Finance Matters

Archive for April 27th, 2010

Conan O’Brien is appearing on CBS’ “60 Minutes” this Sunday, May 2, the New York Times’ Bill Carter reports. It will be Conan’s first interview on the small screen  since NBC gave him more than $40 million to leave his “Tonight Show” post back in January.

Conan is contractually restricted from appearing on TV until May 1. He is also gagged from disparaging NBC because of the late night debacle. But “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft tells Carter that Conan “flirts with the restrictions” on-air. Read more at the New York Times >

Of course, Conan has already flirted with those restrictions during his stage show, which is in progress until June. The “60 Minutes” episode is expected to review the tour and Conan’s plans for his upcoming TBS show, which debuts in November.

Don’t miss: Amazing footage of Conan’s stage tour >

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• Conan O’Brien: TBS’ Cable God For The Kids
• Footage Of Conan O’Brien’s Fantastic Tour Show Hit YouTube
• Conan O’Brien At His First Tour Show: ‘I Really Missed The Applause’

Thrillist just announced that it has hired Mark Oltarsh as its new chief revenue officer.

Oltarsh is going from a female-oriented publishing outfit to one geared towards men.

He previously worked at Bauer Publishing, where he was vice president and group publisher of In Touch and Life & Style. He also did sales stints at Spin, Details, Vanity Fair, Maxim and Jane.

In his new job, Oltarsh will report to Ben Lerer, co-founcer and CEO of Thillist, a lifestyle website and daily email blast for dudes.

From the press release:

“Mark’s drive and contagious energy will be a spectacular asset to Thrillist. We’re lucky to have someone with such a deep breadth of experience take the reins of the business we’ve worked so hard to create,” said Lerer.

“Thrillist is one of the most powerful young men’s brands in the U.S.,” says Oltarsh. “It has captured the undivided attention of an entire new generation of consumers, and I’m excited to be coming on board to help the business grow. I look forward to working with Ben, the Sales team, and harnessing Thrillist’s authentic voice for the marketing community.”

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• Facebook Explains Its Plot To Take Over The Internet To Freaked Out Users
• The Craigslist Scandals – Babies For Sale, Prostitution, Murder, And More!
• TheWrap Secures $2 Million Second Round of Funding

California police have figured out who found the lost iPhone that Gizmodo landed,  San Jose Business Journal reports.

Investigators have not said what this person’s name is. They are also not saying if they’ll charge the person with a crime.

Investigators are trying to determine if the person that found the phone in a bar is the same person that eventually sold the phone to Gizmodo.

Also in the story, we learn that a law firm hired by Apple, along with Apple employee Gray Powell told the DA that the phone was stolen and it warranted investigation.

San Mateo county D.A. Steve Wagstaffe tells the Business Journal that they did not search Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s computer to get this information.

See Also: And Here’s The Apple Guy Who Lost The iPhone 4.0

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See Also:

• Cops Bust Into Gizmodo Editor’s Home And Seize Computers, Documents In iPhone Probe
• GIZMODO SEARCH WARRANT AMBIGUOUS: Police May Allege That GIZMODO Committed The Felony
• And Here’s The Apple Guy Who Lost The iPhone 4.0

Yesterday a reporter from CNET called and asked me a few provocative questions. He was writing a piece on Google as a marketer, and wanted my point of view. I’m not sure when his piece is coming out (or if my thoughts will be included), but our conversation helped me crystallize my thinking around Google and its brand, so I figured I best get it written down.  

Regular readers may recall one this prediction for 2010:

Google will make a corporate decision to become seen as a software brand rather than as “just a search engine.” I see this as a massive cultural shift that will cause significant rifts inside the company, but I also see it as inevitable. Google, once the “pencil” of the Internet, has become a newer, more open version of Microsoft, and it has to admit as much both to itself as well as to its public, or it will start to lose credibility with all its constituents. While the company flirted with the title of “media company” I think “software company” fits it better, and allows it to focus and to lean into its most significant projects, all of which are software-driven: Chrome OS, Android, Search, and Docs (Office/Cloud Apps).

The reporter’s question let me unpack this a bit. He asked me why Google isn’t doing a major brand campaign, given that most other large Internet-driven companies have – including eBay, Amazon, Yahoo, and Apple.

A few years ago, I might have answered thusly: Google doesn’t need to do brand advertising, because Google’s service *is* the brand builder. But today, my answer is quite different: Google isn’t doing brand advertising because Google doesn’t know what its brand means.

And you can’t do brand advertising if you can’t say what the brand means.

Think about that for a second. Up until a few years ago, it was quite simple to say what the Google brand meant. Put simply, Google = Search. Or, to add a few words, Google = The Best Search Service On Earth.

Now, is that true today?

Well, certainly you could argue that Google still means a great search environment. But the brand also means far more. It’s the brand which stands in opposition to the iPhone – the Android Pepsi to Apple’s Coke. The same is true in the office suite – Google Docs are the Pepsi to the Coke of Microsoft’s Office. Google Chrome? The Pepsi to Internet Explorer’s Coke. And there’s a ton more – photo sharing, blogging platforms, social networking, ecommerce solutions, enterprise platforms, media (YouTube, Knol, etc.)….well you get the picture.

