aerial pan of luxurious beachfront property, rich dudes playing golf, hot blonde drinking martini on said luxurious beach… yes, I feel the power!

It is far cheaper to start an Internet business today than it was in the late 90's

2007-06-04T22:45:00.000-07:00

InternetFinancialNews by Mathew Ingram:

My friend Paul Kedrosky - who unfortunately wasn't able to make it to mesh last week, and therefore wasn't able to...

... share any of his wisdom in person - is right to point us towards a great post from Marc Andreesen about the non-bubblishness of the current tech bubble.

The Netscape co-founder has a long and very worthwhile analysis of why we so often see bubbles. which are actually extremely rare (this NYT story has some thoughts on that as well), and also notes several things about the current tech "bubble" that make it different from the first one - and he is ideally placed to have some perspective on that. Among other things, he notes that there are far fewer tech IPOs now (and therefore less hype and potential for financial disaster) and also that:
- It is far cheaper to start an Internet business today than it was in the late 90's.

- The market for Internet businesses today is much larger than it was in the late 90's.

- Business models for Internet businesses today are much more solid than they were in the late 90's.

This is a logical consequence of time passing, technology getting more broadly adopted, and the Internet going mainstream as a consumer phenomenon.
Andreesen says that he believes it is "about 10 times cheaper to start an Internet business today than it was in the late 90's, due to commodity hardware, open source software, modern programming technologies, cheap bandwidth, the rise of third-party ad networks, and other infrastructure factors. And the market size for a new Internet business is about 10 times bigger than it was in the late 90's."

DSG has seen its internet business triple in size in a year

2007-05-31T23:59:00.001-07:00

The Independent:

John Clare, the head of the giant Dixons and Currys electrical group, is pulling the plug on his 13-year reign as group chief executive.

He is quitting after a period of unprecedented changes in the way electrical goods are sold and rising competition from supermarkets.

Dixons, once a fixture in almost every high street in the country, has migrated to the internet because of rising rents and a shift towards online purchases of computers and electrical equipment.

The group - renamed DSG International - has seen its internet business triple in size in a year, and it now accounts for 10 per cent of total group sales.

For most of his 22 years with the group Mr Clare, who began his career as a marketing executive at Mars, toiled in the shadow of the flamboyant Sir Stanley Kalms, whose family started the Dixons business with a photographic store in Southend in 1937.

But Sir Stanley stepped down five years ago and Mr Clare, who has been with the group 22 years, 13 of them as chief executive, became the public face of one of Britain's best-known retailers. He is also one of the longest-serving FTSE 100 chief executives.

Under his leadership the group has expanded its retailing operations into 14 countries and e-commerce into 27 countries.

Mr Clare, 56, said yesterday he had made up his mind only recently that it was time to hand over. "There were a whole series of things over the past few months which convinced me it was the right time to retire and the right time is the annual meeting in September," he said.

He leaves behind some problems - unless they can be resolved before his departure. It is making writedowns of up to £130m against the value of its troubled Italian business, while closing its PC City operations in France will cost about £40m. At home, there are concerns whether higher interest rates will start to hit sales of non-essential products such as electrical and computer goods.

Mr Clare admits he could never have foreseen the changes in the market. He said: "Shortly after taking over I can remember being asked where the new generation of products were going to come from because everything that could be invented had been invented!

"That was before mobile phones and the internet, let alone widescreen televisions, laptops and iPods."

Mr Clare believes the next explosion in products will emerge from the growth of broadband. He added: "It is going to bring products we haven't yet seen or contemplated as people are able to download more and more information and data on to their TVs and phones."...

Microsoft says has all it needs for ad business

2007-05-24T04:26:00.000-07:00

News.com:

Microsoft said on Wednesday it does not need to buy Yahoo to gain scale in online advertising, because it has "all the pieces" it needs to build a successful ad business.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Internet Conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft Chief Advertising Strategist Yusuf Mehdi said the world's largest software maker is already bigger than Yahoo in terms of users of its Web services like e-mail and instant messaging.

Last week, Microsoft said it would acquire Aquantive for $6 billion to gain a foothold in the online advertising business dominated by its rivals Google and Yahoo.

Still, some Wall Street analysts said Microsoft needed to buy an established Internet player such as Yahoo to gain scale to take on Google.

When asked by Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto whether there would be assets from Yahoo that could help Microsoft, Mehdi said, "From where we are today, I think we have all the pieces."

Several newspapers reported this month that Microsoft was considering a deal worth an estimated $40 billion to $50 billion to acquire Yahoo. A source close to the situation subsequently said at the time that any talks had cooled.

Microsoft's Mehdi said Aquantive gives the company a strong position in serving up display ads on Web sites using technology that provides behavioral targeting. This is an area, according to Mehdi, that is experiencing more growth than ads tied to Web search results.

Google, which has built a multibillion-dollar advertising business largely on the back of its dominant position in Web search, continues to gain market share in search. Google's advertising revenue is growing three times faster than Microsoft's and Yahoo's.

"It's no longer just about search," Mehdi said. "Search and display have essentially converged."

Microsoft's shares rose 5 cents to $30.74 in afternoon Nasdaq trading, while Yahoo shares rose 7 cents to $28.99.

Google Is Best-Positioned to Dominate Online Ads

2007-05-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

SmartMoney:

IT HARDLY SEEMS POSSIBLE that this summer will already mark the third anniversary of Google's (GOOG) IPO. Back then, I strongly urged investors to participate in Google's highly democratic and unorthodox Dutch auction, as I did, arguing at the time that Google's core search business might turn out to be a "natural monopoly," one that would generate high profits without having to violate antitrust laws. That was a controversial assertion. The most-cited reason for not bidding for Google, or at least not at anything near the price Google was hoping for, was that search would soon be a low-margin commodity, likely dominated by Microsoft (MSFT) or Yahoo (YHOO).

I still read warnings from analysts that Google's margins could erode from competition from its big rivals, which has helped keep a damper on Google's share price. Trading at just over $470 (through Monday), well off its peak of more than $500, Google boasts a rather modest forward price/earnings ratio of 35, a price-to-earnings-growth, or PEG, ratio of just 1.09, and a beta of less than 1. At this rate it will be showing up on screens as a value stock. Yet surely the jury is now in on the fundamental question about Google's search business: It is a natural monopoly.

$6bn does not make sense

2007-05-21T22:37:00.000-07:00

IT Week:

Market watchers are questioning whether Microsoft's $6bn offer is too high a price to pay for online marketing agency aQuantive.

The amount represents an 85 per cent premium on aQuantive's closing price on 17 May, and makes the purchase Microsoft's most costly ever, easily dwarfing the $1.4bn for Great Plains in 2001.

AQuantive is based in Seattle, close to Microsoft's Redmond headquarters. The ad agency had revenues of $442m and an operating profit of $80m in calendar 2006, up from $308m and $61m respectively in the previous year.

David Bradshaw, principal analyst at Ovum, said: " AQuantive is a very serious business as its recent revenue growth and profitability show.

"But, at an 80 per cent premium on the share price and almost 14 times last year's revenue, how can it be worth this much to Microsoft?"

Bradshaw added that the deal would make financial sense only if Microsoft can use the purchase to "drastically improve" its share of the online advertising market.

"There are two main factors that drive success in the online advertising business: the strength of your web presence; and how effectively you monetise that web presence," he said.

"AQuantive's expertise in the advertising market will clearly be useful in increasing the effectiveness of the monetisation.

"However, aQuantive cannot favour Microsoft-owned sites because this will damage the rest of its business. Overall, we cannot see how aQuantive can make a huge impact."

Bradshaw maintained that Microsoft still has a "mountain to climb" if it is going to rival Google's internet business. However, he pointed to webmail as an area where Microsoft has a lead over Google.

"A good example is Hotmail, one area where Microsoft and Yahoo have a significant lead over Google, where there must be potential for more revenue," he said.

"In the business-to-business space, the most basic version of Office Live is to be advertising driven and there has to be a lot of potential here, but only if it can build a strong enough base of users."

Like Google's purchase of DoubleClick, Microsoft's purchase of aQuantive will attract regulatory attention, so there is a "small but finite chance" that it may not go through, according to the analyst.

"Microsoft is confident that the purchase will go through, claiming that the situation is different from Google-DoubleClick because there is no overlap between aQuantive and Microsoft," he said.

