Recruiter-Rater

We're getting ready finally to launch paidContent:UK, the UK-focused site we have been promising for a while now. The site will focus on UK, and to some extent on Europe; like our other sites, paidContent:UK will cover the economics of digital media, both online and mobile. Look for it the first week of September; subscribe to the newsletter and you'll be the first to know when the site launches. More after the jump…

This will be the fourth news site in the ContentNext Media network, after paidContent.org, mocoNews.net and ContentSutra.com.

Joining us in this new endeavor are two UK-based journalists and a business executive:
-- Robert Andrews, who has been freelancing for us for a few months, is coming on full time as the editor of paidContent:UK. A former BBC News journalist, Robert has written about technology, digital media and culture for more than a decade. He is a regular contributor to Wired News and Blogging4Business, previously reported online journalism and e-commerce for Journalism.co.uk and E-consultancy, and has written for titles including New Media Investor, Digital Home and PC Plus. He has appeared in Time , Los Angeles Business Journal and on BBC radio, has taught online journalism to university students and has worked to develop social media for marketing and business communication. You can contact him at robert AT paidcontent.org

-- Ingrid Lunden has joined us as a contributing correspondent, and primarily be writing on mobile for MocoNews.net and paidContent:UK. Most recently, she was the editor of Total Content + Media and before that an editor and reporter for Total Telecom. She is a Russian-born American currently based in London. You can contact her at ingrid AT moconews.net.

-- On the business side, Raj Kotecha has joined as our Director of European Sales and Business Development. After completing his MSc in Technology Management at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in 2003, he moved to Toronto to establish one of the first third-party mobile content portals, working closely with carriers and the entertainment industry.  Recently in the UK he has been working with clients Warner Music Entertainment, NBC Universal and Pathé in devising their mobile offering for movies such as Hot Fuzz and Outlaw .  As a long time music collector and DJ, he is familiar with working nights, which is great as 9 a.m. Santa Monica time is 5 p.m. London time, he opines. If you are interested in coming on as a charter launch sponsor to be part of the buzz, e-mail him at rdkotecha AT contentnext.com. 

Top headlines of the week from our two sister site MocoNews.net and ContentSutra:
MocoNews.net:
-- A Setback For The White Spaces Spectrum Lobby From Google, Others
-- Amp'd Mobile's Customer Buyout Approved By Judges; Amp'd Gets 25 Percent Stake In Prexar
-- Viacom Rebrands Mobile Music Channel In Japan From Flux To myMTV; Adds Social Networking
-- Breaking Down Walled Gardens: iPhone Not The Only Solution
-- CBS To Include Ads In Its Mobile Video Services

ContentSutra:
-- TV18 To Buy 50% Stake In MTV India For Rs. 200 Crore
-- HR Issues In The Digital Media Industry
-- HT Media Transfers Non-News Digital Properties To New Subsidiary: Medialab Web Solutions
-- Shekhar Kapur Eyes 32 Percent Returns From New Media Fund
-- Planet M To Allow In-Store Digital Downloads As CD Sales Wane; Entering DVD Rental Business

Everyone and their mother in law has numbers proving one side or the other: whether making WSJ.com fully open, ad-supported instead of subscription makes sense or not. WSJ publisher Gordon Crovitz told us earlier this week: "So far, our analysis says the way to maximize revenues and earnings is to have a mixed model."

Now Lehman Brothers analyst Doug Anmuth does a detailed number-crunching and analysis of the scenarios if WSJ.com became open, something Murdoch has indicated in the past he would like to see: "We believe almost 50% of the site's revenue is derived from subscriptions, [but] we believe the incremental advertising revenue derived from a larger user base could ultimately make up for lost subscription revenue over time. The shift, however, could potentially have a more meaningful impact on current financial news incumbents, including Yahoo! Finance, MSN Money, AOL Money & Finance, and CNNMoney.

Some estimates from the report:
-- The total online division of DJ, which includes MarketWatch and several other properties, will generate an estimated $115 million in advertising revenue in 2007.
-- Of the ad revs, about $75 million (+13% Y/Y) is generated by WSJ.com. In addition, WSJ.com will generate roughly $65 million (+11%) in subscription revenue in 2007, putting advertising/subscription revenues at a 54% / 46% split, or $140 million in total.
-- MarketWatch will generate roughly $40 million in advertising revenue in 2007
-- An average page view on WSJ.com currently commands almost 4x the ad revenue of a page view on NYTimes.com.

