Posts for Ticker ‘DJ’

Media Digest 12/14/2007 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Barron’s

According to Reuters, Citigroup (C) will take $49 billion of SIVs onto its balance sheet.

Reuters writes that Nissan and Chrysler may begin to partner in building new cars

Reuters reports that Acer is replacing the head of recently acquired Gateway with one of its own executives.

The Wall Street Journal says that a bet by Goldman Sachs (GS) that subprime securities would fall made the company $4 billion

The Wall Street Journal reports that Lufthansa has bought a 19% stake in JetBlue (JBLU).

The Wall Street Journal writes that AMD (AMD) said it would not repeat it many mistakes in 2008.

The Wall Street Journal also reports that Microsoft is being sued in Europe by internet browser firm Opera claiming anticompetitive behavior.

The Wall Street Journal writes that huge investment by Dubai are raising concerns about how much debt it has.

The Wall Street Journal writes that Amgen (AMGN) is hoping to reverse it bad luck with treatment that will tap the $7 billion global market for osteoporosis medications

The New York Times reports that Nintendo is still having trouble keeping up with demand for the Wii costing the company hundreds of millions in sales.

The New York Times writes that the FDA rejected Merck’s (MRK) bid to sell cholesterol drugs over the conounter.

The New York Times writes that Boston Scientifc (BSX) will sell to businesses to raise capital

The FT reports that Dow Jones (DJ) investors approved a buy-out by News Corp (NWS).

Barron’s writes that Qwest (Q) has approved its first dividend since 2001.

Bloomber writes that Moody’s cut Citigroup debt ratings.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: December 14, 2007 – 4:25 am in Press Digest, , , , , , , , ,

November Online Financial Site Stats: Yahoo! (YHOO) Losing Its Lead

Based on November online audience numbers from comScore, Yahoo! Finance (YHOO) is losing the huge lead that it once had over MSN Money (MSFT) and AOL Finance (TWX).

In November 2006, Yahoo! Finance had 406 million pageviews. AOL Finance had 239 million and MSN Money 155 million. Last month, the Yahoo! figure was 344 million followed by AOL at 338 million and MSN at 151 million. Not exactly the kinds of numbers Yahoo! wants to post.

In the tier of financial websites below the three portals, Dow Jones (DJ) sites had 95 million pageviews, down slightly from November of last year. Forbes had a big drop from 84 million pageviews last November to 56 million last month. CNN Money was fairly flat at 55 million pageviews. BusinessWeek has 21 million pageviews, up slightly. But the site still trails its rivals by a wide margin.

The Street.com (TSCM) dropped modestly year-over-year to 20 million pageviews. Reuters (RTRSY) rose slightly to 29 million pageviews. And, Bloomberg.com almost tripled to 29 million pageviews.

Yahoo! Finance has some work to do.

For a chart, click through to the next page and then enlarge.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Read More »

Posted on: December 13, 2007 – 7:12 am in Internet, , , , , ,

Media Digest 12/13/2007 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Barron’s

According to Reuters, Paulson says that China is picking up the pace of the yuan rise.

Reuters writesThe Asian Development Bank cut growth rates for countries in Asia including China

Reuters reports that Novartis will cut 2.5% of its work force in the latest sign of trouble at bug drug companies.

The Wall Street Journal writes that The Fed said it will provide banks up to $40 billion in the next eight days to stimulate lending.

The Wall Street Journal writes that a large fund to bail-out SIVs may be losing steam as other alternatives are working.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Biogen (BIIB) has stopped its efforts to find a buyer. Shares fell sharply.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the takeover deal for SLM (SLM) has come to an end.

The Wall Street Journal writes that Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of Dow Jones (DJ) is nearly complete.

The New York Times writes that Northern Rock has named a new CEO and will take a $574 miillion write-down for exposure to credit markets.

The New York Times reports that the Illinois attorney general has subpoenaed documents from Countrywide (CFC) as it examines the company’s lending practices.

The New York Times writes that Bank of America (BAC) and Wachovia (WB) repoted larger-than-expected losses.

The New York Times also writes that an airline trade group expects profits in the industry to fall further next year.

The FT writes that the head of Goldman Sachs (GS) will be paid $70 million this year.

The FT reports that Paramount will launch a new feature film, Jackass, online, a move which will shake up the movie industry.