"Microsoft believes there to be considerable overlap between Google and DoubleClick. That raises a rather delicious prospect, from Microsoft's point of view, of Google's purchase being blocked while Microsoft's goes through."

Microsoft to Acquire aQuantive for $6 Bil

2007-05-21T03:29:00.000-07:00

Mediaweek:

No one can accuse Microsoft of moving too slowly when it comes to closing big Web deals anymore. In a move that sent shockwaves through the digital advertising industry, the software giant announced that it will acquire aQuantive, the holding company for both Avenue A/Razorfish and Atlas, for a stunning $6 billion.

That figure, nearly double that which rival Google recently laid out for ad server Doubleclick, suddenly puts Microsoft in a position of major influence in the resurgent online ad market. aQuantive’s Atlas - one of the industry’s two leading online ad serving platforms (Doubleclick being the other) - gives Microsoft access to reams of data while also tightening the company’s ties to many of the top digital agencies.

The acquisition, “the biggest in Microsoft’s history,” according to Kevin Johnson, president of the company's platforms and services group, makes the company a “major player in online advertising. “For the first time, we’ll be able to offer display advertising solutions for all ad agencies and publishers on any Web site.”

To date, aQuantive has demonstrated solid, if not spectacular revenue potential. The company reeled in $14.2 million during its most recent quarter, an increase of 55 percent year over year. But this deal isn’t about immediate revenue gains, but rather potential, said Joe Doran, general manager of Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions.

Atlas was attractive specifically because it can deliver ads to any Web connected device, including TV. Already, Atlas has been testing dynamically served TV spots on various video on demand platforms, but the big payoff for Microsoft will come when all TV is Web connected. “This is about the $60 billion pie,” said Doran, referring to the ad market for television. “We believe that TV advertising will evolve to be entirely digital.”

But beyond its long-term revenue potential, the more interesting, and potentially game-altering aspects of the deal are the fascinating and unprecedented conflicts it creates in the online ad universe. With Avenue A/Razorfish, one of the top digital media agencies, Microsoft is now in the position of selling ads to itself through MSN, while also selling ads to its competitors – i.e. any other digital agency that works with MSN.

Not to worry, said Doran. “We want to help Avenue A maintain their independence...and to thrive and grow. We will negotiate with them just like we negotiate with everybody else.” Primarily, Avenue A/Razorfish will be a great source of intelligence for the company’s growing list of ad-related products, he explained. “We think of that asset as a great opportunity to embrace the voice of the marketer.”

These sorts of seemingly incongruous relationships are simply the new reality of the Web-driven media world, according to Forrester analyst Shar VanBoskirk. "I think this spate of acquisitions means the definition of what a media company is changing,” she said. “Today, consumers are so bombarded with media, and online loyalty is so hard to secure that it is very difficult for advertisers to select media properties that uniquely capture their user. So, media companies have to develop different ways to differentiate from each other.”

The other obvious source of conflict for Microsoft is the data it will now have access to ad campaigns that run on many of MSN’s rivals. Doran said the company will tread carefully on this front. “We care deeply about privacy...we are going to maintain Atlas’ standards of privacy.”

Of course, Google faces the same sort of questions following its Doubleclick purchase. Doran said that the search leader warrants even more scrutiny, since he believes that Google and Doubleclick performs similar roles in the ad business. “Google is making things less competitive while Microsoft is making things more competitive,” he said.

Doran said that for Microsoft, Atlas is much more of a complementary business. He didn’t shy away from making competitive claims as well, calling Atlas’ ad-serving technology “best in class” and a “much better asset than [Doubleclick].”

The Web 2.0 Train is Coming; Get Your Business On Or Get Out Of The Way

2007-05-17T22:14:00.000-07:00

RTO Online:

More than 70% of Americans are using the Internet on a daily basis for private and/or business use. Providing a quick and convenient way to exchange goods and services, the Internet has created a new economic ecosystem - the Digital Marketplace - that has become the virtual main street of the world. According to the recent IDC study, the Digital Marketplace has reached a tipping point and will see double-digit growth rates until at least the end of this decade.
"The tipping point is being driven by increased consumer sophistication, commercial maturity, and technology readiness," said Rachel Happe, research manager for IDC's Digital Marketplace program. "This will jumpstart a new wave of adoption and growth, particularly in rich media content and social networking applications."
With close to two trillion dollars exchanged just in online transactions for goods and services in 2006, businesses operating in the Digital Marketplace as well as businesses in the traditional economy cannot afford ignorance when it comes to the economic ecosystem of the Internet. Some businesses are successfully leveraging this ecosystem to achieve phenomenal growth while other businesses are struggling to adapt quickly enough to maintain their current size. The Digital Marketplace is forcing businesses to learn and adapt like never before, putting their flexibility and speed to the test.
The popularity of the Internet makes it an effective medium for businesses to communicate and have influence with its customers, partners, and employees. The Digital Marketplace is creating a virtual environment rich in participation, content, and revenue for all businesses, not just those operating online.

Big bucks paid for porn.com

2007-05-17T00:17:00.000-07:00

smh:

THE free market has spoken: sex is worth more than porn. That's one conclusion from a near record-breaking auction of an internet domain name.

At a sale on Tuesday the rights to Porn.com brought in the second-highest payment for an address since the web's creation, with closely held MXN Ltd forking out $US9.5 million ($11.4 million) - not a bad return for a domain that sold for a reported $US47,000 in 1997.

But Porn.com could not rival the name Sex.com, which Boston firm Escom bought last year for more than $US11 million in cash and stock.

Porn is evidently still preferred over business: Business.com sold in 1999 for $US7.5 million.

The Porn.com deal is one of many in the past two years in which common nouns were exchanged for uncommon money. The name cameras.com sold for $US1.5 million, and scores.com fetched $US1.2 million.

Like Porn.com, they were sold by domain broker and manager Moniker.

The resurgence of simple domain names comes even though most people get to new places on the web through such search engines as Google and Yahoo. The idea is to put ads in front of internet surfers who type www.porn.com into their browsers, curious to see what's there.

Detroit's MXN was mum on its intentions for Porn.com. But Moniker chief executive Monte Cahn said the site was a proven earner, even without much content, getting more viewers clicking on ads than Sex.com enjoyed.

"People are very specific about what they're looking for," Mr Cahn said.

Former Sex.com owner Gary Kremen, who recently bought thousands of lower-tier adult domain names, said MXN paid too much. "People's expectations at the very high end are way high," he said. "It's like buying a trophy property."

Total amount spent online is estimated to grow to $263 billion

2007-05-16T02:40:00.000-07:00

Credit Suisse:

E-business, the conduct of business on the internet, continues to grow at strong rates across the globe spurred by improved access, services and content. The declining cost of broadband should boost internet penetration further and consequently increase the amount of time and money spent online by internet users. According to Credit Suisse estimates, the total amount spent online is estimated to grow to $263 billion by 2010 from $170 billion last year.

The number of active internet users across the globe reached a total of 763 million in March 2007, according to the net measuring firm comScore. These users viewed more than 2 trillion Web pages in March, which is 9 percent more than in the previous month. The U.S. and Europe remain the largest internet markets, though the fastest growing regions are Latin America and Asia-Pacific. A PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) study forecasts the global internet advertising and access spending market to grow an annual 13 percent between 2005 and 2010.

Broadband Connections Act as Catalyst for Entire Sector

The internet industry will thrive in the years to come as broadband connections gain market share from traditional dial-up. “The rising broadband penetration, which shows no sign of abating, should be a catalyst for the entire industry,” says Credit Suisse internet analyst Heath Terry. “Broadband’s declining cost and faster connection speed should spur the use of internet and its various applications,” he adds. Global internet penetration at household level should reach 47 percent by 2010 compared with just 17 percent in 2001 and 34 percent in 2006, according to PwC.

Google Dominates as Search Engine

Search engines today reap the most visits on the web, with internet becoming a key source of information for many of its users. The web’s attractiveness will continue to rise as search engine technologies improve further. About 80 percent of the global internet population visit search engines, according to a Nielsen-Net Ratings study. Global search queries reach close to 22 billion every month, with Google’s market share reaching nearly two-thirds followed by yahoo! with a market share of close to a fifth.