Then the likely impact of making WSJ.com free:
-- WSJ.com would have to increase page views by 2x – 3x, which is unlikely in the near-term, even as a free site, but longger term it should be viewed in context of News Corp's big online reach.
-- A potentially free WSJ.com poses the greatest immediate threat to Yahoo! Finance, AOL Finance, and MSN Money.
-- If News Corp moves more aggressively toward building out WSJ.com's national and political news coverage (which has been suggested), we believe the competitive threat would extend further to the general news sections of the portals, including MSNBC and CNN.
-- "Based on our estimate that 10%-15% of the display advertising at the major portals is driven by the finance verticals, we estimate that at Yahoo!, Yahoo! Finance will drive $160 million - $250 million in 2007, or applying a 45% EBITDA margin, roughly $75 million - $115 million in annual EBITDA. Using similar assumptions, AOL Money & Finance will drive $98 million - $150 million in revenue and MSN Money will drive roughly $50 million - $70 million in revenue. Therefore, in aggregate we estimate the 3 major portals could drive roughly $350 - $450 million in 2007 advertising revenue – representing a key opportunity which a recharged WSJ.com could pursue."

You can download the full PDF here

Dow Jones (NYSE: DJ) filed its 10-Q late today with SEC, and not much new info on the digital side, besides some adjustment in the final buyout price for UK-based financial media company eFinancialNews Holdings, which it bought in April. The final price is approximately $63 million, including an estimated working capital adjustment (from the previously reported $51.6 million).
Also, some update on its DJ/IAC Online Ventures announced in March 2007, which it jointly owns with IAC. "This joint venture will create a new personal finance Internet business targeting the broad Web-savvy consumer audience by launching a community-driven Web site that combines the brands, marketing platforms and personal finance content of The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch and other Dow Jones products with the marketing, entrepreneurialism and technology expertise of IAC's businesses, including Ask.com and LendingTree. We expect this venture to be dilutive to our earnings by about three cents a share this year." We had this info back when the JV was announced in March, but this means they are still working on it seriously. My guess (and only my guess, nothing more) is that with News Corp acquisition, this venture may not necessarily see the light of the day, or will be merged with the open WSJ.com (if it happens) or MarketWatch.

ContentNext Media is an independent media and information company based in Santa Monica, California, covering the business of digital media. The company operates three award-winning sites: paidContent.org, mocoNews.net and contentSutra.com.

We want to expand our financial coverage by hiring a U.S.-based reporter with a flair for numbers to cover both private companies and public companies, as well as mergers and acquisitions.
The reporter:
-- On the private company side, will track venture investments and crunch numbers based on publicly available information.
-- For public companies, will write about quarterly earnings, cover earning calls, go through SEC filings (primarily 10-Q, 10-K and S-1), and well as some other key financials.
-- Will cover research notes/reports from the Wall Street analysts and some analyst conferences.
-- Will incorporate and add to our industry-leading coverage of deals and companies.
-- Will write primarily for paidContent.org and mocoNews.net, and other ContentNext Media sites as warranted.

Qualifications:
Of course, ease with numbers is key but must be matched with solid reporting skills and proficiency in current financial reporting techniques. 2-5 years experience with a financial or business publication and newswires. College degree preferred. The right candidate will be comfortable working on deadline in a breaking-news environment and will be an independent self-starter who can work virtually with a global team.

Salary: Commensurate with experience, with generous benefits and options.

Location: U.S. (scheduled workday will take NY market hours into account.)

To Apply: Send us your resume and links to clips at: jobs AT contentnext.com

Last week on MocoNews.net, I posted a seminar idea here, and now we're definitely going ahead, based on the feedback: The half-day seminar is titled "iPhone And Beyond: The Content Opportunities", and in a week since I mentioned it, it has become even more relevant, in light of FCC's spectrum auction ruling. Our focus is on content, and how media companies can now see the landscape change and the opportunities to come.

The date: Sep 18. The venue: The swanky new Landmark Theater in West LA. Time: 2PM-5PM followed by cocktails. We're aiming for about 150-200 attendees. The ticket registration will open up around Aug 15th...more after the jump…

The formal description: This seminar for content executives will examine opportunities with the launch of iPhone and how it is shifting views of the mobile content platform, and the larger developments in the industry with emerging consensus on open networks and free flow of content. Now that the iPhone is here, how does it move the industry forward? Also, what do the iPhone's omissions say about the progress that still needs to be made? What kind of services can the industry hope for, as the handset evolves into an open platform? Will we ever see a device which marries iPhone's UI and screen with Helio Ocean's keyboard and communication/IM capabilities, and has the multimedia recording and camera capabilities of Nokia N95, and then run on a 3G-Wi-Fi network? How does all this affect the media and entertainment industry?