CNN Money says that the government upped its forecast for crude prices in 2010 by 20%.

Barron’s reports that an ITC judge has determined that Nokia (NOK) handsets do not infringe on Qualcomm (QCOM) patents.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: December 13, 2007 – 4:14 am in Press Digest, , , , , , , , ,

24/7 Wall St. CEO Of The Year Finalist: Rupert Murdoch Of News Corp (NWS)

24/7 Wall St. has evaluated over 200 CEOs in order to select it CEO of the Year. Six finalists were chosen from the list. The measurements were based on company stock performance for the last two years, innovation, financial results, and the quality of the competition that each company faces in its markets. We also took into consideration whether the corporation was operating in an industry with special challenges.

Even if Rupert Murdoch had not bought social network giant MySpace for what appears to have been the absurdly low price of $580 million and had not made his audacious buy-out of Dow Jones (DJ), the head of News Corp (NWS) would have been remembered as one of the great media barons.

Shares in News Corp are flat this year, but rivals including Disney (DIS), Time Warner (TWX), and CBS (CBS) are down.

Murdoch has done an excellent job of managing a complex, global company while continuing to expand. In the September quarter, revenue moved from $5.9 billion last year to $7.1 billion in 2007. With the exception of the corporation’s small book and magazine operations, all of the company’s divisions grew. The company’s film and cable businesses did particularly well. The Fox Network has turned out to be one of News Corp’s biggest and best creations. Wall St. sometimes forgets that there were only three viable networks just a few years ago. Operating income is also up in the company’s newspaper businesses, which is highly unusual in the current climate.

Murdoch deserves extra points for guts. Most media companies are simply managing their current assets. MySpace is likely to have revenue of over $700 million this year, impressive given what Murdoch paid for it a short time ago. Smaller rival Facebook was recently valued at $15 billion.

And, Murdoch fought a long but winning battle to buy Dow Jones and may well create one of the largest business news platforms in the world by marrying it with his new Fox Business operations. It remains to be seen whether News Corp can justify the $5 billion price for Dow Jones, but very few chief executives would have even dreamed of making the acquisition.

Douglas A. McIntyre is the former editor-in-chief and publisher of Financial World Magazine which began the CEO of the Year Awards in 1981. He is also the former president of Switchboard.com

Posted on: December 9, 2007 – 6:50 pm in Corporate Governance, , , , ,

Dow Jones (DJ)(NWS) Gets New CEO, New Publisher For WSJ

Les Hinton, a senior executive as News Corp (NWS) has been named the head of Dow Jones (DJ).

Times of London editor Robert Thomson has been named Publisher of The Wall Street Journal

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: December 6, 2007 – 4:14 pm in Media, ,

GameStop Replacing Dow Jones in S&P 500 (GME, NWS, DJ)

GameStop Corp. (NYSE:GME) has been paid quite a nice complement today.  It has been selected to replace Dow Jones (NYSE:DJ) in the beloved S&P 500 Index after the close on a date TBA.  The pending News Corp. (NYSE:NWS) buyout of Dow Jones is expected to close before the end of this month according to our sources at Dow Jones and News Corp., although we have heard too many date approximations to hang our hat on.  But we would expect GameStop to make the index change before the year-end.

GameStop was already a member of the S&P Mid Cap 400 Index.  As of the close at a $57.90 close it had a $9.3 Billion market cap.  Shares are now trading up 3.8% at $60.10 in after-hours trading and the stock has traded as low as $24.95 and as high as $60.80 over the last 52-weeks.

We have an update going out soon in the video game sector for our Special Situation Investing Newsletter subscribers.

Jon C. Ogg
December 5, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: December 5, 2007 – 5:42 pm in Index, Video Games, , ,

MarketWatch Bringing More New Features (DJ, NWS)

If you regularly use MarketWatch, you’ve probably noticed some additional offerings and additional features of late.  If you haven’t noticed you probably will soon.  MarketWatch has added "First Take" for more original in-house commentary about breaking news, and this is around the same time as the new features that have been added with its "Portfolio" investment tools.

As the News Corp. (NYSE:NWS) buyout of Dow Jones (NYSE:DJ) nears its closure date, there continues to be a push for more financial news and information.

First Take is an effort that is meant to tag original commentary generated by MarketWatch itself about breaking news.  In short, Reuters outsourced news regurgitation factory in India won’t be doing this (not out of India anyway).

