Cash for Jawbone: new funding for headset maker
In 1999, going against the days trends, two Stanford undergraduate engineering students took aim at cell phone technology instead of focusing on the Internet. With money from family, and a lot of persistence, they started a company called Aliph.
Over the next five years, Alex Asseily and Hosain Rahman hired sound engineering experts and engineers and toiled in an effort to build a better mobile headset. The original plan was to license the technology they developed but along the way plans shifted. In 2004 Aliph released their Jawbone headsets to critical acclaim.
The headset, which has been optimized by DARPA to improve communication clarity in hostile conditions, brings together a combination of sensors that recognize speech from ambient noise. Using highly directional microphones and a bevy of signal processing technology, along with a chipset from Cambridge Silicon Radio, the earpieces aim to improve the inconsistent sound quality common to mobile headsets; and by most tests, they achieve their goal. The Jawbone also has a novel feature: not only does it tune out background noise; it also adjusts the speaker volume relative to the environment. So next time a Harley rumbles past you on the highway, you may not miss an important part of your call.
Microsoft and EA: Swapping executives
Just last week Peter Moore, the former president and COO of Sega America and current VP of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment business (responsible for the Xbox), was sitting down with the press and talking about present problems and plans for future of the Xbox 360 gaming platform. Now it appears in September, Mr. Moore will be talking about Electronic Arts and Madden 2008 instead.
It was announced yesterday that Moore resigned his post at Microsoft to return to the San Francisco Bay area. He won’t have time to be idle. He’ll take on new challenges at Redwood City based Electronic Arts as head of their highly regarded EA Sports division; home to game franchises like Madden Football and Tiger Woods golf.
Yahoo Q2 ‘07 Earnings
In the first of this week’s big earnings announcements, Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) reported Q2 2007 Financial Results today.
Largely as expected, Yahoo met consensus analyst expectations but overall results were, from the first quarter to include revenue from their new Panama advertising platform, unimpressive. Guidance was lowered for the rest of 2007.
For the second quarter, Yahoo earned total revenue excluding Traffic Acquisition Costs (“TAC”) of $1,244m, up 11% over the same period last year but operating income was down 19% to $185m compared to $230m for the same period last year. Total ad revenue was up 7% to $1.49 billion. Click to Read More
User Experience: Remembering the Customer in New Media Marketing
When MTV began in the early 80s its edgy counter culture appeal helped build its foundation. When YouTube took off and became a household word, it too benefited heavily from its alternative, under-produced content (which was arguably similar in form to what MTV aired decades earlier). Across the board in media and entertainment, from websites like MySpace to Indie Music production back to Facebook online, appealing to the fringe, to a smaller group, focusing on a niche of “hip and cool” has often helped push companies forward.
That narrow focus is doubly beneficial. It helps keep a company off the radar of bigger competitors and it helps them build a loyal, dedicated fan base from which to expand. But as companies grow in appeal and audience, they all face one of the most difficult challenges in marketing: bridging the gap between counter-culture edge (and niche market focus) to mainstream popularity and an expanding sphere of influence.
Video Sharing Out, Content In: Grouper becomes Crackle.
Just when it seems everyone is getting into Internet video, in a reverse twist, Sony is backing out; at least with regard to their strategy.
Last year, Sony bought video sharing site Grouper for a crisp $65m. It was to by Sony’s portal for sharing video, Sony’s clone of YouTube. ….now, the towels been thrown in and the fight called. Instead of trying to compete with established players, Sony will rebrand the property and redeploy it toward a new end: video creation.
Henceforward Grouper will be called Crackle. And lest there be any doubt about a change of direction, there is the official pronouncement of its demise from Josh Felser, a founder of Grouper and the man in charge of Crackle. He said unequivocally, “User Generated content is dead to us. … We are definitely leaving video sharing and focusing on emerging talent.” Crackle will help to finance, promote and syndicate the work of Internet video auteurs.
Earnings Calendars: July and August
It’s reporting season for public companies. That means, over next few weeks we’ll see a large number of quarterly earnings reports and all kinds of volatility in the stock markets.
This week market watchers will be waiting for Internet news with Google and Yahoo reporting. Also this week: Microsoft, Dow Jones, newspaper publishers McClatchy and Gannet and chip maker, Intel.
Next week will have reports from Amazon, Sony, The New York Times, Netflix, Apple and possibly Nintendo (Nintendo’s announcement date is not yet confirmed).
In anticipation of the earnings season and to keep track of who reports when, Metue has assembled two printable calendars Click to Read More