This half-day seminar will focus on the practical problems and conceptual leaps the industry needs to make to enable open content and communication services on handsets and networks. The iPhone isn't the only handset designed to enhance media use, only the most hyped. What are others doing that works? What doesn't and why? Can content truly thrive in a maze of closed systems? How will operators play into the open-content market?

We'll start on the speaker selection process now. If anyone has any suggestion, let me know at rali AT moconews.net. Also, if you want to underwrite the effort, ping our ad side as: advertising AT contentnext.com.

Our generous sponsors till now: Telephia.

The BBC's new iPlayer has gotten off to a flying start. The broadcaster reports that in its first week, more than 120,000 people have downloaded the beta version of the service. The BBC predicts that it will have 500,000 downloads in the first six months of service, and that it will account for 11 percent of all catch-up and simulcast viewing by 2011.

Channel 4 also predicts that it will soon reach 500,000 users for its on-demand service 4oD. Both the iPlayer and 4oD are based on peer-to-peer technology, which has had a bad rap because of its more notorious association with illegal file sharing. "P2P has certain connotations in the industry. But then [the industry] realizes why people are illegally using P2P --the answer is that it is the most advanced, sophisticated and efficient way to distribute content if done legitimately with digital rights management," Jeff Richards, vice president of digital content services at Verisign, the technology firm behind the service, told the Guardian.

Limelight Networks is the high performance content delivery network for digital media. Limelight's massively scalable, global delivery solutions are uniquely tailored to those doing on-demand and live delivery of video, music, games and downloads to broadband and mobile audiences.

Limelight leads the industry in "Delivering the Digital Lifestyle".

Billboard is augmenting its ranking of digital music sales for its Hot 100 chart formula by including weekly streamed and on-demand music data from Yahoo and AOL Music. The magazine began factoring in the sale of digital tracks in February 2005, as measured by sister company Nielsen SoundScan from a comprehensive panel of online merchants. As part of its expansion to include more streaming music, Billboard is currently negotiating with other online music sources, including digital music service Rhapsody. Under the new Billboard Hot 100 formula, radio play will average about 55 percent of the chart's total points, digital for about 40 percent, and streaming media for 5 percent. While streaming media is relatively small, it's still well ahead of sales of physical singles, which will account for less than 1 percent of the chart's new formula. Release

Related

• Billboard's Ringtones Chart Launching Next Month

Estonia's Ekspress Grupp, a media company with newspapers, magazines and information services, has bought Delfi Group, which operates seven web portals in the Baltic region, for EUR 54 million ($74 million) from Interinfo. Delfi runs portals in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia and, most recently, Ukraine with around 700,000 daily users and has almost half of the online ad market for the entire Baltic, so Express' acquisition gives it plenty of clout farther afield than just Estonia itself. Delfi did EUR 6 million ($8 million) in revenue in 2006; the acquisition is funded by Ekspress' recent IPO and a bank loan. Asides from websites for its print publications, Ekspress already operates car portal Expressauto, property site 4seina and youth entertainment zine Weekend.ee from its dedicated internet unit, which opened in December 2006. (Via Thomson).

YouTube has announced a series of partnerships in Japan - but the country's copyright advocates fear producers could still lose out. Google VP David Eun told a Tokyo news conference the site had forged partnerships with six Japanese companies including satellite broadcaster Sky PerfecTV and rising social network Mixi, who will both link to the site; Casio also unveiled a digital camera that uploads to YouTube. The site launched a Japanese version when it unveiled nine international localizations in June, and Eun said youtube.jp is now the most popular after the US.

But Google's moves in Japan have not soothed local concerns on copyright abuse, which mirror those elsewhere. Instead, some are already criticizing the video fingerprinting technology Google this week said would be online by September:
AFP" title="AFP">AFP:  "We believe the technology Google plans to introduce will not be good enough," said a spokesperson for the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, , adding a second round of negotiations, in which he urged YouTube to act tougher on abuse, yielded no progress. "What's important to us is what YouTube can do immediately. We have no guarantee whether the new technology will even work," he said.