Online Advertisement Booming

As people spend more time online, advertisers have to follow them on to the web. Credit Suisse estimates that online advertising spending rose 35 percent year-on-year to $17 billion in 2006. Global web advertising is expected to grow to $51.6 billion by 2010, according to PwC. E-commerce, the sale of goods and services where an order is placed by the buyer or a price is negotiated over internet or e-mail, is expanding at a rapid pace too. In the U.S. e-commerce sales are estimated to account for 2.8 percent, or $109 billion of 2006’s total retail sales, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. That is a 24 percent increase in U.S. e-commerce sales compared with 2005.

Users Becoming More Comfortable With E-Commerce

“The e-commerce segment has been the most consistent grower in the internet space, growing nearly 25 percent annually over the last four years,” Credit Suisse’s Heath says. “We believe this will continue as buyers become more comfortable with making larger transactions online and as the size of the more web accustomed younger users increases. Companies like eBay, Amazon, and traditional retailers with strong web operations should continue to benefit from this growth. With the e-commerce segment trading at 29 times their estimated 2008 earnings per share, a slight premium to the internet group as a whole, we believe the space is attractively valued relative to its growth rate.” Heath adds.

SAP buys Internet telephony start-up

2007-05-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

Red Herring:

Europe’s largest software company, Germany’s SAP, has bought Espoo, Finland-based Internet telephony start-up Wicom Communications for an undisclosed sum.

The deal also marks the seventh time in the past nine months that London-based venture capital firm 3i has sold one of its telecom holdings.

Wicom, a Red Herring 100 Europe winner in 2006, makes Internet telephony software that is designed to replace traditional corporate telephone systems.

While Espoo, Finland-based Wicom might seem like an unusual acquisition for a corporate software maker such as SAP, the two companies say the deal will enable them to integrate communications – whether incoming or outgoing, voice or email, web or web response – into the customer relationship management (CRM) process.

For example, customers who phone in to company’s call centre are often transferred among service representatives, who in many cases are not able to follow whether the customers’ problems have been resolved. Merging Wicom’s Internet telephony with CRM software will help give call center representatives immediate access to distributed expertise both within and beyond an organization, said Mike DeLa Cruz, SAP’s senior vice president for CRM application solution management.

Kimmo Korpela, director of 3i’s Nordic venture group, declined to disclose the price of the deal, but said the sale provided a “good and profitable” return on the 14 million euro ($19 million) first round investment his group made in 2001 with fellow investors Accenture Technology Ventures and Stratos Ventures.

Mr. Korpela denied that 3i was moving to sell off its telecoms assets. “We have been lucky enough to have telecoms and wireless companies that have attracted great deals,” he said.

3i’s disposals started last September with the sale of mobile messaging company Mobile365 to database developer Sybase at a value to 3i of $300 million. Then in December firmware over the air developer Bitfone was sold to HP for $160 million. That was followed in January when British Bluetooth radio technology company CSR bought Swedish GPS receiver developer NordNav for $75 million. And earlier this month Microsoft announced it had bought French mobile advertising company ScreenTonic for an undisclosed sum.

Earlier this month SAP bought OutlookSoft, a planning, budgeting, forecasting, and consolidation software maker that competes with SAP’s main industry rival, Oracle.

Internet Business News: Provision in 2008 White House budget proposal would affect auction sites

2007-05-13T22:53:00.000-07:00

Computerworld:

May 14, 2007 (Computerworld) -- A Washington-based advocacy group has warned Internet auction businesses of a plan by the federal government that would require them to collect and maintain personal data from customers and share it with the Internal Revenue Service.

The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) suggested that such a requirement may force companies of all sizes to collect — and keep secure — massive amounts of personal data.

The proposal in President George W. Bush’s 2008 budget plan is part of a U.S. Department of the Treasury effort to track down unreported small-business income generated by the sale of personal property on such auction sites.

If enacted, the plan would require what it refers to as online “brokers” to file income statements for all customers that conduct 100 or more separate transactions that generate $5,000 or more annually, according to Treasury Department documents.

The brokers would have to collect customer names, addresses, and taxpayer identification numbers or Social Security numbers starting on Jan. 1, 2008, the department said.

The biggest concern is that such legislation could require different commercial entities on the Web to maintain a vast collection of Social Security numbers and other personal data, said Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the CDT, a nonprofit think tank.

Schwartz noted that while “the IRS is going after smaller businesses that cheat on their taxes,” the proposal could also affect millions of other people who use auction sites to sell personal property.

He said that the CDT anticipates that most online sites will have to collect personal data from all of their customers to ensure compliance with the regulations. Brokers would be liable under the proposal and would therefore likely seek tax-related information upfront from anyone planning to do business on their sites, he noted.

A large number of those buying and selling products online are individuals and small businesses unlikely to have taxpayer identification numbers, so they would have to provide Social Security numbers, Schwartz said.

“Such data retention proposals would force the creation of massive, privately maintained databases of personally identifiable data that government investigators could tap at their leisure,” the CDT said in a statement.

Collection, maintenance and security of the data could prove burdensome and costly for small and large businesses alike, Schwartz added.

The proposal is only the latest example of the federal government’s efforts to force businesses to store large amounts of customer data, Schwartz noted, adding that such mandates are coming at the same time security analysts are advising businesses to reduce the amount of personal data they collect.

The CDT also noted that such requirements may make consumers wary that even legitimate sites may be “related to illegal phishing scams.”

A report from the Small Business/Self-Employed Subgroup of the IRS Information Reporting Program Advisory Committee recommended the proposal, saying it is necessary because of the “explosive” growth of the Internet.

“One of the more popular business opportunities is the selling of new and used items through online auction sites such as eBay and Ubid.com,” the report noted.

Internet TV Startup Joost Raises $45m

2007-05-10T21:19:00.001-07:00

BetaNews:

Joost, the Internet TV startup founded by Skype and Kazaa creators Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, has raised $45 million from a group of five investors that includes CBS and Viacom. The service has been in private beta for months, and recently opened to a broader audience.
Thus far, Joost's largest problem has been the quality of television content viewers could receive. The new funding news comes after both CBS and Viacom announced plans to make their content available on the service. Joost relies on P2P technology to save bandwidth costs, as each viewer transmits video data to other users as well.

Small and medium-sized businesses are becoming a focus for VoIP activity

2007-05-09T22:20:00.000-07:00

telappliant.com:

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are becoming a focus for VoIP activity as they can gain a number of benefits from introducing a system, according to a new report.

Research conducted by US-based industry analysts AMI Partners found that smaller businesses appreciated the impression that a hosted VoIP service creates among prospective clients by suggesting they are a larger company and effective in how they handle their communications.

"The small, nimble companies are the prime innovators and trendsetters," said Sanjeev Aggrawal, a vice president at AMI Partners.

"[They are] the ones that will evolve VoIP from a low-cost alternative … into a unified communications solutions with functions and features integrated into virtually all aspects of SMB operations."

Mr Aggrawal predicted that as the take-up of VoIP increases, larger telecoms companies will begin to market their VoIP solutions to SMBs to shore up their market share - a tactic which he suggested they were unwilling to carry out at the moment due to fears over cutting into its traditional revenue streams through fixed lines.

However, he suggested that there remained opportunities for VoIP providers to fill that gap in the meantime and stake a place in the market for SMBs.

VoIP Telephony Market to Reach 25 Million by 2012

2007-05-07T23:37:00.000-07:00

TMCnet:

Greater broadband sponsorship and aggressive market expansion by cable operators will enable the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony market to top 25 million households by 2012, according to a study by JupiterResearch report titled, “US Broadband Telephony Forecast, 2007 to 2012:Cable MSOs assert their dominance in the VoIP market.”

JupiterResearch found the ability to successfully bundle broadband telephony with other relevant services will continue to drive consumers’ adoption of cable-based VoIP, which currently accounts for 71 percent of the VoIP telephony market.

According to the study, cable operators have finally struck a chord with consumers, as demonstrated by the acquisition of about 3.6 million new VoIP telephony customers in 2006.

“Aggressive marketing of double- and triple-play options, coupled with troubles for over-the-top VoIP providers, have given cable multi-service operators the upper-hand in the broadband telephony market, “said Douglas Williams, broadband analyst at JupiterResearch, in a statement. “The forthcoming push into the wireless market will give cable providers the flexibility to provide whatever multi-play option a consumer may want.”

No one needs to look further at the problems on VoIP phone service provider Vonage, currently in a bitter court patent dispute with Verizon (News - Alert), to find that the over-the-top VoIP market is increasingly at risk of becoming irrelevant. Growth of broadband connectivity, greater availability of VoIP services, aggressive promotion of bundled packages, and more diverse offerings at a lower cost could each play a significant role in the eventual demise of the single-play VoIP market, the study said.

