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In the past month and a half there has been a tremendous consolidation in Internet advertising.

• May 18: Microsoft announces it will pay $6b in cash for aQuantive, parent to digital agencies Avenue A, Razorfish, Atlas and DRIVEpm.  That price constitutes a huge premium relative to $442m in ’06 revenue (net income was $54m)
• May 17: British advertising giant WPP Group, which is known for its offline ad services,  announced it would acquire 24/7 Real Media for $649m. (the price represented a premium of approximately 17x EBITDA)
• April 30: Yahoo acquired the 80% of internet ad auction exchange Right Media it didn’t own for approximately $680m.
• April 13: Google acquires DoubleClick for $3.1 (price represents approximately 20x EBITDA) (more here)

Much commentary referring to these deals has focused on extreme valuations.  Quite a bit has also suggested each new acquisition was an answer to the one that came before; a suggestion  as if each acquisition had been a part of a game of competitive one-upsmanship between Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft.

To suggests Yahoo bought Right Media because Google bought DoubleClick or Microsoft is buying aQuantive because they had to keep up with Google and Yahoo is misleading.

These deals didn’t happen overnight – they happened over weeks and months.  Several of these deals were in discussion at the same time, and most were on internal target lists for more than a year.  While the time lines for the deals closing, or pricing discussions that went on, might have been influenced or accelerated in response to announcement of the other deals, these acquisitions are largely independent and, in many ways, they’re best viewed as singular events.

As unrelated transactions, there’s a theme -  three of the biggest companies in Internet advertising believe the ad market is changing and growing, and doing so dramatically. 

All three deals  (four if counting WPP Groups purchase of 24/7 Media) also closed at significant premiums whether valued by market valuation or projected sales.  (At $6b for aQauntive, Microsoft payed more than 2x the prior day’s trading price.)

Why the premium? Did the companies overpay to make these deals happen or do they know something the market doesn’t?

People will form their own conclusion on that question; and only time will put a final answer on the debates- which are plenty.  But Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are three companies with more data on net advertising than just about any others.  You’ve got to wonder if their data is telling them something.  I think it is.

Forecasts put the size of the Internet Ad Market between as much as $25-40b this year with projected growth of 15-20% per year for the next five years.  Microsoft is among those forecasting on the higher side of those numbers. 

 Most forecasts (whether from independent analysts, tracking agencys or companies selling in the market) don’t account for the possibility of ad buyers shifting their ad–spend from television (or print or radio) to the Internet.  Even relatively subtle shifts of ad spending from the $300b US ad market could make the forecasts incredibly conservative.

It’s not unreasonable to think that kind of shift could be possible sooner than later, especially from Television to the Internet.  As it stands now, premium Television content is increasingly available on the web.  All of the major networks are rebroadcasting programming online (not to mention the volume of IPTV startups vying to participate; or the availability of downloadable programming from places like iTunes.)  The increase in viewing outlets increases the possibility of audiences shifting their viewing habits away from TV.  and ad-spending will follow the viewers.  Mix that fact with the wealth of user-generated content on sites like YouTube or Revver that could be host to display ads.  Then ad to the equation  the fact that  more than 20% of US households own already own DVRs and when watching recorded shows, often skip the commercials – which poses another threat to the value proposition of traditional TV advertising. Click to Read More

The NPD Group released its monthly hardware sales data for April late last week. Strong sales for Nintendo’s Wii and DS consoles again helped Nintendo dominate the month, outselling all competitors.

The Nintendo DS was the best-selling system in April with approximately 471,000 units sold.. The Wii, which is still in limited supply and difficult to get, was best-selling console (as opposed to portable) for the month with more than 360,000 units, nearly double the nearest competitor. The Sony PlayStation 2 finished second. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 both fell short of estimated sales for the month. Nintendo also won the award for top selling software publisher of the month with the top 2 best-selling games for the portables and console.

The numbers for April:

Hardware

• Nintendo DS: 471,000
• Wii: 360,000
• PlayStation 2: 194,000
• PlayStation Portable: 183,000
• Xbox 360: 174,000
• GameBoy Advance: 84,000
• PlayStation 3: 82,000
• GameCube: 13,000

Click to Read More

The iPhone is going to be delayed –Oops, no it’s not!…
Disney-TV Coming Soon to a Theater Sprint Mobile…
Motorola’s playing Napster’s Music…
Next Generation Phones Unveiled at Motorola.