AP: Composer Hideki Matsutake at a separate press conference on Thursday: "YouTube has to stop how it runs its site and get rid of the illegal clips. We want them to reset the service. There is no middle ground. We demand that all copyrighted material be removed immediately."

Related

• YouTube, Google Execs Meet With Japanese Group Over Copyright Complaints
• Viacom-Google Copyright Case Underway; YouTube To Add Video Fingerprinting This Fall
• YouTube Launches Nine Country Sites; UK, Brazil, Japan Included

Online ad networks are coming under closer scrutiny in the UK as the press outs brands for advertising at controversial websites. BBC's Panorama investigation, which this week criticized YouTube for refusing to police "happy slapping" videos, pointed the finger at companies like Peugeot and Carphone Warehouse, who were found to be advertising opposite such violent clips. In response, many brands had booted the advertising network responsible for placing their ads, the documentary said. Now Vodafone is reported to have pulled all its advertising from Facebook after being informed its ads were appearing on the group for the far-right British National Party (BNP). (In the UK, the BNP is largely shunned despite having some local elected politicians.) More companies are to follow suit, NMA says, and Virgin Media has done the same. The problem is ad networks that don't sufficiently discriminate when allowing web publishers to place ads (advertisers may be complicit in their ignorance, but the finger ultimately points at the silent middlemen). The solution is for brands to demand those networks refine their systems to offer more control over the destination of their campaigns. 

Reflecting newspaper industry declines in print ads, as well as rising online revenues, The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO) saw Q2 profits drop 12.6 percent to $68.8 million, or $7.19 per share, from last year's $78.7 million, or $8.17 per share. Revenues in Q2 were up 8 percent to $1.04 billion, from $969 during the same period in 2006. The education and cable TV segments were the main sources of revenue, while the publishing and TV broadcast divisions were down. Specifics from WaPo's Q2's earnings results included:

-- The newspaper publishing unit's revenue totaled $227.9 million, a decrease of 7 percent from $245.6 million last year.  Print ad revenue at The Post fell 13 percent to $128.4 million, from $148.3 million in Q206. Classified recruitment ad revenue dropped 22 percent to $13.2 million. The magazine publishing division had $73.4 million in Q2 revenue, a 13 percent decline from $84.2 million last year.

-- Online publishing revenue, primarily from the washingtonpost.com, rose 11 percent year-over-year to $28.2 million in Q2 from $25.3 million.

-- For the first six months of the year, online revenues grew 11 percent as well, coming in at $53.2 million over the same period for 2006, which was $48.2 million. Display ad revenues gained 13 percent and 16 percent for Q2 and for H107, respectively. Online classified ad revenue at the washingtonpost.com increased 11 percent and 8 percent for Q2 and first six months of 2007, respectively. Earnings release

A couple of additional notes from IAC's earnings earlier this week:

Zwinky.com: A lot about virtual worlds in various earning calls this quarter. IAC provided some details on its entrant, Fun Web Products' Zwinky.com: more than 8 million registered users, an average user session of 64 minutes, more than 15 million transactions using Zwinky virtual currency. COO Doug Lebda: "In addition to monetizing through search, there are clearly e-commerce opportunities with Zwinky, as well." Analysts skipped right by it during the call but the NYT's Bits blog followed up: "The catch is to use any of these services, you have to download a toolbar that will install in your Web browser that prominently features a box for searches (by, of course, Ask). The advertising revenue from these searches has become a $100 million a year business ...." Zwinky's still in beta.

Reveille: A small amount by IAC terms but mentioned by CFO Tom McInerney because it had a positive impact on emerging business results—an $8.2 million "non-recurring" gain from an investment in Reveille. The SEC filing puts it a little differently: "Emerging Businesses results were positively impacted by an $8.2 million reimbursement of advances related to the restructuring of our interests in a business venture." I'm told the investment was unwound because Ben Silverman moved from heading the production company to running programming for NBCU. MediaPost has more.

Discovery Streaming: Starting Friday, Discovery is moving ahead with a mixed approach to broadband streaming will stream some ad-supported, full-length episodes of series and specials as sneak peeks and next day; the initial list including Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs, TLC's LA Ink and Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor. The series will be on Discovery on Demand for up to four weeks following their cable premiere. Unlike some broadcast and cable outlets creating their own video players, Discovery will use a player from Move Networks. Release.