MarketWatch apparently tested this over the summer and decided to make it a product after it became a consistently successful draw and a major traffic driver for our readers.  I also asked our sources inside MarketWatch what the best use would be for traders and investors.  First Take is aimed at putting breaking news in context and perspective to help readers inform their investment decisions.

It is unclear if this is the first of many new efforts or if this will have to be tested alone for some time.  Our sources inside MarketWatch say this is the result of ongoing innovation in news coverage (e.g., Subprime Today) and investor tools (e.g., Portfolio) driven by reader demand.

The driving force behind this was you.  First Take came about as the result of reader demand for something to complement our breaking news coverage.

With more than 6 million monthly unique visitors, this new section has the potential of being one of the go-to sources for independent commentary and analysis outside of basic reporting and conflict-free compared to brokerage firms.

Jon C. Ogg
December 4, 2007

Posted on: December 4, 2007 – 9:35 am in Media, , ,

Dow Jones’ Paring Ottaway, Its Resort Papers Unit (DJ, NWS, GHS)

Dow Jones & Co. (NYSE:DJ) has announced it is exploring strategic alternatives for its Ottoway group of community newspapers and media franchises. The options under consideration include a possible sale of some or all of those papers and associated media properties.

Ottaway, the local media group of Dow Jones, operates 8 daily and 15 (14 on its own site) weekly community media franchises in many resort communities.  Its own site statistics mention combined daily print circulation of 281,000, Sunday print circulation of 303,000 and online average daily unique visitors of 119,000.

The group’s newspaper assets include:

  • The Times Herald-Record, in Middletown, N.Y.;
  • Cape Cod Times in Hyannis, Mass.;
  • The Inquirer and Mirror in Nantucket, Mass.,
  • The Standard-Times in New Bedford, Mass.;
  • The Pocono Record in Stroudsburg, Pa.;
  • The Record in Stockton, Calif.;
  • The Portsmouth Herald in Portsmouth, N.H.;
  • Medford Mail Tribune in Medford, Ore.;
  • Ashland Daily Tidings in Ashland, Ore.

It hasn’t really been a secret that Rupert Murdoch & Co., a.k.a. News Corp. (NYSE:NWS) was going to begin paring down some of the Dow Jones assets that were either overlapping or too small to make a dent.  When you own (or are soon to own) The New York Post, The WSJ, Fox and much larger online properties, this doesn’t even make a dent.

The company that immediately comes to mind as a buyer for this is GateHouse Media Inc. (NYSE:GHS) due to its ownership of 87 community daily newspapers and it owns many other media properties.

We produce a subscriber letter called the "Old Media/New Media" letter, which gives a weekly outlook and opinion forecast on the convergence (and divergence) of developments in old media and new media alike.  There is a reason that radio companies hate satellite, there’s a reason newspapers lag Internet content, there’s a reason telecom and cable companies fight for your eyeballs and telecom alike, and there’s a reason that old media is trying to become new media.

Jon C. Ogg
November 27, 2007

Jon Ogg produces the 24/7 Wall St. Special Situation Investing Newsletter; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: November 27, 2007 – 12:51 pm in Media, , ,

Reuters.com Leads Online Financial Website Derby

According to Hitwise numbers for October, Reuters.com and CNNMoney.com had the largest web audiences of financial sites which are not part of larger portals like Yahoo!. Reuters.com grew much more quickly. Among other sites reviewed were Forbes.com Dow Jones (DJ) WSJ.com, TheStreet.com (TSCM), The Motley Fool, Portfolio.com, McGraw-Hill (MHP) BusinessWeek.com and Bloomberg.com

The figures are based on percent of US market share of total visits.

Site                           Percent of US Visits                Year-over-Year Change

CNN Money               .0224%                                   (16%)

Reuters.com              .0220%                                    95%

TheStreet.com           .0185%                                    33%

TheFool.com              .0165%                                    59%

Bloomberg.com          .0129%                                    38%

Forbes.com                .0126%                                    14%

WSJ.com (paid)          .0111%                                    58%

Portfolio.com              .0058%                                    NA

BusinessWeek.com    .0049%                                    18%

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: November 20, 2007 – 2:35 pm in Internet, , , ,

Murdoch Say Wall Street Journal Will Go “FREE”

Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corp (NWS) told Reuters that the tough economy is not hurting his company in the current quarter. Good news for his shareholders.