Over-the-top VoIP providers currently add subscribers on a net basis, but reliability and service quality offered by cable providers threatens future growth opportunities for single-play providers,” said David Schatsky, president of JupiterResearch. “Additionally, the relative difference in price points for voice service is declining as cable providers drop prices and over-the-top providers have added regulatory and cost-recovery fees.”

For additional information on this report or JupiterResearch's Broadband research service, visit www.jupiterresearch.com .

The cost to launch the startup? About $125 a month for Web hosting

2007-05-04T00:51:00.000-07:00

Baltimore Sun:

Scott Robbin has a big idea for how people can use their mobile phones to read news stories, visit social sites or just browse. But he lacks a big bankroll for his startup, Tappity.com.
That's not the problem it once was, though, as Robbin and his partner, Jeff Skinner, are using free Web-based software tools to develop, tweak and get feedback from the 1,000 or so people who have signed up to use the program since its introduction a month ago.
The cost to launch the startup? About $125 a month for Web hosting, plus the evening and weekend time Robbin, 31, and Skinner, 32, have spent building the program while they keep their day jobs.
Ten years ago, such a venture would have cost roughly $5 million to $10 million just to get the technology, such as servers and a fleet of software developers, before an entrepreneur could get an Internet company off the ground. That figure doesn't include advertising, marketing, managing personnel or payroll, costs that led startups to spend many more millions of dollars before proving they had a viable business.
"The technology was just emerging, and you had to spend a lot of time and effort to get the core infrastructure to work," said Matt McCall, a managing director for Portage Ventures Partners of Northfield, Ill. "Then you would see if the dogs would eat the dog food."
Now, thanks to free or inexpensive Web-based programs, entrepreneurs can be up and running all but after hatching the idea.
The programs include software for project management to note changes and collaborate with others; invoice management to help keep track of billing; Web conferencing to converse with customers; and printing services to make sure a key presentation is bound and shipped to potential investors for morning delivery only hours after completion.
Even executives from the dot-com heyday of the late 1990s are using Web-based tools to launch new ventures at sharply reduced prices.
"You can be up and running in less than a week with world-class software," said Internet veteran Matt Moog.
Moog has done just that with his new venture, Viewpoints.com, a site expected to launch this month or next.
Viewpoints, a user-generated review site, has backers, but the level of investment is dramatically smaller than in 1996, when Moog was the fifth employee hired at CoolSavings.com.
That site, which helps consumers save money by providing coupons for everyday goods such as diapers or olive oil, burned through roughly $100 million to build the business.
Moog was appointed chief executive of CoolSavings in 2001, the same year its stock was delisted from the Nasdaq exchange. Moog left CoolSavings, now a part of a private firm called Q Interactive, on good terms in July.

How are you going to monetize when you give it away for free?

2007-05-03T00:39:00.000-07:00

John Cook's venture blog:

If there were a theme to today's WSA Investment Forum, it would have to be the battle for online advertising dollars.

A host of presenting companies -- Mixxer, Ripl, Smilebox, Treemo and Yodio to name a few-- all are hoping to take a sliver of the online advertising pie.

But for the first time since the dawn of the Web 2.0 era, I heard repeated comments about whether there was enough online ad money to go around. (Of course, Mark Anderson of Strategic News Service set the tone at the opening panel discussion in which he questioned the viability of ad-supported businesses).

But throughout the day, concerns popped up.

After listening to three digital media startups make their presentations, Voyager Capital's Bill McAleer said that some companies are taking for granted that they will generate online ad revenue. That type of logic reminded McAleer of the failed business-to-business exchanges that arose during the last bubble.

He went on to say that there are only so many "advertising supported models that can survive."

Paul Bialek of Frazier Technology Ventures asked a simple question that went deep into the heart of the issue: "How are you going to monetize (the business) when you give it away for free?"

For the past few years, the entrepreneurial answer was quite simple: online advertising. Now, it seems that investors are taking a more cautious approach and not just accepting that every Internet startup that gains an audience will be able to transfer those eyeballs into dollars.

Could this signal the peak of Web 2.0 and the online business models that go with it?

It is probably too early to say, especially since the amount of money flowing into this category more than doubled last year to $844 million. (A fair number of Seattle area startups that intend to make money through online ads -- Farecast, Mpire, Shelfari and Atomic Moguls -- raised venture capital in the first quarter.)

But the pointed questions today coupled with the lack of Internet startups at the University of Washington's business plan competition Tuesday, one has to wonder if both investors and entrepreneurs are starting to hit the saturation point.

Geoff Entress -- an angel investor and principal at Madrona Venture Group -- admitted that it was tough to predict which early-stage Internet companies would break out. That's why he is trying to wait and see if any of the startups gain traction and actually grow meaningful audiences. At that point, he said, they may be best suited for angel investors rather than the deep pockets of VCs.

Anderson of the Strategic News Service said that investors and entrepreneurs should proceed with caution, noting that if they want to "play the eyeball game" of attracting big online audiences they should "be very, very careful."

Despite the skepticism, Larry Orr of Trinity Ventures said he thinks there is still a lot of room for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to make money in online advertising. That's because the Internet as a marketing channel has only been around for a short period of time. And even if the big players like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo gobble up 80 or 90 percent of the market, Orr reasoned that "10 to 20 percent of a trillion dollars is a lot of money."

"There are markets that are big enough for venture firms to make hay in it" without disturbing the incumbents, he said.

Is this internet business opportunity scam?

2007-05-02T05:33:00.002-07:00

American Chronicle:

In most cases, it isn't very difficult to spot an internet home based business scam. The biggest one is the organization that asks for a fee for you to become part of the home based business but with nothing in return. Known as a Pyramid Scheme, these type of schemes have been around for many years, and that is actually the way the money flows to the organization is by each new distributor paying a few to join. Some people today refer to all internet home based business schemes as pyramids if you even pay anything in the way of a sales kit. For example, if you pay for a sales kit as a condition of your distributorship, that does not constitute a pyramid because you are getting something for your money. Paying for a sales kit introduces you to the products your organization distributes and gives you an introduction into using your own products. For example, before network marketing hit the Internet, how would it have looked if you were a distributor of XYZ Corporation, you brought a potential distributor to your home for a marketing demonstration, and you had none of the products in your home? It certainly would not make you very credible as a recruiter, would it? That's why the sales kits were provided to introduced, so that new distributors could begin using the products of their organization.

Network marketing is not immune to scams by any means, and it's important that you be aware of anything that sounds unethical or illegal. Paying something for nothing is a red flag off the bat, but there may be others as well. Scams crop up all the time, so you need to make yourself aware of their existence. Follow the adage that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. In the mid 1990s when both Amway and Prim America were competing for a piece of the pie, there was another organization who attempted to convince people they were 'better' than Amway, and when people joined, they discovered that unlike Amway, a distributor could not pass his sponsor; he had to wait until his sponsor moved up the ladder before he could. Prim America, on the other hand, did not have unlimited spots at the top of the ladder nor was there room in the middle to move at an enormous pace it required positions to be available as in any corporate structure. These marketing plans may have been changed since then, but that is just an example of some of the tactics unscrupulous network marketing upline may use in order to bring in new recruits, especially if they know that recruit is with another organization. Also, listen to sales pitches with both ears open and do plenty of research before you make any commitments, and it will be difficult for others to bring you into their web of deception.

