Unlimited DA

Metro One - the wireless provider that touts flat fees and unlimited calling without the hassle of contracts or service plans - announced it would now be offering unlimited DA calls. For $2.00 per month, Metro One subscribers can have…

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Contrarians at the Gate

Everyone's jumped on the Google going up, up, up bandwagon. But now, inevitably, the contrarians are emerging. An interesting financial analyst blog, the Internet Stock Blog, presents an argument from fund manager John Hussman about why Google is really worth…

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Google Should Buy . . .

John Battelle points to an interesting piece at Kuro5hin, "a tech/culture site," which reviews Google's past acquisitions and about who/what the company might acquire next. From where I sit, I think Google needs a couple of things. The company has…

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Traditional Media Buys Again

Following Scripps, Gannett Buys PointRoll. PointRoll creates rich media ad banners. Speculation is that the deal was worth US$100 million. Here's the Financial Times on the TM buying IM trend (traditional media swallowing Internet media). More consolidation/acquisitions on the way.

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Not So Long Ago … Map Wars

Because "war" is the metaphor business journalists like to use for competition and almost everything else. . . welcome to "Map Wars." (Cue John Williams' music.) According to Battelle and SiliconValleyWatcher, Google is going to "A9" its mapping but with…

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Advertising and Politics

Riddle: How is advertising like politics? According to MediaSpan CMO Mark Zagorski, they're both local. And he sees more geo-targeting in the future. We obviously agree that local is very important, but it's complex and there are major issues in…

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Will IAC Buy Again?

While IAC has said it's basically done with major acquisitions after Ask.com, consider that it just sold its stake in Vivendi Universal for US$3.4 billion. Although the deal is complex and convoluted, it should give IAC the ability to do…

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Bubble Redux?

Not exactly. There are profits this time around and consumers have embranced the Internet. But consider this: Google has a market cap of just over US$81 billion. In 2004, the company had revenues of just over US$3 billion. By contrast,…

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Strong Online Ad Growth Continues

No real surprises here: The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) today announced that Internet advertising totaled over $2.8 billion for the first quarter of 2005 making this the highest reported quarter in nine consecutive growth quarters. Q1 2005…

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Scripps Grabs Shopzilla

Right on the heels of eBay's costly acquisition of Shopping.com, Cincinnati-based, "diversified media" company E.W. Scripps buys Shopzilla (formerly BizRate). The price was reportedly US$525 million in cash. Scripps owns newpapers, cable networks and local TV affiliates. Now it's made…

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