This week, tech headlines allocated an unusually high amount of space to mobile phones and mobile entertainment media.  I’ve been lumping mobile entertainment into categories for music or movies, but starting today, articles and news directly related to mobile entertainment (and their role in the converging world of Media Entertainment and Technology)  will have their own category on Metue.

Though I will reorganize older content to include the category as appropriate, I want to start it off right. So to do that, here’s a nod to gadget lust;  a look at a few of the über-cool phones out there including both concepts and production models. (As always on Metue, if you’re looking for images, click the pictures for larger displays ).

The Concept Phones:

Alloy Polygon (Concept Phone – may never be manufactured)
Alloy gets the award for the “coolest phone that may never be made.” The phone, which was designed by well known UK based product design firm Alloy Total Product Design  turns heads with its unique style.  Sporting a clamshell design, the phone, like the Pantech IM-R200 discussed below, forgoes a keypad for 2 screens.  On the Alloy model, both screens are touch sensitive and can be controlled with a finger tip or a stylus.  Like the Nintendo DS Game system, one of the screens is primarily for navigation, the other for viewing but the screens can be adjusted for portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) viewing. Turned sideways, one of the screens can be used for viewing TV or Movie content.

Nokia 111 (Concept phone)
The prize winner for the second coolest phone that may never be made. The Nokia 111 model was the winning design in a Design College Contest Nokia ran last year.  It’s another concept phone thay may never be made but it has the promise of being something original. The phone’s innovation is a twist on a candy-bar style phone – literally. The phone has a pivot mechanism that allows it to sit “L” Shaped on a table or flat surface.  The Back is a screen so when sitting, it can function (theoretically) as a video-phone or display video content.  Technologically, the phone isn’t real…and probably won’t ever be.

Click to Read More

Popular Apple-tracking website Apple Insider is reporting today that a major hurdle for the on-time delivery of Apple’s iPhone has been passed without issue. Documents reprinted on Apple Insider (which can be downloaded in 4 parts from from Apple Insider’s site here, here, here and here) show that the new handset received Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorization.

Per the statement: “The Apple Inc. A1203 GSM Cellular Telephone with Bluetooth and Wifi, FCC ID: BCGA1203, is in compliance with the limits for general population uncontrolled exposure specified in FCC 2.1093. The device was tested according to the measurement standards and procedures specified in FCC OET Bulletin 65, Supplement C (Edition 01-01) and IEEE p1528/D1.2, April 21, 2003.”

For confidentiality reasons, Apple was able to have some schematics and exhibit notes permanently omitted from any public documents. Apple was also able to temporarily remove test photos, other images and the phones user manual.

This is a positive bit of news for Apple, and a step towards reassuring the many waiting for the device that the iPhone is, in fact, on time – a time line that yesterday was questioned following the release of what turned out to be a hoax internal document suggesting otherwise.

Music download service Napster (NASDAQ: NAPS), yesterday reported a wider loss for Q4 but met or beat analyst consensus estimates.

Consensus estimates according to Thompson Financial were for a loss of 20c/share on revenue of $27.9m. For the period ended March 31, Napster reported a net loss of $8.5m (20c/share) as compared with a loss of $4.4m (10c/share) for the same period last year. Revenue for the period was up 9% to $29.1m ($26.8m for the same period last year). Worldwide paid subscribers were also up, reaching a total of 830,000, including 225,000 former AOL Music Now users. The number of paid subscribers was up 37% from the year-ago quarter.

In fiscal year reporting, Napster reported a net lost of $36.8m (85c/share), down from a loss of $54.9m for the prior year. Net revenue was up 17% to $111.1m. Cash reserves at year end were reported at $66.6m.

For the coming quarter, Napster set expectations for a first quarter loss of $6-$7m on projected revenue of $31m – below an average analyst expectation of $34.2 million.

With recent partnerships struck between Napster and AT&T, Circuit City and Motorola, the company is betting heavily that MP3 playing cell phones will increasingly replace standalone MP3 players. Napster is also hoping the partnerships will help reduce some of company’s marketing expenses.