Webcasters now have to pay a rate of $.0012 per stream

2007-04-28T02:27:00.000-07:00

internetnews.com:

Webcasters found possible legislative help Thursday in their fight against a dramatic increase in music royalty rates, but they still have no solution for Internet radio's most pressing problem: the bills are due on May 14.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) upheld a March 1 decision to nearly triple the royalty rates for music played over Internet radio stations, retroactive to January of last year. The first payments are due in three weeks.
Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Don Manzullo (R-Ill.) filed the Internet Radio Equality Act, which would vacate the CRB decision and apply the same royalty rate-setting standard to commercial Internet and satellite radio.
According to webcasters, the new rates will force them out of business.
"This titanic rate increase is simply untenable for many Internet radio broadcasters," Inslee said in a statement. "There has to be a business model that allows creative webcasters to thrive, and the existing rule removes all the oxygen from this space."
But the legislative process takes time, which is running out for webcasters.
"Webcasters face the decision as to whether to pay the royalties or not pay the royalties," Jake Ward of the SaveNetRadio coalition told internetnews.com. "If they don't, they could get sued."
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has already promised to press the issue in the courts if rate relief is not granted. "We have said all along that we would actively pursue [the case] in appeals court," Andi Sporkin, a spokesman for CPB, said in an e-mail to internetnews.com earlier this month.
Ward added that it still was possible webcasters and SoundExchange, which negotiates and collects the royalty rates for the music industry, could reach a settlement over the rates. SoundExchange said last week it was "reaching out" to the webcasters.
"Our continued outreach reflects our long-standing position that these are two businesses -- webcasting and creating music -- that are joined at the hip and that need each other," John Simson, executive director of SoundExchange, said in a statement. "We recognize that there may be certain needs and expectations, as expressed by webcasters in recent days, that might possibly be addressed through direct discussions."
SoundExchange did not return calls for a comment.
Webcasters are also considering a "Day of Silence" on May 8 to underscore the issue for Internet radio listeners. The protest could take several forms, Ward said, with some stations "going dark" while others would play public service announcements all day about the royalty rate hike. Still others may host day-long discussions.
"The illogical and unrealistic royalty rates set by the CRB have placed the future of an entire industry in jeopardy," Ward said in a statement praising the Inslee-Manzullo bill. "The Internet Radio Equality Act is the last best hope webcasters, artists and listeners have to keep the music playing."
After more than a year of deliberations, the CRB in March raised the royalty rate for Internet radio to $.0008 per song played for 2006, $.0011 for 2007, $.0014 for 2008, $.0018 for 2009 and $.0019 for 2010. Most webcasters now pay a rate of $.0012 per stream. The changes amount to a 300 percent increase for large webcasters and as much as a 1,200 percent jump for smaller operations.
By contrast, commercial radio stations pay no royalties, and satellite radio has a rate of half of that paid by Internet radio. According to Nielsen Media Research, 70 million Americans listen to online radio every month.
"Our legislation overturns the huge rate increases and sets up a system that is fair to webcasters, Web users and the artists whose music we all enjoy," Manzullo said. "The Internet has provided us with amazing opportunities to enjoy music, and this unfair action by the CRB threatens to take it all away."

Do you want boost internet business investment? Fire 145 workers!

2007-04-26T21:40:00.000-07:00

Chicago Tribune:

DeVry Inc., a for-profit education provider that awards college degrees in technology, will fire 145 workers as it cuts costs and boosts investment in its Internet business, nursing education and other areas.

The job reductions will lead to a fourth-quarter cost of $2.6 million, Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois-based DeVry said in a statement sent today by Business Wire.

Google is the new world's top-ranked brand

2007-04-24T23:24:00.000-07:00

The Brunei Times:

GOOGLE has knocked Microsoft from its perch as the world's top-ranked brand, according to findings released on Monday.
The rankings, compiled by market research firm Millward Brown, also put Google ahead of well-established brands like General Electric as No 2; Coca-Cola as No 4; Wal-Mart Stores as No 7; and IBM as No 9.
Some key factors seen this year in building brand recognition ranged from corporate responsibility to serving customers in emerging markets like Brazil and India, according to the study.
The top-ranked brand from a non-US based company was China Mobile, which dropped a spot but still came in at No 5.
The rankings were based on publicly available financial data along with primary research, including interviews with a million consumers worldwide.
For Google, which ranked seventh last year, the jump to the top underscores how quickly the web search leader has become an everyday name.
Some of the other big movers on the list included Apple which rose 13 spots to No 16 and Starbucks Corp which rose 13 spots to No 35.
Those losing ground in the brand rankings included Intel, Home Depot Inc and Dell Inc. Reuters

BlueFreeway to take 51% of Perth's Internet Business Corp

2007-04-23T21:44:00.001-07:00

Digital and interactive marketing communications company BlueFreeway Group has added three digital design agencies to is global operations.

BlueFreeway is acquiring a 51 per cent stake in each of the three businesses: Queensland-based Digicon, Queensland and Melbourne-based JSA Digital and Perth-based Internet Business Corp Ltd, for a toal of $1.2 million.

BlueFreeway said revenues from the three agencies are estimated to generate an additional $5.275 million for the group.

BlueFreeway chief executive officer Richard Webb said he was thrilled to bring the three agencies into the group.

"There are a number of drivers underpinning our acquisition strategy one of which is to expand our geographic footprint by acquiring best of breed digital agencies in cities around the world," he siad.

"We are thrilled to bring these three agencies into the group, all o whom have a significant track record in servicing business and government in their regions."

Mobile phones: Google’s next frontier

2007-04-22T23:22:00.000-07:00

Handheld mobile devices offer the next big growth opportunity for search technology, says Google chief.

"Mobile, mobile, mobile," were the words of Google chief executive Eric Schmidt this week when asked what technologies are most intriguing to the computer web search leader.

Google, which generates billions of dollars from online advertising, is racing to bring consumer services like search to the phone. Its rivals in this field include Yahoo, which has made strides in the fast-emerging mobile web market, and Microsoft, which bought voice-recognition technology company Tellme Networks last month.

"The biggest growth areas are clearly within the mobile space," Schmidt said during a question-and-answer session at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

Pay-per-click advertising tied to web search results erupted into a multibillion-dollar industry within a few years, and internet companies hope mobile phone services will follow a similar growth trajectory.

ABI Research forecast global mobile marketing and advertising to increase six-fold to $19 billion by 2011 from an estimated $3 billion by the end of 2007.

Google, which controls nearly 50% of the US web search market, is not necessarily a lock to carry over its success on the computer screen to the mobile phone.

"One of the big game changers is mobile," said Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media, a publisher of several popular lines of technology manuals for software programmers.

"Google’s dominance in search is dependent on this idea that we sit, typing away at a keyboard to look up information," he said, "but we are in for some huge disruptive upsets."

Improved voice-recognition technology and the inclusion of global positioning system chips into mobile phones open the door for new applications to help users find relevant information wherever they find themselves.

In addition, improvements in handset technology make today’s cell phone capable of doing almost as much as computers of a decade ago.

Next-generation computing

Last month, Yahoo introduced a new internet search system to deliver locally relevant answers to mobile phone users’ questions in fewer steps than Google. Subjects include news headlines, business listings, local weather and links to other websites.

Yahoo has signed deals to feature its software on four of the world’s top five mobile handset makers.

Tellme chief executive Mike McCue said the pace of innovations on the mobile phone was five to 10 times faster than the computer.

"There are incredible breakthroughs happening," McCue said in an interview. "The phone is a place-holder name for the next-generation computing device."

Microsoft bought Tellme in a deal sources say is valued at more than $800 million, its largest acquisition in five years.

At the heart of Tellme’s appeal is a voice-recognition database that allows the company to predict what information callers are seeking and decipher many different accents and dialects.

Initially, mobile search will serve as an alternative to 411 directory assistance service, which costs as much as $1.85 for every call.

Earlier this month, Google also began offering voice-activated directory assistance. At the time, O’Reilly speculated in his blog that Google started the free service at least in part to build its own speech database.

Industry watchers and company executives recognise the inherent difference between search on a computer and on a mobile phone. Search on a computer can be a browsing activity for research, while mobile search is more about finding information and then acting on it.

"We are in the very earliest days of this," said McCue. "It’s not about taking the existing PC model and way of thinking and moving it over to the phone."

The business model of search on a mobile phone will also differ from the pay-per-click model of a computer, he said. Users may be willing to be billed for a subscription for unlimited search.

Profits Up 69% at Google, Exceeding Expectations

2007-04-19T23:19:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO, April 19 — For much of this year, the buzz around Google has been all about the flurry of new initiatives at the No. 1 Internet search company, from its YouTube video sharing site, to its new software for office workers, to its forays into television, radio and newspaper advertising.

On Thursday, Google executives sought to change the focus.

The company said that nearly three of every four Googlers, as the company’s workers call themselves, remained focused on the business that turned Google into a money-minting Internet powerhouse: search and online advertising.

And it is that business, executives said, that delivered a surge in Google’s profits during the first three months of the year, as the company continued to outpace rivals like Microsoft and Yahoo.

“We are ecstatic about our financial results this past quarter,” Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said during a conference call.