But, the most important thing Mr. Murdoch said in his current trip to Australia is that "he was also planning to boost the numbers of subscribers to the Wall Street Journal’s Web site more than tenfold by making access free."

"We are studying it and we expect to make that free, and instead of having 1 million (subscribers) having at least 10-15 million in every corner of the earth," Murdoch added.

So, the mogul will assume that he will lose his one million subscribers who pay about $79 a year to get the paper online. But, with over 10 million or more daily readers, Murdoch must believe that he will pick up tons of new advertising. He recently bought Dow Jones (DJ) the Journal’s owner.

The effects of Murdoch’s decision could send a huge wave through the financial content business, threatening to take ad revenue from online versions of the New York Times (NYT), Pearson’s (PSO) Financial Times as well as the huge and profitable money sections of portals like MSN (MSFT) and Yahoo! (YHOO). In other words, it could change the dynamics of where online financial advertising is placed and which properties make money.

Murdoch has the instincts of a riverboat gambler. He may not win this hand, but he stands to do a lot of damage to the competition.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: November 13, 2007 – 5:53 am in Media, , , , , ,

A Conversation With FT.com Chief Ien Cheng

Those who believe that the newspaper industry is going the way of the Dodo and buggy whip
and can’t conceive that enhanced online versions of papers can ever do especially well
ought to pay a visit to the UK’s FT. The brutal calculus of newspapers in most developed
countries is that their audiences are being devoured by the internet. If news becomes
a commodity, that may indeed be true. Wall St. suspects it is, trading stocks like The
New York Times (NYT) and Gannett (GCI) at multi-year lows.

Industry observers might argue that the Financial Times and its FT.com stable mate have the
advantage of serving a rarified market because the paper covers global finance. But, the
competition in that market is keen with Dow Jones (DJ) playing in paper and online, and
firms like Reuters improving their web operations.

One trend that content companies may have failed to notice is that better writing and
better analysis can catch and hold a large audience. In the US the industry needs to
look no further than the high-end blog like TechCruch which has a huge readership and
spends virtually nothing on marketing. It has readers because it has stories that readers
must read.

In a conversation today with Ien Cheng, managing editor and publisher of FT.com, he made it clear
that the paper and the website offer products that readers cannot get elsewhere. The
company will not devalue this content by offering all of its services
to the reader for free. Instead, it is improving those services and making the paper and online
edition even more attractive.

Some significant portion of that plan must be working. Mr. Cheng says that FT.com monthly
unique visitors are up 70% over the last year to 6.3 million. Page views have jumped 50%
to 48 million per month

To keep the readers coming back and to build their ranks, FT.com is launching an enhanced
market data sight. The product will include interactive charts, intraday currency data,and
better portfolio tools among other things. The website is also moving some of its
more well-known columnists to its blogging community. Mr. Cheng’s theory is that readers
would like to see the work of these writers. Publishing their views more often will be a
magnet for repeat visits.

The new program is not without a marketing plan. FT.com already has traffic arrangements
with several of the large portals, and it now offers 30 stories a month per user for free.

Mr. Cheng says that much of the philosophy behind all of this work is that better analysis
and speed to market with news can trump pure size and scale. In the arena of global
business reporting it would be hard to quarrel that the FT is not in the first tier,
but the company does not feel it is at a disadvantage by being smaller than Mr. Murdoch’s
new Dow Jones/News Corp (NWS) financial information empire. Being nimble can best being massive.

When asked why the FT.com should simply not move to a "free content", ad supported model,
Mr. Cheng had a response that might prove educational to others in the content business.
He does not have to. Traffic to FT.com is growing despite the fact that a full online
subscription requires a payment. FT.com believes that it can enjoy the best of both worlds.
Mr. Murdoch may prove him wrong if the WSJ.com becomes an entirely free product.
That still remains to be seen.

FT.com and The Financial Times do have greater resources than many papers, but certainly
no more than The New York Times, Washington Post (WPO), or Gannett. The UK company may have
decided to use its fire power more wisely, and indications are that the approach is a
success.

Mr. Cheng promises more innovation at FT.com next year. He may want to hold the calls
from other newspaper companies who would like to stop by and benchmark his plans.

