Archive: October, 2006

In an interesting interview with the Sunday Telegraph (UK), AOL chief executive Jonathan Miller openly muses about the eventual separation of AOL from the Time Warner media empire. Having sold its European broadband businesses in the UK, Germany and France, Time Warner intends to focus AOL’s energies on providing email, web search and instant messenger services.

The article states that the Time Warner board is actively considering selling AOL to the highest bidder quoting Miller saying, “It’s possible, going forward. It’s not a discussion that Time Warner has a problem with understanding or engaging in. Until we were on this present course, it wasn’t even the right discussion. Now it becomes more interesting.”

AOL is likely going to cease operating as a separate entity. Miller notes a rival would almost certainly purchase AOL. “I don’t believe there is a scenario whereby we could have an independent AOL. I think we would be bought as fast as we could draw up the papers,” he is quoted saying.

Lots of our users are SEO’s and SEM’s. We even evolved out of a search engine optimization firm, spinning Enquisite out into an independent organization. Being truly independent means that we hear lots of comments from a variety of Internet Marketing firms which have been facing interesting dilemnas over the last few months. A year ago, one of the common comments / observations lately has been how so many businesses, ranging from SME’s to Fortune 100’s are trying to take their Internet Marketing business in house, AGAIN. We’ve seen this happen in the past. It’s never worked, but seems to repeat itself cyclically. We’re noticing that this trend has already turned, but now it’s the CEO’s and CFO’s who are pushing to outsource. They’ve recognized the importance of Search and Internet Marketing to their entire business. It’s a lot more than just a sales / marketing tool.

I’m going to add my voice to the chorus of comments on Microsoft’s latest round of updates.

Unlike Danny’s excruciating experience with IE7 and the update, I haven’t had quite the same level of difficulties. But tons of problems nonetheless.

About 10 days ago, I received the latest round of updates from Microsoft. I’ve been using IE7 for a little while, and have gotten used to it. I like the improved presentation of graphics, fonts and the like that came with it. After the latest update however, things started to get flaky. Two applications in particular have been giving me constant headaches. IE7 and Outlook. Outlook really has turned into LookOut mail. Inevitably, I now have to restart Outlook twice each morning for it to operate stably. IE7 randomnly becomes unusable, displaying blank pages. Fortunately, I also use Firefox, so while annoying, IE7’s issues are only forcing me to spend more time using Firefox. That’s a shame. I like IE. I like using both browsers, and am used to doing different things in each. I can’t do that right now, and it bugs me.

Reading and listening to the financial reports of major corporations can be a challenging experience but it is earnings week in the search engine sector and a flurry of fiscal facts are being released. Earlier this week, Yahoo released disappointing third quarter results. Yesterday, it was Google’s turn and it quickly became apparent where much of Yahoo’s net-profits have gone.

Google posted stunning numbers yesterday. Reporting revenues of $2.69 billion for the three-month period between July 1 and September 30, Google saw a 70% increase over Q3-2005 revenues. Google’s net income in the third quarter of this year was $733 million, up 92% from last year’s figure of $381 million.

Google shares rose 7.5% to $458 in early trading on the Nasdaq board with investment analysts predicting the stock could rise as high as $595 over the next twelve months. In what Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto calls a major understatement; CEO Eric Schmidt said Google, “… is not seeing a slow-down. It seems as strong as it has ever been, if not stronger.”

Google’s rivals are placed so far behind the concept of “The Big3” is virtually shattered. There’s not much more to say. Google continues to rule and the lead it enjoys on Yahoo and Microsoft defies competition.