Filed under: Marketing and advertising, Small business

The general sentiment is that online advertising is immune from the travails of the economy (obviously, this ignores the depression for the category in the wake of the dot-com bust). The argument is that the consumers’ “eyeballs” are moving more to Web-based media.

No doubt, this is true. But, this doesn’t mean advertisers won’t still get skittish.

As a result, eMarketer is toning down its forecast for online ad spending in 2008. Instead of coming to $27.5 billion, the revised figure is now $25.8 billion.

OK, that doesn’t sound like much. However, it could be brutal for many companies (especially small ones that rely heavily on ad spending).

Oh, and social networking sites may come under pressure too. Simply put, these sites are having a tough time getting people to click on ads (even though there are many “eyeballs”).

Something else: eMarketer’s revision shows how fragile the economy has become. In other words, things can certainly get worse — and quickly.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

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Filed under: Television, Bear Stearns Cos (BSC)

I’m all for beating up on Jim Cramer — it’s a pastime that I engage in myself from time to time. But right now, he’s taking a lot of heat for screaming that “The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. (NYSE: BSC) is fine. Do not take your money out… Bear Stearns is not in trouble” as recently as March 11th.

Portolio blasted him, rating him a sell, citing his “rant last week that no one should sell Bear Stearns.” But if you watch the actual clip (See below), you’ll see that he was referring to withdrawing money from brokerage accounts held with the firm — Money held with the firm is safe. That’s all that he was saying. I can’t see anything to suggest that he was saying that investors should buy Bear Stearns stock. He was just answering a viewer’s question.

In fact, on March 6th, Cramer said on the Lightning Round that he wouldn’t get behind any banks given the current uncertainty. There’s no reason to jump on him over something that’s a non-issue.

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Filed under: Internet, Blogs, Google (GOOG), About the stock bloggers, Next big thing, Entrepreneurs, Serious Money, Lehman Br Holdings (LEH), Bear Stearns Cos (BSC)

Even though I just recently started blogging in October 2007– after I closed my hedge fund — I first began to understand that there was some real money to be made when Jeremy Schoemaker of Shoemoney.com posted THIS picture of a check for $132,994.97 from Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) as his AdSense income in August 2005.

Later that year, John Chow of JohnChow.com also started blogging about ways to make money online and now he, too, regularly earns $30,000 per month from blogging, all broken down and detailed on his site. Since my monthly blog income on my own personal blog is just a few thousand dollars, I decided to ask John Chow for some pearls of wisdom, here’s the interview:

1. What have been some of the keys to your success?

I think one of the biggest reasons for my blogging success has been consistency. There has never been a single day that has gone by where I did not have a new blog post for people to read. One of the biggest mistakes a new blogger makes is by being an on again off again blogger. You can’t build a blog this way.

Another key is just being myself. I show the good and the bad and let the chips fall where they may. A blog is not CNN or News.com. Your readers are there to read your opinion. You should give it to them instead of just giving the news without an opinion.

Continue reading A $30,000 per month blogger shares his secrets

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Filed under: Microsoft (MSFT), MasterCard Inc’A’ (MA), Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Lehman Br Holdings (LEH), Bear Stearns Cos (BSC)

You can call on numerous issues for today’s big market rally. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) led the brokerage firms higher after beating earnings expectations, and that may have been equally as important to traders as today’s three-quarters of the way interest rate cut when it took Fed Funds down to 2.25%. Many traders were looking for a full 1% rate cut on the Fed Funds and Discount Rate. The Fed even delivered a cut after seeing a strong PPI number that was much more realistic than the CPI number of last week.

• DJIA 12,392.66 (+420.41; +3.51%)
• S&P500 1,330.74 (+54.14; +4.24%)
• NASDAQ 2,268.26 (+91.25; +4.19%)
• 10YR-TBond 3.451% (+0.137%)

The list of 52-week lows is far smaller on a giant rally like this, but as usual there are always some feature stocks that can’t manage to rally. There were some others noted this morning that just failed to participate, mostly from analyst downgrades.

Continue reading Closing Bell: Dow up 420 points thanks to the Fed, brokers back in action

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Filed under: Television, Bear Stearns Cos (BSC)

I’m all for beating up on Jim Cramer — it’s a pastime that I engage in myself from time to time. But right now, he’s taking a lot of heat for screaming that “The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. (NYSE: BSC) is fine. Do not take your money out… Bear Stearns is not in trouble” as recently as March 11th.

Portolio blasted him, rating him a sell, citing his “rant last week that no one should sell Bear Stearns.” But if you watch the actual clip (See below), you’ll see that he was referring to withdrawing money from brokerage accounts held with the firm — Money held with the firm is safe. That’s all that he was saying. I can’t see anything to suggest that he was saying that investors should buy Bear Stearns stock. He was just answering a viewer’s question.

In fact, on March 6th, Cramer said on the Lightning Round that he wouldn’t get behind any banks given the current uncertainty. There’s no reason to jump on him over something that’s a non-issue.