Google said first-quarter profit rose 69 percent, to $1 billion, or $3.18 a share, from $592.3 million, or $1.95 a share, in the period a year ago. The results topped analysts’ expectations, sending Google’s shares up more than 3 percent in after-hours trading.

Mr. Schmidt predicted that search and advertising would continue to be the main source of profits for the foreseeable future.

“The core business is search and ads,” Mr. Schmidt said. “We are still at the beginning of that business. It is a huge business, and we have a lot of room to grow.”

For example, Mr. Schmidt said that just as in previous quarters, the company devoted significant resources to continuing to perfect the art of linking search results with ads that are tailored to users’ interests. Since, Google is paid when users click on an ad, those efforts translate into higher profitability.

“We are showing fewer ads and those ads are worth more because they are better targeted,” Mr. Schmidt said.

Overall quarterly revenue was $3.66 billion, up from $2.25 billion a year ago. Excluding commissions paid to marketing partners, revenue was $2.53 billion, compared with $1.53 billion a year earlier.

Excluding certain expenses, like stock-based compensation, profits were $3.68 a share, though analysts noted that without a benefit resulting from a change in tax rates, the figure would have been $3.50. On that basis, analysts polled by Thomson Financial had expected Google to earn $3.30 a share and report revenue of $2.5 billion, without the marketing commissions.

“Google has been able to deliver amazing profitability given its enormous investments in human resources and capital equipment,” said Jordan Rohan, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.

Google said its overseas business was particularly strong. Revenue from outside the United States was $1.7 billion, or 47 percent of the total.

Google’s strong growth stands in sharp contrast to that of Yahoo, which announced this week that sales increased 7 percent from the year-ago quarter, while profits dropped 11 percent.

A growing number of Internet users are going to Google for their search needs. Nielsen/NetRatings reported Thursday that the number of searches conducted on Google in February reached 3.6 billion, up 40 percent from a year earlier. By comparison, searches on Yahoo grew 12 percent, to 1.3 billion, and on Microsoft, 9 percent, to 618 million.

Google continued to add workers at a brisk pace, ending the quarter with 12,238 employees worldwide, nearly 1,600 more than at the end of the previous quarter.

Earlier this year, Google’s shares dipped as investors worried that its expenses for everything from engineers and sales staff to computers and data centers would grow. But expenses, excluding stock-based compensation, actually declined to 31 percent of revenue, from 33 percent, said Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray & Company.

“That’s particularly impressive given that they hired 1,600 employees,” Mr. Munster said.

Google’s shares slipped $4.36 in regular trading, to close at $471.65, up a bit more than 2 percent for the year. After the earnings announcement, the stock rose to more than $486 in extended trading.

The earnings report comes after a period of ambitious expansions into new businesses by Google. Just last week, the company said it would acquire the online ad services company DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. Google also recently announced deals with Clear Channel to sell radio ads and with EchoStar Communications to sell television commercial time.

If such initiatives are not contributing to Google’s bottom line yet, they are earning it a long list of increasingly assertive rivals.

During the quarter, Viacom filed a $1 billion suit against Google over copyrighted material that users post on YouTube. And this week, Microsoft and AT&T asked antitrust officials to scrutinize Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick, which they say would reduce competition in the online advertising market.

On Friday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy organization, is planning to file a related complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, asking it to open an investigation into the privacy implications of the DoubleClick acquisition.

“No one knows today what a combined Google and DoubleClick will be able to do in the future,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the center. “But we think this is the right time for the commission to look at that issue and require genuine privacy safeguards if the acquisition is to go forward.”

Mr. Schmidt said in an interview that as part of the integration with DoubleClick, Google already planned to strengthen privacy protections.

“Our incentive is to get this right because our whole business is dependent on the trust of users,” he said.

Will Ferrell Finds Funny Business on the Web

2007-04-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES -- Will Ferrell's production company is making a big splash on the Internet, partnering with a venture capital firm to launch the comedy video site FunnyOrDie.com (http://www.FunnyOrDie.com).

Since quietly going up as a beta release Thursday, the site is off to a sizzling start. A two-minute video featuring Ferrell and production partner Adam McKay, writer-director of Ferrell vehicles including "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," has racked up more than 1.5 million page views.

Titled "The Landlord," the clip features Ferrell as an apartment tenant forced to reckon with an angry landlord -- who happens to be played by McKay's toddler daughter. "Landlord," which is featured on the FunnyOrDie home page, has generated more than 2 million streams alone.

In addition, "Landlord" has popped up on YouTube, where it has drawn thousands more views. However, an effort was afoot to have YouTube remove the clip.

FunnyOrDie also features user-generated comedy videos, allowing anyone to upload their clips. But unlike YouTube and other popular user-generated sites, the viewers' ratings for the videos determine their fate -- thus the name of the site -- with only the highly rated staying on. Those with negative reviews are banished to the "Crypt" section of the site.

Sources said FunnyOrDie.com has been in the works for months, following an overture by venture capital firm Sequoia Partners to Creative Artists Agency, which represents Gary Sanchez Prods., the company run by Ferrell and McKay.

Sequoia knows a thing or two about successful user-generated Web sites, having provided early rounds of funding to YouTube. The company also delivered venture capital for YouTube's parent, Google, as well as Yahoo! PayPal, and Meebo. Sequoia also was one of the first investors in Cisco Systems, Oracle and Apple.

Ferrell and McKay employed their alter ego, Gary Sanchez, to talk about their first foray into original Web content.

Sanchez, an enigmatic character described as a Paraguayan ex-NFL player who sounded on the phone awfully like McKay with a Spanish accent, said that video starring Hollywood heavyweights will appear regularly in the "featured" section of FunnyOrDie, but "the meat and cabbage of the site will be the real peoples."

He added that the site's principals will regularly scour the site to look for new talent who will then be whisked away and "put on a private jet to Paraguay."

Comedy has long been considered a driver of the video boom on the Internet, and there have been a number of attempts of launching Web sites dedicated to comedy videos, though few have broken through to the mainstream.

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

Internap Initiates Global Expansion Of Vitalstream CDN

2007-04-17T21:32:00.001-07:00

Strengthens Extensive Internet Services Suite with Advanced Online Media Delivery & Extends Gglobal Reach including Iinitial Ppresence in Asia

Internap Network Services Corporation (NASDAQ: INAP), an Internet solutions provider of choice for the world’s elite businesses, today announced plans to expand its VitalStream® content delivery network (CDN), strengthening the company’s position in the streaming-media market on a global scale. London will be the first location to be expanded, accelerating Internap’s presence in Europe and complementing the company’s existing Amsterdam facility. The initiative also marks Internap’s initial entry into Asia, via delivery points in Tokyo and Hong Kong, offering a redundant, highly scalable CDN platform. As a result, enterprises, including Internap’s existing 3,000 customers, will be able to take advantage of Internap’s superior performance, reliability and reach, broadening the company’s customer base and building momentum in the market.

The strategic build-out of Internap’s global CDN will greatly enhance access to its current international Private Network Access Point (P-NAP™) locations, which provide intelligent management of network traffic routes to improve performance of Web-based applications. The initiative will occur in scheduled phases throughout the year and adhere to the company’s disciplined approach to managing capital expenditures while strengthening service reliability. With its CDN expansion, Internap will be in a position to offer new global and regional contracts across Asia, Europe and North America for both streaming and content delivery services.

“For more than a decade, customers have come to rely on Internap for our Internet expertise, and trust us for our ability to reliably and safely deliver their mission critical business applications with speed. This strategic global expansion leverages Internap’s ability to continue adding value to our customers and takes our core competencies to the next level,” said James P. DeBlasio, president and chief executive officer for Internap. “Internap’s network will be scaled to deliver the industry’s most robust solution, meeting the needs of customers in the rapidly growing CDN market. This is a major initiative and significantly increases the current capacity of Internap’s CDN, positioning us as a leader in the space.”

Featuring fault-tolerant storage architecture and disaster-proof, dual-origin redundancy, the global CDN will dramatically improve performance in each region. Internap will store and deliver content at points of presence (PoPs) in certain local markets to improve the speed and delivery of customer traffic. These local PoPs enable Internap to optimize speed and performance for rich media applications, such as video and audio streams. Currently, Internap has 43 global service delivery points and 3 major origin CDN PoPs located in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Amsterdam.