ESPN360.com-FIFA U-17 World Cup: ESPN will show the entire FIFA U-17 World Cup—all 52 matches live—by combining coverage between cable net ESPNU and broadband net ESPN360.com, which will stream 29 round robin matches. The two nets aired the entire 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup earlier this summer.

CNN I-Report: Thursday marked the first anniversary of CNN citizen j effort. I-Report, perhaps best known for a widely played eyewitness mobile video taken during the Virginia Tech tragedy, has received more than 45,000 submissions since launch. Another unfortunate example: Wednesday, almost as soon as the bridge collapsed in Minnesota, CNN (and others) started to get submissions. By Thursday a.m., 96 out of 300-plus submissions had been approved for use. The quality varies considerably given variables such as equipment, skill, conditions. One picture by a 19-year-old using his high-school press credentials looked like a Pulitzer candidate. Years ago, including space for user comments became a routine part of major story coverage. Now, observer/participant multimedia contributions are expected, with media outlets immediately soliciting involvement. Yes, YouTube and Flickr are options but a lot of people want their efforts to be part of the media coverage, not apart from it. One drawback: it may be possible to link to specific pictures or to share but, if so, it's not obvious.

That came out today in MTV's parent Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) 10-Q filing for its Q2 earnings: "In the second quarter, the Company recorded a pre-tax impairment charge of $36.0 million to write off its investment in Amp'd Mobile, which filed for bankruptcy. The impairment charge is included in Other items, net in the Consolidated Statements of Earnings." Now you know…

Imported publisher possible: Reports from both sides of the Atlantic that Times of London editor Robert Thomson will be involved in a Murdoch-run DJ. Murdoch has mentioned the possibility of keeping Gordon Crovitz on but Crovitz could remain as president of consumer media without being publisher of the Journal franchise, a job some think Thomson could get. (Better bet: Thomson as some kind of adviser/liaison.) WSJ: "A person close to News Corp. said Mr. Thomson is likely to 'play a part' at the Journal but it wasn't clear exactly how. ... A person close to the situation said Mr. Murdoch has no intention of replacing any of the senior management." Crovitz was less oblique with the Journal than he was with us yesterday, saying he would like to stay.

DJ Newswires: Murdoch told the Journal in an interview that he wants to develop the wire service "aggressively." WSJ: "The unit, which employs more than 850 journalists and publishes business news and data on about 298,000 English-language terminals world-wide, is one of Dow Jones's most profitable. But its outlook has been clouded by the Reuters-Thomson deal. " Dow Jones Newswires doesn't distribute its product directly to institutions, but instead uses other companies, led by Reuters and Thomson. A combined Thomson-Reuters could make Thomson less likely to distribute Dow Jones's content."

Edit board conflicts? After much discussion, the five-person special editorial committee being established to safeguard the WSJ's journalism post-merger was supposed to consist of people independent of both companies. (Each member will be paid $100,000 per year for a minimum of four meetings, plus expenses.) Turns out the One Laptop per Child nonprofit run by proposed committee chairman Nicholas Negroponte, the founding chairman of the MIT Media Lab, has a $2.5 million donation pledge from News Corp., Reuters reported, and one of the company's execs is on the nonprofit's board.  Negroponte also has described Murdoch recently as a personal friend. DJ told Reuters it did not know of the connection. Another member, Thomas Bray, worked for the Journal from 1964-1983 and more recently wrote for OpinionJournal.com.  A News Corp. spokesman told the Journal both companies perceive Negroponte as independent and said News Corp. didn't care about Bray. DJ: "We are confident of the capability of the individuals to make independent decisions."

For our full and continuing coverage of News Corp buying Dow Jones, read our dedicated section.

Another deal from HandHeld Entertainment, which continues to roll up traffic and content. This time the company is picking up user-gen site eBaum'sWorld for $15 million in cash at closing and a possible total of $52.5 million in cash and stock over three years.

The Rochester, NY-based site was founded in 1998 by Eric Bauman and features video, games, jokes, etc.  According to HandHeld, the site had about $5.2 million in revenue and $1.6 million net income in 2006. In the last 12 months, the site claims tan average time per user of 10 minutes. Last year, Wired called it "one of the few viral sites actually making money" with annual ad revenues of $10 million. But the same story also highlighted a problem—accusations that Bauman was making some of that money out of "purloined content."