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Filed under: Management, Marketing and advertising, Entrepreneurs

This post is one of several on business heirs apparent. Let us know in the comments whether you think John Elkann should take up the reigns of Fiat, and be sure to check out the other heir apparent posts.

Gianni Agnelli, principal shareholder of Fiat and grandson of the company’s founder had been grooming his nephew to take up the reins of the family business when that nephew died of a rare form of cancer in 1997. Gianni’s grandson John Elkann became the next heir apparent at the age of 22, when he was appointed to Fiat’s board. After Gianni passed away in 2004, Elkann assumed the vice chair of not only the Fiat board, but the board of holding company that controls the Agnelli family stake in Fiat.

Elkann stepped into his new role at a time of crisis for Fiat. Mismanagement and a damaged brand image required a bank bailout to avoid bankruptcy. Recovery meant selling assets, management changes, and reinvesting in the core company. Renewed strength in the struggling automotive division (which includes the Fiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo brands) helped lift the company. Now, among other things, Elkann spearheads the company’s efforts at global expansion.

Continue reading Heir apparent: John Elkann, the new face of Fiat

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Filed under: Microsoft (MSFT), MasterCard Inc’A’ (MA), Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Lehman Br Holdings (LEH), Bear Stearns Cos (BSC)

You can call on numerous issues for today’s big market rally. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) led the brokerage firms higher after beating earnings expectations, and that may have been equally as important to traders as today’s three-quarters of the way interest rate cut when it took Fed Funds down to 2.25%. Many traders were looking for a full 1% rate cut on the Fed Funds and Discount Rate. The Fed even delivered a cut after seeing a strong PPI number that was much more realistic than the CPI number of last week.

• DJIA 12,392.66 (+420.41; +3.51%)
• S&P500 1,330.74 (+54.14; +4.24%)
• NASDAQ 2,268.26 (+91.25; +4.19%)
• 10YR-TBond 3.451% (+0.137%)

The list of 52-week lows is far smaller on a giant rally like this, but as usual there are always some feature stocks that can’t manage to rally. There were some others noted this morning that just failed to participate, mostly from analyst downgrades.

Continue reading Closing Bell: Dow up 420 points thanks to the Fed, brokers back in action

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Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Marketing and advertising

A month from now, on April 19, “hundreds of independent record stores across the country will celebrate Record Store Day.” In addition to the stores, numerous artists will lend their support to the day and some will appear or offer special gifts to lucky fans and attendees. This support indicates what place the CD has even in a shrinking market and where the record industry fits into that market. If artists can still support a dying format and the stores that rely on that product, hopefully fans, listeners, and consumers can find something in it, too.

A kink in the plans of artists like Paul McCartney and Stephen Malkmus to support the day is that while they can appreciate record stores based on experiences in their youths or support the stores by buying hundreds of dollars worth of CDs, young people today may not be as familiar with the entity or have the money to buy that many CDs. This is especially true in the economy right now, but even more pronounced when one considers the ease and availability that digital stores have introduced to accessing and enjoying music and other media from the comfort of one’s own house.

Continue reading Record Store Day tries to slow the digital music explosion

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Filed under: Management, Marketing and advertising, Entrepreneurs

This post is one of several on business heirs apparent. Let us know in the comments whether you think John Elkann should take up the reigns of Fiat, and be sure to check out the other heir apparent posts.

Gianni Agnelli, principal shareholder of Fiat and grandson of the company’s founder had been grooming his nephew to take up the reins of the family business when that nephew died of a rare form of cancer in 1997. Gianni’s grandson John Elkann became the next heir apparent at the age of 22, when he was appointed to Fiat’s board. After Gianni passed away in 2004, Elkann assumed the vice chair of not only the Fiat board, but the board of holding company that controls the Agnelli family stake in Fiat.

Elkann stepped into his new role at a time of crisis for Fiat. Mismanagement and a damaged brand image required a bank bailout to avoid bankruptcy. Recovery meant selling assets, management changes, and reinvesting in the core company. Renewed strength in the struggling automotive division (which includes the Fiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo brands) helped lift the company. Now, among other things, Elkann spearheads the company’s efforts at global expansion.

Continue reading Heir apparent: John Elkann, the new face of Fiat

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Filed under: Industry, Entrepreneurs

A big trend over the past few years has been Web 2.0 (despite the fact that I’m still not sure how to define this malleable thing). However, there haven’t been any IPOs in the sector. What’s more, the M&A transactions have been muted, except for some outliers, such as Time Warner Inc.’s (NYSE: TWX) $850 million deal for Bebo.

Despite all this, venture capitalists continue to pour money into Web 2.0 deals. According to a report from Dow Jones VentureSource, there was about $1.34 billion in investments last year (across 178 transactions). In fact, this was an 88% spike over 2006.

Sounds good, huh?

Perhaps not. If anything, we may be seeing a weeding out of the weaker players and a bigger focus on the winners. After all, Facebook snagged about $300 million in funding. There was also a $44 million infusion for Ning as well as a $49.25 million deal for MyStrands.

Continue reading Is Web 2.0 fading away?

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