Internap’s unique approach to CDN technology allows the company to deliver broad reach and superior reliability, regardless of size and location. The company plans to leverage its team of 130 direct sales associates to expand its CDN customer base globally. Combined with the P-NAP integration and Internap’s world-class monitoring and customer support, the initiative will extend Internap’s ability to manage, deliver, distribute and monetize customers’ Web assets, while ensuring a high quality end-user experience.

The expanded platform will also enhance Internap’s ability to launch new applications, such as IPTV channels, over its optimized IP network. The proposed expansion can also improve the performance of Internap’s other network and advertising solutions such as:

MediaConsole® ---An integrated set of content management tools, which enhance CDN and advertising services;
Business Intelligence---Advanced analytics that give customers visibility into user statistics;
Content Monetization Solutions---Ad-supported or subscription-based services, allowing customers to leverage Web-based business models to drive revenue; and
Professional Services---Customized solutions for online media distribution and network optimization.

“Enterprises must find ways to accommodate the emerging wave of rich media-based communications, but building an in-house solution can be a costly proposition,” said Lydia Leong, research director for Gartner. “Outsourcing to a provider that has an end-to-end value proposition, global reach and strong SLAs, can help ensure a consistently high quality of service, particularly for businesses that deploy demanding applications such as video and real-time streaming.”

“Our goal is to provide superior solutions for our customers enabling them to effectively stream and download audio and video content, as well as to reliably meet the needs of enterprises that require high-performance delivery of software and images,” said Philip N. Kaplan, chief strategy officer for Internap and general manager of the VitalStream CDN. “Our global expansion, complete with unique and advanced features, will enhance the solutions we provide our customers, allowing them to focus on their business and not the underlying technologies.”

According to eMarketer, which provides Internet usage data, by 2010 over 80% of all Internet users will have watched online video regularly, including more than half of all Americans on the Web. The company also reports that Internet video advertising will be a $3 billion business, growing at a rate of 45% per year over the next three years.

About Internap
Internap is a leading Internet solutions provider that manages, delivers and distributes applications and content with unsurpassed performance and reliability. With a global platform of data centers, managed IP services, content delivery network and content monetization services, Internap frees its customers to drive innovation inside their business and create new revenue opportunities. More than 3,000 companies across the globe trust Internap to help them achieve their Internet business goals. Internap is “Making Innovation Possible.” For more information visit www.internap.com.

Internap Forward Looking Statements
Certain information included in this press release constitutes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, including, among others, statements regarding the progress of Internap’s integration of the recently acquired VitalStream business and anticipated enhancements of the company’s services, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by forward-looking statements. Many important factors that may affect Internap’s results of operations and financial condition include, but are not limited to, our ability to successfully integrate the operations of Internap and VitalStream; our ability to compete against existing and future competitors; our ability to respond successfully to the evolution of the high performance Internet connectivity, content delivery, streaming and related services industries; our ability to respond successfully to technological change; the availability on favorable terms or at all of services from various Internet network and other third-parties on whom we rely to provide our services, and the failure of such third party suppliers to deliver their products and services; failures in our network operations centers, network access points or computer systems; our ability to complete successfully the integration of acquired companies, including VitalStream; our ability to protect ourselves and our customers from security breaches; our ability to protect our intellectual property; claims relating to intellectual property rights; government regulation of the Internet; and the effects of natural disasters or terrorist activity.

Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, recent Current Reports on Form 8-K and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings discuss the foregoing risks as well as other important risk factors that could contribute to such differences or otherwise affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. The forward-looking statements in this release speak only as of the date they are made. We undertake no obligation and expressly disclaim any obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statement for any reason.

Internap and VitalStream are trademarks of Internap Network Services Corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary, respectively. All other trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.

Internet Radio Suffers a Major Setback

2007-04-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

By Barry Levine
April 17, 2007 10:36AM

With the Copyright Royalty Board setting new rates for Internet radio broadcasters, analysts expect many small Net radio stations to go out of business. SomaFM, for example, said that it had paid about $22,000 in royalties in 2006, but that, under the new ruling, it would have to pay about $600,000 annually. SomaFM's total annual revenue was about $200,000.

It might be curtains for Web-based radio, following the Copyright Royalty Board's decision Monday to uphold its earlier judgment about royalty rates for musicians and record companies.

On March 2, the CRB set the performance royalty rates that Internet radio stations would need to pay for the years 2006 to 2010. A coalition of Internet radio stations appealed the decision. But yesterday's ruling by the CRB upheld its earlier decision. The CRB also refused webcasters' request to stay implementation of the new royalty rates until legal appeals were conducted.

The CRB did allow webcasters to use estimated tune-in hours to calculate fees in 2006 and 2007, but only until they have time to implement systems to track the music played.

A previous set of agreements had expired at the end of 2005. Under those agreements, small Internet radio stations paid 12 percent of revenues, rather than the per-song, per-listener fee required by the new rules.

Starting May 15

Payment for the new rates would begin May 15. If a traditional radio station streams its programming over the Internet, it would have to pay the online rates in addition to its normal payments for over-the-air broadcasting.

One small Net radio station, SomaFM in San Francisco, said that it had paid about $22,000 in royalties in 2006, but that, under the new ruling, it would have to pay about $600,000 annually. It said its total annual revenue, from listener contributions, was about $200,000.

SoundExchange, a nonprofit trade organization that collects and distributes royalty fees from digital transmissions, called the decision a victory. Executive Director John Simson said that artists and labels "look forward to working with the Internet Radio industry."

The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists similarly applauded the decision, saying its members "deserve to be paid fairly."

Webcasters' Coalition

A broad coalition of small and large Internet radio broadcasters, including mom-and-pop outfits as well as Yahoo, National Public Radio, and AOL, has objected to the new royalties. The broadcasters contend that the new royalty structure will force many of them either to go out of business or to cut back services.

"The CRB's ill informed decision to increase royalty fees to this unjustifiable level," said Jake Ward, a spokesperson for the SaveNetRadio campaign, "will quite simply bankrupt most webcasters and destroy Internet radio."

"Particularly for independent artists," he said, "Internet radio has the ability to reach millions of fans across the country who would otherwise never hear their music." SaveNetRadio said that Internet radio had 70 million listeners, and that it plays nearly four times as much independent music as terrestrial FM radio.

David Oxenford, a lawyer who represents several of the webcasters, said the broadcasters expect to file an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals or the District of Columbia Circuit, which could take a year or more. Some Internet radio stations are encouraging their listeners to write Congress.

David Card, an analyst with Jupiter Research, said that it looked like "we can say farewell to Internet radio." He suggested that only companies that see Internet radio as a "loss-leader" to promote other endeavors would likely remain in business. He said the Internet probably won't include pure-play radio stations.

Internet business pays $3,600 in refunds

2007-04-16T23:49:00.000-07:00

Wayne Co. resident returns consumers' money after attorney general's investigation

Wayne County Internet seller Kumara Jayasuriya, also known as Jay Smith, has issued 10 consumer refunds totaling $3,649 and is required to comply with Indiana law in all future transactions.

The Wayne Circuit Court approved an agreement that requires the refunds after the attorney general investigated complaints that consumers paid for auto parts and did not receive their items in a timely fashion or received incorrect or defective auto parts.

Click Here
The court's order names Smith individually and doing business as D & J Auto Parts, 1234 S. 9th St. in Richmond.

"Internet businesses that offer products online are obligated just like any other merchant to deliver products in a timely manner," Attorney General Steve Carter said. "We will aggressively pursue bad Internet sellers. It's important that consumers can shop with confidence when they are making online purchases."

The number for D & J Auto Parts was disconnected as of Thursday afternoon.

From 2004 to 2006, Smith would respond to consumers who posted messages on part locator Web sites with offers to sell them the part they needed. Approximately 20 consumers complained to the attorney general that they either did not receive the product in a timely manner or received a defective product.

Some of the consumer complaints were resolved through refunds, chargebacks or shipment of the items prior to the court's order.

UsedCanada.com And UsedOttawa.com: Over One Million Served, Per Day

2007-04-16T23:32:00.001-07:00

Free classifieds ads Web sites affiliated with the UsedCanada.com network served over one million pages on Monday marking a milestone in the company's growth across Canada.

For Immediate Release

OTTAWA, Canada/EWORLDWIRE/April 16, 2007 --- UsedCanada.com including UsedOttawa.com: "Over One Million Served" (Per Day)

Free classifieds ads Web sites affiliated with the UsedCanada.com network served over one million pages on Monday marking a milestone in the company's growth across Canada.