Financial terms: The financial details are complicated: $15 million in cash when the deal closes, which is expected later this year, $2.5 million in Handheld stock at the closing with an additional $2.5 million in stock if targets are met. Also, possible earnouts of another $15 million in cash and $17.5 million in stock over three years if various milestones occur. This is all based on a multiple of 6X.  To finance the deal , HandHeld has an agreement to raise $24 million in debt with $15 million going for eBaum's World and the remaining $9 million in reserve for future M&A, working capital and fees.

Synacor, the Buffalo, NY-based online portals and IS services provider, has filed for an IPO to raise $86.25 million. Underwriters are Deutsche Bank Securities, Bear Stearns & Co. Inc., Thomas Weisel Partners, Canaccord Adams and Montgomery & Co., and it is seeking a Nasdaq listing under the symbol "SYNC." The full S-1 is here.

Synacor builds and runs "portals" or home pages for mid to small sized ISPs....for example, Charter Communications relies on Synacor for its portal at Charter.net. Recently it signed a deal to provide premium online services to Time Warner Cable's Road Runner subscribers. Its content providers include, among others, CinemaNow, CNN, Encyclopedia Britannica, Fox Sports Interactive Media, MLB Advanced Media, MusicNet and Nascar. It was founded in February 2001, as the result of a merger between two Internet tech companies Chek.com and MyPersonal, both founded in 1998. The company recapitalized in 2002, and has since raised three rounds. Intel Capital is one of the main investors, with a 11.8 percent stake. Others are Walden International, with 26 percent, Crystal Internet Ventures with 22.5 percent, and Advantage Capital Partners with 15.8 percent.

For Q1 this year, Synacor reported a loss of $820K, compared with a loss of $297K the year-ago period. The company reported revenues of $8.7 million, compared with $5.9 million in the year-ago quarter. Its Google-reliance factor, from the filing: "Google-related revenues accounted for approximately 49.7% of our net sales in 2006 and 46.3% of our net sales in the three months ended March 31, 2007. Our agreement with Google, which was renewed in July 2006, expires in July 2008, unless we and Google mutually elect to renew it."

PEHub: Synacor has raised around $54 million in VC funding since 1999, including a $17 million Series C round last year at a post-money valuation of around $100 million. Shareholders include North Atlantic Capital, Mitsui & Co. and return backers Crystal Ventures, Advantage Capital Partners, Walden International, Intel Capital and Rand Capital. 

Related

• Portal Content Distribution Firm Synacor Gets $17 Million
• Synacor Receives New Round of Funding; Signs 19 New Syndication Partners
• Synacor Receives $6.5M Round

Yahoo plans to overhaul its scattered video offerings in the face of YouTube dominance by offering a single channel for music videos, movie trailers, television shows and sports highlights. Also, Yahoo's photo-sharing site Flickr will be adding video.. In an interview with Bloomberg, Mike Folgner, the GM for video, said that the internet portal's approach to video has been to offer video "everywhere you are on the internet." The new philosophy rests on creating a single destination where users can access Yahoo's far-flung videos.

So far, Yahoo has an existing deal with Universal Music Group.  It has newer content deals with AP and CNN, as well as sports leagues such as the NFL ad MLB. "We already have a lot of these deals,'' said Folgner, who joined Yahoo when it bought video site Jumpcut last year. "We just don't service them in one place so you don't see them. We'll be able to drive a lot of traffic at this." Yahoo certain has room to grow in that area. According to comScore rankings, of the 8.36 billion video streams viewed in May, Google, which acquired YouTube last year, was number one. It accounted for 21.5 percent of viewed video streams, while Yahoo was a distant third at 4.6 percent—behind Fox Interactive (including MySpace) with 8.1 percent.

-- Besides a new focus on video, as CEO Jerry Yang continues the 100-day review he began on July 17, Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck guesses that the company is strongly considering making a move toward social networking. In a 22-page report titled "Yahoo's 100 Day Review: What Should Yahoo Do Regarding Social Networks?" Peck succinctly answers his report's question by stating emphatically that Yahoo needs to step up its initiatives in this area—through acquisition or partnership—relatively soon, or risk being marginalized in some of their businesses. Attempting to provide a roadmap for what it could cost Yahoo to acquire a social net rather than build one from scratch, Peck offers Facebook as a suitable yardstick to measure other independent community sites against. He estimates the social net's current value as ranging between $5-$6 billion. The full report is available here as a PDF.