northvalley

There's Still Hope for Focus Media After Sina Acquisition

You apparently have not been to China and are making these assumptions out of your apartment/house some 8000 miles away from China. First of all, FMCN does not get 1 billion dollars cash from Sina, it get 47 million lousy shares of Sina. There is a big difference here. Second, you know how much Chinese citizen got bombarded with all sorts of ads? You cannot even imagine. The ads on are in subways, on the train window, on your hand rail, on top of men's urinals. The point is the effectiveness of these ads are diminishing! Third, you want to know the real reason of this transaction? Is it because Jason Jiang wants to get out. He does not want to run this business anymore. He is 35 and has made enough money. He does not want to deal with the collapse of the ad market and reinvent his company. The notion that FMCN will reinvent itself into an online advertising powerhouse is laughable! Sina is much bigger online vs. FMCN. There are a few other online players like Sina. FMCN does not have the success gene in online, it started off from off-line, mind you!

60% of Google Employee Stock Options Are Drowning

The options are not worthless. Due to the TSO program (Transferrable Stock Option), Google employee could sell stock options, even underwater, to institutional investors.

Vivendi to Control Activision - Game Stocks Rise on News

So why ATVI is not trading anywhere near $27.50? Any risk the deal might fall apart?

Buying Yahoo Ahead of the Alibaba IPO

Yahoo!'s CEO is Jerry Yang, not Wang as you mentioned in your article. <em>(thanks -- fixed. Ed)</em>

Google's AdSense Revenues Are Vulnerable

Not sure what you were talking about. You made it sound like a secret that Google is trying to hide, when in fact, it has been disclosing the percentage of revenue it generates from its AdSense program ever since day 1. Why did you need to look at balance sheet and cash flow but not at Google's website to get the number, duh? It is right there.

investor.google.com/fi...

The the share of revenue from AdSense was around 35% in Q2'07.

Just because Google lost Digg does not mean it will lose "many, many more in the next 18 months". In fact, if you compare Google's revenue from AdSense vs. Yahoo!'s, you will see Google's Adsense revenue increased a lot faster than Yahoo!'s in the past year.

The Bubble Theorists Have Shanghai Wrong

Very insightful.

Post 9-11 Backdating Issues: The War at Home

100% agree

S&P 500's 10%+ Earnings Growth Streak in Jeopardy

Seems like there is a seasonal pattern here, don't you agree? In Jan'06, Jan'05, Jan'04, the % of S&amp;P 500 companies beating estimate has been consistently in the upper 60% range. So what's new about Jan'07?