And Google = Search doesn’t cover all that. Nor, honestly, does the company’s corporate mission: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” You could shoehorn the Nexus One into that mission, but it’s not a comfortable fit.

Until Google figures out what its brand means in a post search world, it won’t be doing any brand advertising. And given who its competing with – Apple, Hulu, Microsoft and Amazon, among many others – I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

John Battelle is CEO of Federated Media. This post was originally published on Searchblog. It is re-published here with permission.

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See Also:

• Google Releases Two Charming Ads For Chrome
• Google Tries To Kill Yelp, Offers More Tools For Local Businesses
• The Craigslist Scandals – Babies For Sale, Prostitution, Murder, And More!

(This is a guest post from Patriarch Partners.)

Eighteen months ago, I sounded the Clarion Call to America. My writings warned that use of derivatives by Wall Street had essentially transformed our financial institutions into gambling arenas, where inexperienced traders could place large bets hedging asset classes they little understood. On the eve of TARP fund allocations, I took pen to paper so America might understand where tax dollars travel, and why this flow of funds would never reach small and mid-sized businesses, home to more than two-thirds of America’s workforce. Since that time, I have been clear, consistent and unafraid to voice my concern for the growing disconnect between Wall Street and “Main Street”, and the future uncertainty enveloping our nation.

In October 2008, I wrote:

“The cold, hard truth is we have sustained trillions of financial losses which will never be recovered, even with time, patience and perseverance. With the use of leverage and credit default swaps (“CDS”), synthetic financial instruments that mimic performance of underlying securities, the markets long ago lost equilibrium on matching assets with liabilities — its fulcrum and natural balance. Such widespread unregulated tools render gains and losses exponential. In this downturn, the false floor has opened and the abyss into which our assets fall is deep and unimaginable. CDS will take its rightful place in history as the greatest financial anathema of our time.”

I argued that, for many years, our nation’s growth had been built upon leverage and financial instruments, leading us to mistakenly believe we could replace a manufacturing nation with a market economy. We, as a country, were seduced to accept that the laws of gravity had been defied for us. I feared we would repeat the fall of every great empire before us, a plunge precipitated by arrogance and complacency. I explained such strategies distorted the value of our financial markets and created a false security of increasing GDP but that sadly, our nation’s expansion was built upon a façade. This parody of advancement encouraged self-deception and dismissed the need for value creation through production of goods and delivery of services. Our diminishing base of manufacturers, America’s unsung heros, I predicted, would be the prime casualty of the credit crisis, leaving individuals unemployed and families in turmoil. It is essential, I argued, that we make a national commitment to sustain and create jobs, in order to rebuild America. To accomplish this, I insisted liquidity be made available not only to big banks, where capital was hoarded, but also to American companies and the American people working to kick-start our sputtering economy.

My words were either too early or my name and experience unrecognized; my message fell on deaf ears. However, with last week’s SEC’s complaint against Goldman Sachs, and the calls from the wild to stop the gambling, to restrain Wall Street and to defibrillate ethics, I trust I can bring new attention to the warnings I howled as the lone wolf long ago. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman penned a piece titled, “Looters in Loafers”, about Goldman engaging in activity tantamount to “white-collar looting”, and Andrew Ross Sorkin equated the investment firm’s practices to casino gambling in, “When Wall Street Deals Resemble Casino Wagers”. Rick Newman of US News & World Report exposed, “How Goldman Sachs Abandoned the ‘Real’ Economy”.

My goal was to set forth the path to recovery eighteen months ago, prior to exacerbated decline of industry and displacement of thirty million Americans, now unemployed. Before moving forward, I insisted we needed collective recognition that Wall Street greed and its lobby against regulation enabled, and almost guaranteed, an eventual disaster. “With truth,” I penned,” the unknown vanishes, panic and fear subside and the long journey home can begin.” I hope that the repeated unveiling of truth in the daily press initiates healing.

The devastation to our industrial nation has created a populace of the permanently unemployed; those who are hopeless, jobless and homeless. The vast unwind of industry, when combined with the dearth of working capital suffocating small business, has left too many Americans behind. According to a PEW Research study published April 2010, over 44 percent of unemployed Americans have been without work for more than six months — the highest rate since World War II. In contrast, during the severe recession of the 1980s, long-term unemployment peaked at 26 percent in 1983. In 2010, federal spending on unemployment benefits is projected to grow five times greater than in each year immediately preceding the recession, with unemployment benefits reaching $168 billion — $81 billion associated with regular benefits and $87 billion the cost of emergency aid to the long-term unemployed.

It is not that I want to say I told you so, but rather I hope my repeated words will highlight the increasingly dangerous disconnect between the real economy and the financial markets, the devastating damage inflicted upon this nation’s industrial base and the rapid inroads to recovery that must have priority above all financial legislation. The heart, soul and salvation of our nation has never, and will never, reside on Wall Street, a fact which will grow increasingly clear as the negligence, scheming and depravity behind financial losses continue to unfold. However, if we do not soon recognize the import of industry to the rebuilding of America, and take action, we will soon be a nation beyond repair.

See more from Patriach Partners –>

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