More detailed press coverage on Napster’s finances can be found at:

Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Marketwatch

Wednesday, Hewlett Packard and Sony both released quarterly earnings. HP narrowly beat analysts estimates but there was little surprise after an accidental leak of news last week. The news for both companies was mixed.

Sony:
Sony’s reported a Q4 loss of 67.6 billion yen ($563 million) down from a loss of 66.5 billion yen a year earlier. The loss was attributed to substantial development costs for the PS3 and the intense competition with Nintendo’s Wii. Sales for the quarter were up nearly 13% to 2.01 trillion yen ($16.8 billion). For the fiscal year, Sony reported net income of 126.3 billion yen ($1.04b), up 2.2% over the last year.

Sony was extremely optimistic and aggressive in guidance provided for the next fiscal year. CEO Howard Stringer has set a goal of generating $5 of profit for every $100 in sales. (The company’s 5% operating profit margin target can be compared against a 12.7 percent margin at Apple Inc.) To meet the goal, Sony is forecasting they will cut PS3 losses by near 80% through increased sales and decreased production costs. The game unit is projecting a loss of 50 billion yen ($414 million) for the year ending March 2008, well below Bloomberg’s analyst survey of 83 billion yen.

Sony also expects to increase sales of their Bravia television line. Overall guidance is for a near doubling of net income to 320 billion yen ($2.7b) for the next fiscal year. Consumer electronics will account for a substantial portion of that but there should also be a significant increase in film related revenue thanks to Spider-Man 3 and the expected fall release of the latest movie in Sony’s popular Resident Evil film franchise.

More detailed press coverage on Sony’s finances can be found at:

Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Marketwatch

Hewlett Packard:
HP reported revenue for Q2 was up 13% to $25.5 billion. Net income was down 7% to $1.78 billion compared with $1.9 billion for the same period last year. Earnings per share came in at 65c, down 1c over the same period last year. Adjusted for a one–time charge, EPS would have been 15 cents/share.

CEO Mark Hurd noted in the conference call that this was “[HP's] strongest quarterly revenue growth since the year 2000.” The company raised its revenue guidance for the year to a range of $100.5 billion to $100.9 billion, up from its prior guidance of $99 billion.

More detailed press coverage on HP’s finances can be found at:

Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Marketwatch

Long before computers, or blogs, Alexis de Tocqueville sad, “The power of the press is second only to that of the people.”  Yesterday morning, around 11am EST, popular gadget website Engadget demonstrated just how powerful a part of the press blogs have become.

At 11:49am Engadget, which is part of the AOL owned blog-network Weblogs, posted  a story that Apple’s much anticipated iPhone and Leopard operating system would both be delayed by months.  The story was based on a reported internal memo from Apple that Engadget had been forwarded. 

Believing the memo was accurate, and confident the memo came from inside Apple (a “trusted source” they reported), Engadget ran the story.  Like a viral epidemic,  the news of Apple’s delays rapidly spread around the web – through major RSS feeds re-broadcasting the Engadget story, through Engadget’s own direct audience, and through other sites that repeated the apparent news.  Within minutes of the posting Apple’s stock began to drop, quickly falling more than 2% (around $4b in Market Cap) as investors began to sell off and panic.

20 minutes after posting the story, a second announcement began to circulate suggesting the supposed memo was a fake.  A short while later, Apple issued an official release saying there would be no delays with either the iPhone or Leopard and Engadget formally corrected its earlier release.

As the stock chart reprinted here shows, the volume spike and price drop were short-lived. Apple’s stock price largely recovered, and it did so quickly. Shareholder’s who didn’t panic were likely unscathed. Other’s who pulled the trigger based on trading behavior were not so lucky. Apple closed down on the day only $0.18 despite hitting an intraday low of more than $5 a share below its opening price.  (AAPL was also trading up in after-hours trading).

There will no doubt be ongoing investigations to determine if the hoax was related to some hacking or break in into Apple’s mail systems, a malicious act, or any form of market manipulation (either people shorting the stock, buying on the drop – both with straight equities or options and other derivatives). At this point there have been no released statements and it’s much to early to even guess what motivated the hoax, or how it happened. Those facts may take months to come out, if at all.

It’s no shock that news travels fast in our connected world but the pace at which the news effected the market was remarkable.  It’s a certainty there will be rumblings and grumblings from all sides over the next week – not to mention a few calls of criticism about the blog-o-sphere and journalistic integrity.