The FT Group is part of Pearson plc (PSO)

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com.

Posted on: November 7, 2007 – 10:44 am in Uncategorized, , , , , ,

The Washington Post (WPO) Online Train Wreck

Donald Graham, CEO of The Washington Post Company (WPO) made this comment to Fortune last summer: "If Internet advertising revenues don’t continue to grow fast," he says, "I think the future of the newspaper business will be very challenging. The Web site simply has to come through."

Any shareholders in the company who hoped that the plan was a good one are very disappoint today. The WPO third quarter numbers were not very good. The online figures were abysmal.

WPO reported net income of $72.5 million ($7.60 per share) for its third quarter ended September 30, 2007, compared to net income of $73.3 million ($7.60 per share) for the third quarter of last year. Revenue for the third quarter of 2007 was $1,022.5 million, up 8% from $946.9 million in 2006. The increase is due mostly to significant revenue growth at the education and cable television divisions.

Newspaper publishing division revenue totaled $210.2 million for the third quarter of 2007, a decrease of 7% from $225.6 million in the third quarter of 2006.

Revenue generated by the WPO online publishing activities, primarily washingtonpost.com, increased 11% to $27.2 million for the third quarter of 2007, from $24.5 million for the third quarter of 2006. The lack of growth here is astonishing, as is the relatively small amount of revenue. Contrast the figures to The New York Times (NYT) were in the third quarter, the company’s Internet revenues increased 26.5 percent to $79.7 million from $63.0 million in the third quarter of 2006. Internet businesses include digital archives, NYTimes.com, Boston.com, About.com and other Company Web sites.

The Post is falling well behind the curve in terms of turning the power of its print brands into online success. And, given the head start that companies like NYT and Dow Jones (DJ) already have, the game may be nearly over. Online consumers will only get their news from so many places.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: November 1, 2007 – 12:46 pm in Media, , ,

September Financial Website Analysis

In September, Yahoo! (YHOO) Finance lost almost all of its pageview lead over its closest competitor, AOL Finance. For the month, Yahoo! Finance had 286 million pageviews and AOL Finance had 282 million according to syndicated research data. Yahoo! Finance had more unique visitors with 13.6 million, but AOL had an advantage pages-per-visitor at 27.

MSN Money was a distant third with 10.9 million unique visitors, 150 million pageviews, and 14 average pags per visitor. The pages-per-visitor for MSN are low for the financial website catagory.

Forbes and Dow Jones each had over six million unique visitors in September. Reuters had 3.5 milllion, and TheStreet.com 2.1 million. BusiessWeek Online rounded out the top financial content sites with just over 1.8 million uniques.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: October 18, 2007 – 7:08 am in Internet, , , , ,

TheStreet.com Hits Seven-Year High (TSCM)

TheStreet.com (TSCM) hit a seven-year high today at $13.72. It is hard to point to one factor driving the stock. Jim Cramer is as popular as ever, Wall St. probably is looking for a strong third quarter.

But, the reason for the move up in the shares could simply be an acknowledgment that online content has become very valuable. The premium that News Corp (NWS) paid for Dow Jones (DJ) is some indication of that. NBC recently bought cable company Oxygen.

There is increasing speculation about the value of private online content sites. CBS has recently acquired video financial site WallStrip.com. NBC bought news aggregation site Newsvine.

The cycle for TheStreet has been a long one. Like many other internet businesses, it was punished in 2000. The beating lasted a long time, but TSCM had company. Shares in CNET collapsed and really did not come back until 2004.

With a forward P/E of 20, TSCM is not expensive, even at its new high.

Douglas A. McIntyre. McIntyre was a member of the board at TSCM until 2005.

Posted on: October 11, 2007 – 1:43 pm in Media, , , , , ,

Would Reuters (RTRSY) Or Yahoo! (YHOO) Buy SeekingAlpha?

SeekingAlpha, the big financial commentary and blog site, syndicates its content at a number of other large web properties with Yahoo! (YHOO) Finance and Reuters.com (RTRSY) probably being the largest. There has been recent speculation about the value of technology and news websites like Huffington Post and TechCrunch. The main criticisms of these valuations is that they are too high based on the traffic and revenue that the sites are likely to be creating. Would a large financial "blog" face the same issues?

