investor

Web leaders on economy: Keep calm and carry on

NEW YORK--The crowds at the Web 2.0 Expo seem to have one clear consensus on what they think of this week's Wall Street meltdown: things are bad, but it's no time to panic.

Of course, they're all pretty relieved that the tech industry can't be blamed for this economic meltdown.

"This is a very good time to start up a company," investor David Rose of the New York Angels firm said in a panel called Starting Up in Silicon Alley. "Despite the calamities that are going on outside, the world is not coming to an end."

The current financial crisis is less than a week old, after all, so the outcome is less than certain. Most of the conference crowd chose to be cautiously optimistic.

The Jacob Javits Convention Center is only a few blocks from Wall Street. Yet at the Web 2.0 Expo, it was mostly business as usual: marketing, monetization, branding, social advertising, and a Microsoft-sponsored party on Wednesday night where the centerpiece was an ice sculpture that dispensed vodka shots.

Standing at his company's booth on Thursday afternoon, one representative of a Web-based nonprofit organization shook his head with disapproval. "Not enough people are talking about it," he said. We all know what "it" is.

In fairness, it's a stretch to say everyone was twittering while Wall Street burned. The underlying attitude at the Web 2.0 Expo was one of sober acceptance, realizing that conducting business in 2008 is more difficult than it was in 2006.

I'm very worried," said Majid Abai, CEO of the community software start-up Pringo. "When the economy is down, investment in technology is down."

There's reason to be concerned: financial-services companies are often cutting-edge technology buyers, and the mess on Wall Street makes it unlikely that big brokerage houses (at least the ones still standing) will be spending on anything nonessential anytime soon.… Read more

Google News snafu leads to airline stock plunge

What was the unlikely culprit behind a 75 percent drop in United Airlines' stock on Monday? An erroneous Google News search, that's what.

The problem was that an investor news service, the South Florida-based Income Securities Advisors, found a Chicago Tribune article from 2002 via Google News and consequently included it in that day's news digest--which wound up on Bloomberg's news wire. The content of the story wasn't the sort you want to be publishing if it isn't true: that United Airlines had filed for bankruptcy. Considering the state of the airline industry today, it … Read more

Did Photobucket's investors break the rules?

There's something funny going on in the venture capital world: a tipster pitched multiple media outlets the story that some sketchy business had surrounded the early-stage investment in photo-sharing site Photobucket, a 20 percent stake in a company that eventually was acquired by News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media for about $300 million.

The Wall Street Journal, coincidentally also owned by News Corp., ran with the tip. The publication explained that an early investment in Photobucket had been made on behalf of Insight Venture Partners' executives, excluding the investors in the firm--which include, among others, the endowment fund for … Read more

How many strikes before a tech CEO is out?

In baseball, you get three strikes and you're out. As for technology CEOs, that depends. It depends on the magnitude and visibility of their screw-ups, the aggressiveness of the board, all kinds of things.

Sometimes it just takes one event, if it's big and hairy enough. On the other hand, I've seen CEOs swing and miss dozens of times for years on end, and they're still in the game.

Let's take a look at five recent examples of CEOs getting canned and see what we come up with:

Patricia Russo of Alcatel Lucent. It came as no surprise when Alcatel Lucent announced on July 29 that CEO Russo would step down. She had a decent run at the helm of Lucent, but the 2006 merger with Alcatel has been a disaster for both companies. This is a great example of one huge, high-visibility strike doing a CEO in. Incidentally, Chairman Serge Tchuruk is out, as well.… Read more

Time Warner: Hiding AOL woes under Joker makeup

In an investor call Wednesday, Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes focused on the old media. You probably would have, too, if you could downplay AOL's dial-up business in favor of the late Heath Ledger's acclaimed performance in The Dark Knight.

Television and film at Time Warner are indeed beating Wall Street's expectations. The record-breaking Batman film, while its financials won't be reported until the third quarter, is on track to become the second highest-grossing movie of all time (behind 1997's Titanic). At the same time, HBO miniseries John Adams was a critically acclaimed hit, the … Read more

Netflix chief: DVD business to peak in 5 years

SAN FRANCISCO--Netflix is banking on the belief that streaming movies to people's living rooms is the future.

CEO Reed Hastings said during Netflix's investor day here that he expects the business of renting physical DVDs to peak within the next five years. However, Netflix representatives later said they forecast that DVDs will remain strong for at least a decade.

The company also plans to experiment with pricing, including both increases and decreases.

Netflix, however, is already moving beyond DVDs. Its $99 set-top box for streaming movies came out earlier this month, generally to positive reviews.

Hastings said that … Read more

Icahn sues for access to Motorola documents

Updated 8:10 a.m. Pacific time to include Motorola's offer to Icahn of two board seats.

Carl Icahn is still dogging Motorola. On Monday, the billionaire investor said his investment company, the Icahn Group, filed a lawsuit intended to force Motorola to hand over documents related to its mobile devices business and use of corporate aircraft by senior managers, board members, and their families, Reuters and other news agencies reported.

Saying the information will help him determine what Motorola's board should have done to help the company right its ailing handset business, Icahn added that he intends … Read more

Who do you trust in the Internet age?

My last post - Don't be a sucker when it comes to stocks - ruffled quite a few feathers among investors of a certain stock. There were comments and emails - mostly calling into question my journalistic integrity - but a few of them also told detailed stories about the company's situation. That's today's topic.

Just like people, every company, every stock, has a story, and everybody tells it differently. In each story there are facts, an anecdote or two, and of course, opinions. Some of them are so fascinating that people write articles, entire blogs, or even books about them.

But when you're considering joining or investing in a company, or buying a product, how do you know which stories to believe? Everybody's famous in the Internet age, so how do you know what information to base your decision on. It's harder than you think.… Read more

Yahoo: We'll double our cash flow

This post was last updated at 7:37 AM PT.

Claiming that it is both undervalued and underappreciated, Yahoo has fired some key financial forecasts over the bow of an acquisitive Microsoft.

On Tuesday, Yahoo reported the contents of a presentation to investors detailing the company's strategy for the next three years, as seen in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The presentation was first shown to investors in December 2007, prior to Microsoft's announcement that it planned to acquire Yahoo. But on Tuesday, Yahoo underscored the contents of the presentation as evidence that Microsoft's unsolicited takeover bid, … Read more

The word on Wales' Wikipedia woes

Sex. Money. Incriminating instant messages. From the news that's been pouring in recently, you'd think Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales were the tech industry's own Client No. 9.

In a series of embarrassing peccadilloes that were originally relegated to gossip blogs like Valleywag, Wales' failed relationship with former Fox News commentator Rachel Marsden took center stage when Marsden "leaked" some of their online chats to the Web and made quite the public display of auctioning some of his clothes on eBay. The usual blog storm followed: photos of other women with whom Wales had reportedly been … Read more