The traffic as measured by Google tipped the scales at 1,015,933 pages served.

"This time last year we were serving about a quarter of a million pages per day, so I'm very pleased with the 400 percent growth over the past year," says Don Barthel, president of UsedCanada.com.

"The big news is how the whole business of providing services online has been exploding."

Offering searchable classified ads all over Canada, including photos of the items for sale at no cost to the user, UsedCanada.com can make these services available for free because unlike traditional media, distribution costs are almost non-existent.

The way the Internet is designed means that printing, transcription (typing) and distribution costs are virtually wiped out (no pun intended). The fact that most Canadians have a personal computer at home or at work and have access to the Internet, means that most of these costs are in essence, already paid.

Online buying and selling on UsedCanada.com also offers users a host of accessible advantages. For example, users are able to see their ads on the site within minutes of posting. Just as quickly, they can be removed once the item is sold - that's something that traditional media cannot accomplish with the lead times they require.

The searchability function of the Internet is also key in allowing prospective buyers to find what they're looking for quickly and easily, without ever having to turn on their cars or leave home.

Apart from these advantages, one of the biggest is the green appeal of Internet business use. Unlike traditional print media for example, trees aren't required as in making paper pulp, therefore still leaving forests intact. Chlorine isn't needed to bleach any paper thereby leaving water dioxin-free. Fossil fuels aren't used in the distribution as is the case with a paper publication, which helps with Canada's Kyoto greenhouse gas reduction commitment.

Another upside to this kind of business model is that a host of businesses and individuals or families can enlist the free services of UsedCanada.com and assemble their own online store or garage sale in minutes. While saving the planet from more land-fill fodder, users also get to connect with their neighbours, clean up their surroundings and even make a loony or two - and that’s good business for everyone!

File: 'http://www.usedcanada.com/usedcanada_one_million2.pdf'

CONTACT: Don Barthel, President
tel: 778-882-4269
email: dbarthel@usedeverywhere.com

Yahoo Expands News, Advertising Business

2007-04-16T23:24:00.001-07:00

Web Company Now Offers Search Of Stories, Ads In 264 Newspapers

(AP) Yahoo Inc. is greatly expanding its relationship with the newspaper industry, announcing the addition Monday of four new publishing companies to a consortium that works with the Internet company to sell advertising online.

Yahoo is also broadening the scope of the venture beyond its initial phase of selling help-wanted ads. It will now integrate Yahoo's search technology across the sites of the more than 264 newspapers now in the group, which covers 44 states.

Yahoo and the publishers also agreed to share local news stories from the newspapers across Yahoo's large news network and to sell local advertising online and to use Yahoo's graphical advertising technology on newspaper sites.

The original partnership, which was announced in November, was focused on selling job-search advertising online and in print, combining the large sales forces of local newspapers with the national reach of Yahoo's HotJobs online job-search service. Specific financial terms weren't disclosed.

Since that time, four other newspaper publishers have also joined, including McClatchy Co., the third-largest newspaper company in the country by circulation; Media General Inc.; Morris Communications Company LLC; and Paddock Publications Inc.

In late March, McClatchy announced a separate deal with Yahoo to allow news stories and certain online-only material produced by four of McClatchy's eight foreign bureaus to appear on Yahoo. The companies said they would share revenues but did not provide further financial details.

The growing consortium of newspapers working together with Yahoo on advertising widens a division in the industry between those papers and Gannett Co. and Tribune Co., the No. 1 and No. 2 publishers by circulation. Tribune and Gannett have been working to form a separate national network for selling advertising online.

Gannett and Tribune are also the largest owners of CareerBuilder, a major print and online venture that sells help-wanted classified advertising. McClatchy owns a minority stake in CareerBuilder.

Seeking ways to build up their online advertising revenues is a critical imperative for newspaper companies as readers and advertisers continue to migrate to the Internet. Many newspapers have reported growing revenues from online advertising, but print advertising, which is still the vast majority of their business, has been slumping.

Last month, the Newspaper Association of America, an industry group, reported that overall print advertising at newspapers fell 1.7 percent in 2006, outweighing a 31.5 percent increase in online advertising. Total revenue edged down 0.3 percent.

The initial deal to cooperate on selling recruitment advertising last fall included Yahoo and the newspaper publishers MediaNews Group Inc., Hearst Corp., Belo Corp., Cox Newspapers, E.W. Scripps Co. Lee Enterprises Inc. and Journal Register Co.

Adobe and salesforce.com Enable On-Demand Rich Internet Applications

2007-04-16T23:19:00.000-07:00

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) and salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) today announced the immediate availability of the Adobe® Flex Toolkit for Apex, a set of programming tools that combines the capabilities of Flex™ and salesforce.com’s Apex platform to enable a new generation of powerful and engaging Internet business applications. Using the new Flex Toolkit for Apex, developers can create richer application experiences for their salesforce.com deployments and Apex applications. Developers can also make their Flex-based applications available on the AppExchange directory, and deploy them on-demand and with no additional software required.

The toolkit enables applications to access Apex Web services APIs, enabling developers to quickly create end-to-end, rich and innovative Web applications. The new Flex Toolkit for Apex is available immediately at http://developer.salesforce.com .

“The Flex Toolkit for Apex combines the innovation of the Apex platform with the power of Adobe Flex to let developers create new on-demand business applications that are more capable, easier to use and more compelling than their software-only alternatives,” said Adam Gross, vice president, developer marketing, salesforce.com. “And, just as end users will be delighted with the applications they now can use, developers will be delighted with how easily and quickly they can be built and shared.”

“Centive’s core AppExchange-certified on-demand sales compensation solution, Compel®, was developed using Flex. The ability to use Flex within the Apex platform has allowed us to rapidly develop and deploy a new, visually compelling on-demand application that deepens the integration between Compel and salesforce.com,” said Bob Conlin, Chief Marketing Officer for Centive. “We plan to leverage the Adobe Flex Toolkit for Apex to develop additional applications for the AppExchange that will enhance the value and end-user experience we seek to provide our customers.”

The Apex platform’s embedded mashup features allow developers to insert services and content from the Web within the native Salesforce user interface. The Flex Toolkit builds on that capability to allow innovative and rich user experiences - including drag and drop, rich media and desktop app look and feel - to be embedded within Salesforce and Apex applications. The power of this combination is available to virtually any user of any Apex application through the ubiquitous, cross-platform features of the Adobe Flash® Player, installed on more than 700 million Internet-connected PCs and devices worldwide.

Because these Flex components of Apex applications are browser-based technology, they can be deployed without any additional software or infrastructure, and even packaged and redistributed on the AppExchange. The Flex components directly complement and enhance the quality, diversity and value of the applications that can be created, and make on-demand business applications more compelling than ever before.

“Flex and Apex are a perfect match,” said Jeff Whatcott, vice president of product marketing for the Enterprise and Developer Business Unit at Adobe. “Blending the leading rich Internet application framework with the leading on-demand application platform means better applications delivered with less effort. We’re entering an era in which developers can deliver truly rich enterprise applications on-demand, across platforms, both in the browser and directly on the desktop using the forthcoming Apollo runtime.”

The Flex toolkit joins the comprehensive set of resources and programs salesforce.com offers to let companies of all sizes create, deploy and sell on-demand applications for any business requirement. These include the IdeaExchange for discussing feature and product requests, the Apex Developer Network, salesforce.com’s community of over 35,000 developers at http://developer.salesforce.com , the Apex platform for creating apps, and the AppExchange directory and AppStore programs for helping companies sell.

About salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the market and technology leader in on-demand business services. The company’s Salesforce suite of on-demand CRM applications allows customers to manage and share all of their sales, support, marketing and partner information on-demand. Apex, the world’s first on-demand platform, enables customers, developers and partners to build powerful new on-demand applications that extend beyond CRM to deliver the benefits of multi-tenancy and The Business Web across the enterprise. All Apex components and applications can be easily shared, exchanged and installed via salesforce.com’s AppExchange directory, available at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange . Customers can also take advantage of Successforce, salesforce.com’s world-class training, support, consulting and best practices offerings.

As of January 31, 2007, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 29,800 customers and approximately 646,000 paying subscribers including Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), America Online (AOL), Avis Budget Group, Inc, Dow Jones Newswires, Polycom and SunTrust Banks. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CRM”. For more information please visit http://www.salesforce.com , or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.