The value analysis that simply looks at revenue does not address the issue of larger media companies picking up assets that they believe are strategic. Earlier today, CBS (CBS) bought Dotspotter for a rumored $10 million. The site is a fairly small celebrity property.

SeekingAlpha would have a significant value if it were owned by a large financial media company. It produces over a hundred pieces a day, a mix between its own commentary and blogs from other websites. A number of large financial sites like WSJ.com, NYTimes.com, and MarketWatch.com already run blogs from their own writers. It appears to be considered a hot business.

Based on data from Compete, Alexa, and Quantcast, 24/7 Wall St. estimates that SA has 2,750,000 page views a month. Financial sites tend to get high CPMs due to their demographics, so we have assigned a $10 CPM to the advertisers on the site.

SA runs an average of four display ads on each page, which would bring in about $110,000 a month. The site also has six discount brokers in its "Trading Center". At a $2 CPM, these would bring in another $33,000. Classified and Adsense may be worth another $5,000, bringing monthly revenue to almost $150,000. This does not include any money they bring in from the use of their e-mail lists.

Having a hundred or more stories a day has a special value to sites like Reuters and Yahoo! Finance, especially if they have to pay for most of their current content. Reuters has high editorial costs due to its large number of full-time reporters. The SeekingAlpha stories could drive a high number of page views on a very large financial site.

On a simple 10x revenue model, SA would be worth a little less than $18 million. But, because of the value of the content, and its relative size compared to other financial commentary sites, SA is probably worth twice that amount, of $36 million. TheStreet.com (TSCM) currently has a market cap of $400 million. AOL owns another large financial blogging site called BloggingStocks which is uses to supply content and links to AOL Finance. It probably considers the strategic value of that site to be fairly big.

About a year ago, VC firm Benchmark Capital put money into SeekingAlpha. At some point they will want a return. SA already has relationships with Reuters and Yahoo!.

Deal?

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: October 11, 2007 – 12:08 pm in Mergers and Buy Outs, , , , , ,

Is TechCrunch Worth $100 Million?

There has been a great deal written about the 24/7 Wall St. piece on the value of big blogs. While we put a value of $100 million on Huffington Post, we did not offer a value for TechCrunch.

But, it is worth a lot. It recently topped the BusinessWeek list of favorite blogs. Technorati says that almost 145,000 blogs like to the TechCrunch site.

In 2006, The Wall Street Journal wrote that TechCrunch has revenue of $120,000 a month. And "TechCrunch had about a million global page views in September, compared with 13 million for CNET News, according to comScore Networks Inc."

TechCrunch is now building a conference business and expanding its network of blogs. It probably fair to guess that it has grown to a revenue run rate of $5 million. To believe that the figure could double to $10 million in 2008 is not unreasonable.

Most analysis of the value of TechCrunch is based on what a financial model says it is worth. But, that is not an accurate way to make the evaluation. The real question is what someone would pay. Rupert Murdoch will pay $5 billion for Dow Jones (DJ). Its operating income in 2007 will be about $150 million. So, he is willing to pay 33 times operating income. If TechCrunch as $2 million in operating income this year, a comparable valuation would be $66 million.

Over on the Facebook side of town, industry experts put the company’s revenue at $150 million for 2007. If Microsoft (MSFT) is willing to buy 5% for $500 million, the company is worth $10 billion, about 66 times revenue. By the way, Chinese search engine company Baidu (BIDU) trades for 67 times revenue. And, it is a public company.

Is TechCrunch worth $100 million. In this environment, it may be worth more. Particularly if a larger company really needs it.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

Posted on: October 4, 2007 – 5:02 am in Media, , ,

TechCrunch And Huffington: Who Will Buy The Big Blogs?

The name brand blogs. The big ones. Huffington. TechCrunch. GigaOm. Boing Boing. Ars Technica. SeekingAlpha.

AOL has already bought Weblogsinc. It owns popular blogs including flagship Engadget.

But, with the internet operations at newspapers and some other tradition media companies making very little headway, the big blogs take on a very significant attraction. They reach audiences in great numbers. They have credibility. They are not expensive to run. And, they make money.

Take Huffington. According to research firm Compete, it has an audience almost as large as the online version of the Philadelphia Inquirer. As a part of a larger newspaper organization like The New York Times (NYT) or Washington Post (WPO), that audience could probably be much bigger. NYT and WPO need a Huffington or two. Their internet revenues are under 10% of their total and not growing fast enough to keep up with falling print sales. Huffington has raised $10 million in VC money. What is it worth? $100 million. Maybe more. Worth it for The Times or The Post. With the trouble that are in, yes.

