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About a two years ago I made my first foray into the blogging world by way of few comments on Roger McNamee’s blog: The New Normal. At the time, Mr. McNamee was promoting his new book and writing regularly on the site. His observations and his reputation, led to some ongoing discussions that included the thoughts of a wide range of people, including some high-tech executives like Marc Andreeson and Jeremy Allaire (founder of Brightcove, which was just beginning).

I was intrigued and as a passing experiment wrote a reply to two of Roger’s posts, one on Sarbane Oxley where Roger’s speculated the law was influencing corporate earnings guidance, and the other a post of Roger’s about the direction Internet video. With just a toe-in-the-water of blogging, I wrote both pieces anonymously using only an email address (lookingglass@gmail.com) to identify myself.

My replies were an experiment, but after recently seeing what I wrote in some old files, for the sake of nostalgia, and to own what I originally wrote, I decided to reprint my posts as well as links to the original discussion here on Metue today and tomorrow.

Today, Sarbanes-Oxley issues from February 2005(tomorrow net video):

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Tivo (Nasdaq:TIVO), the pioneer in digital video recording, announced earnings yesterday for the quarter ended Jan 31.  The Company reported a quarterly loss of $18.7m (.19c a share) versus a loss of $21.1m (.25c a share) for the same period last year.

Net revenues were at $77.6 compared to $60.1 a year ago. Revenue excluding hardware sales, service and technology was up 22% to $57.4m

For the entire fiscal year, Tivo reported a net loss of $47m on revenue of $259m compared to a loss of $37m on revenue of $196m for the prior year.

With subscription numbers, an important metric of performance for a company like Tivo, Tivo added 101,000 net new subscribers but lost 91,000 customers previously gained through satellite TV provider DirecTV.

In various statements analysts are expressing concern about subscriber metrics.

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

Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Marketwatch

With rumors of mergers and acquisitions still swirling, Tribune Co. today sold the two smallest (by circulation) newspapers in its portfolio to Gannett. The Greenwich Time and the Stamford Advocate have modest readership but are in premium advertising market. (As much as any newpaper ad market could be considered premium in the currently difficult print ad marketplace.

At a sales price of only $73m, the transaction is small for Tribune but it fits with the company’s stated goal of liquidating at least $500m in non-core assets. The sale may or may not help with Tribunes ongoing effort to sell itself as a whole.

Friday  I spoke about the latest trend in Web 2.0 book-marking technologies, "Social Clipping Services" like Kaboodle, and Google Notebooks.  As a consumer, I love the features these companies are providing.  Any tools that make my routines and work easier are welcome.   But as a business analyst?  Yesterday I couldn’t restrain my skepticism.   

Maybe I’ve been watching too much of the National Geographic Channel but I see companies offering solely these services and the image I have is: a Manhattanite dropped in the middle of an African Savannah with a Swiss Army Knife and a smile.  The New Yorker may make it out alive, but odds are against it. 

Yesterday, I excluded discussing aspects of Clipping Services geared toward retail and merchandising .  My goal was to stay on topic (Media Entertainment and Technology) and avoid tangents.   I focused only on using the tools for interacting with news and published data.  Clipping services which provide a retail/merchandise focus neither fit my broad focus of media, entertainment and technology convergence, nor yesterday’s narrow focus of working with published data on the web over extended periods of time. 

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For a writer, strategist or researcher, or anybody looking for information with purpose, the internet is a phenomenal tool.

Even if search engines only provide access to less than 1% of what’s out there on the web (see Bright Planet white paper on Deep web), what is accessible is, on its own scale, overwhelming.    It’s also overwhelming to work with. 

Who hasn’t run even an obscure search only to be bombarded with thousands more results than wanted, not counting the irrelevant, the unwanted, or the obtuse. And what do you do once you’ve found what you were looking for? Print outs reams of pages? Cut and Paste a quotation from a document to another? Manually plug stock quotations into a spreadsheet?  Or maybe you bookmark a page for later, even though basic book marking functionality is nothing more than a questionably organized archive who’s files sometimes get lost (page not found error?).

Admittedly, none of this matters if the question is a one time thing like the lowest airfare from New York to Boston, or whether the Red Sox beat the Yankees at Fenway. The challenge is with data reused over time like:  if you’re writing a business plan and need reams of market data; if you’re a Venture Capitalist trying to evaluate that business plan; if you’re an analyst, an amateur journalist, a compulsive vacation planner, a student …. if you are anyone looking for more than instant gratification.   

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Entertainment conglomerate Viacom (NYSE: VIA), reported Q4 numbers easily beating analyst estimates. 

Net income was up to $480.8m compared to $129.5m.  Revenue increased 32% to $3.59b.  Operating expenses were up 20% to $2.76b

Movie business showed profits of $86.3m on revenue of $1.57b.  DreamWorks added $560m to the topline.  TV businesses which include MTV, Comedy Central, and Spike TV saw positive earnings growth of 11%

Compared to last year, the numbers were helped by Viacom’s $1.6b purchase of DreamWorks. Viacom also faced charges in last year’s Q4.

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

Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Marketwatch

DreamWorks Animation SKG (NYSE: DWA), announced a Q4 net loss of $21.3m (20 cents a share) compared to positive income of $63.2m (61 cents) in the prior year.  Sales were up 18% to $204m.  The loss was less than the average analyst expectation.
For the full year profit was down 86% to just $15.1m from $104.6m in 2005. 

In an ironic decision, given the title of the movie involved, the company lowered the value of its Flushed Away production by $109m after the movie’s British style humor failed to woo US audiences in theaters.  As a result of the failure, and past write-downs for Chicken Run (2000) and Wallace & Gromit (2005), which came from the same partnership, DreamWorks ended its partnership with UK based Aardman Animation Ltd.

With production costs on animated features exceeding $100m on average, plus marketing expenses upwards of $125m write-downs for under performing features can be a large drag on earnings. The release of Shrek 3 in May and Bee Movie later in 2007 are expected to provided upside.

With the release of earnings, DreamWorks Animation also announced a $150m stock buyback.  Paul Allen, of Microsoft fame, remains the company’s largest shareholder with approximately 21m shares, an amount equal to roughly 25% of the equity.

More detailed press coverage of DreamWorks Animation’s finances can be found at:

Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Marketwatch