The big tech blogs are even larger than Huffington.

According to internet measurement service, TechCrunch has an audience about a third of CNet (CNET). And CNet is in bad shape. It’s blog business has not caught on. In early 2006, its shares were $16. Now they trade at under $8. Do they need a way to improve their reach and image with the online tech crowd?

Alexa actually puts TechCrunch’s reach at double wsj.com. If Mr. Murdock’s News Corp (NWS) is going to start offering Dow Jones (DJ) print products for free, having a large tech news property could be a big deal. Tech site Ars Technica also has a larger reach than wsj.com. Another major tech blog that could enhance the overall web presences of Dow Jones.

In the core financial news field, SeekingAlpha is the largest stock market blog. It runs close to 100 stories some days. That is a lot of extra content, low priced content, for a company like Reuters (RTRSY), The New York Times, or Dow Jones.  More page impressions. A larger audience for online marketing.

The largest blogs will get offers. Too many big media companies need additional outlets and content on the web. The problem for the potential buyers is keeping the talent at the blog sites. Most rely on just one or two big names. But, that is not unlike the issue that TheStreet (TSCM) has with Cramer. He is the franchise. They have to give him incentives to stay.

The New York Times or Washington Post will stop by to see Huffington. It is just a matter of how soon.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: October 3, 2007 – 6:07 am in Media, , , , , , ,

MarketWatch Launches Community Tools Package

Dow Jones (DJ) MarketWatch launched a new series of features that allows its readers to organize news and other features from the website and share them with others.

MarketWatch Community provides a live view of the business stories, stocks and financial topics that are resonating most with users. In addition to letting readers directly add comments, recommendations and tags to articles, the service allows users to build networks of friends, find other users based on their level and nature of community participation, and gain points for correctly predicting share price movements.

“MarketWatch Community highlights the voice and lens of the user while providing a robust interaction with our award-winning editorial content,” said Jim Bernard, general manager of MarketWatch.com. “In beta we’ve experienced increases in user loyalty, satisfaction and length of visits. This service extends our innovative approach to news and user engagement, and opens exciting new possibilities for our advertisers.”

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: October 1, 2007 – 5:58 am in Research,

WSJ.com For Free

Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corp (NWS) said it again today. He is leaning hard toward making the online edition of The Wall Street Journal free, according to CNN Money. 

Depending on which measurement service one looks at, WSJ.com has something along the lines of 2.5 unique visitors. Dow Jones estimates put that number much higher. If the site were free, it is easy to see that number racing past NYTimes.com at about 13 million. NYT says all of its online editions will do close to $400 million this year.

What WSJ.com would give up is 983,000 paid subscribers, most paying about $80 a year.

That is a lot to give up, but Murdoch seems more than game.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 18, 2007 – 10:13 am in Media, ,

Alexa Looks At Major Financial Websites

After looking at the Nielsen and comScore ratings of the audiences of major financial websites, 24/7 Wall St. turned to Alexa. Alexa shows a website’s three month average reach against all other websites in the world. It then ranks the sites accordingly. The data also shows the website’s traffic ranking trend.

The figures for financial sections of sites like Yahoo! (YHOO) and AOL cannot be shown because they are rolled into the parent website’s numbers.

Like the other measuring services, Alexa show Forbes.com with a substantial lead followed by Reuters, WSJ.com and MarketWatch. The last two sites are owned by Dow Jones (DJ).

Further down the list are sites including the Motley Fool, the FT, and McGraw-Hill’s (MHP) BusinessWeek.com

Website                            Alexa Ranking     Trend

Forbes                              484                     Up 58 places

Reuters                            529                      Down 16

WSJ                                1,096                    Down 87

MarketWatch                   1,109                    Down 172

Bloomberg                       1,246                    Up 102

BusinessWeek                1,352                     Down 99

TheStreet                        1,745                     Up 131

Fool                                1,842                     Down 18

FT                                   2,755                     Up 25

Economist                       3,668                      Down 48

CNBC                              6,615                      Up 1,095

Data from Alexa

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 14, 2007 – 7:26 am in Media, , ,