Groupon hires away from Google, Amazon
Though Groupon has yet to confirm, PaidContent is reporting that Margo Georgiadis, a VP of global sales operations at Google, is to be the new COO at Groupon. The highest-ranking executive in the Chicago-based Google corporate office, Georgiadis fills a Groupon position recently vacated by Rob Solomon. Jason Child, the recently-hired Groupon CFO, had been VP of finance for Amazon.com’s international business.
Simply Hired receives $4.6 million in funding, now profitable
Esteemed online guru Rafat Ali reported this morning that job search engine SimplyHired has received $4.6 million in a new round of funding, led by IDG Ventures and Foundation Capital. The MountainView California-based SimplyHired, whose mission is to build the largest online database of jobs on the planet, has now secured a total of $22.3 million in funding including 43.5 million from Fox Interactive Media, owned by News Corp. SimplyHired has earmarked the money for an additional 30 staff and for international expansion.
“Job search is a global problem, and Simply Hired is committed to reaching both active and passive job seekers globally at both SimplyHired.com and at other online destinations through our network,” said Gautam Godhwani, co-founder and CEO at Simply Hired, in today’s announcement. “IDG Ventures enables Simply Hired to continue to expand its international footprint with additional resources and facilitates our relationship with the global network of 450 IDG online properties.”
Simply Hired crossed a profitability milestone, operated cash flow positive for the last 4 quarters, and had record revenue growth for the past 16 consecutive quarters, according to the announcement. The company recently launched localized job search engines for Brazil, Belgium, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands. The job search giant now operates in 13 countries and seven languages across five continents. Other global markets include Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Spain and the United Kingdom. The funding will enable Simply Hired to extend its global reach into new markets, allowing job seekers worldwide to search more than five million job openings.
Here’s some recent AIM news about SimplyHired.
A look at yesterday’s media stock drops
On the day that the Dow dropped below 8,000 for the first time in five years, PaidContent.org took a look at how tech and media stocks fared yesterday. We’ve already been tracking many of these drops for you here, but seeing the one-day crash all in one place is sobering to say the least.
Here’s what’s on PaidContent’s list.
– Yahoo was down yesterday 20.8 percent t $9.14 on Steve Ballmer’s most recent comment that Microsoft would not be making another take over offer.
– Media General lost nearly 30 percent of what was left of its value, closing at $2.96.
– McClatchy dropped nearly 22 percent to $1.51.
– Google dropped 5.8 percent to $280 – relatively decent on a dark day.
– New York Times Co. was down 10.3 percent to $6.35.
– News Corp dropped 4.8 percent to $6.55.
Maybe today will be a better one?
Will paid content return in a down economy?
Are pay for content walls about to go up again? A presentation at PaidContent.org’s Future of Business Media conference this week suggests it’s a possibility.
The Economist’s Web site Economist.com already charges for articles more than a years old. Now publisher Paul Rossi says that charging for content could be just the right model for a looming recession: ”The growth in online advertising is slowing. Is this the return to paid content online, because advertising becomes less a driver for the business? It will be be interesting to see if paid content comes back online because the model is changing.”
The Economist never really liked online ads in the first place For ads to be effective, they have “to be interuptive and disruptive” – losing points for user experience.”
Another part of The Economist’s pay for content strategy: launching on Amazon’s Kindle which charges users a small fee to receive as-it-happens updates for selected magazines and blogs.
Impact of Wall Street crisis on online advertising
PaidContent.org’s David Kaplan takes a look at what this week’s Wall Street crisis means for the online advertising industry. Kaplan says that the fall of Lehman Brothers, Bank of America’s planned rescue of Merrill Lynch and insurer AIG’s debt problems won’t have any immediate affect on online ad spending and that expenditures are expected to remain stable since, reports Kaplan, “the industry has already been bracing itself for a wider economic retrenchment that started in earnest last year when the mortgage lending crisis first hit ground.” He quotes WPP Group CEO Sir Martin Sorrell as saying: “Far too early to assess, but expect continuation of current trends.”
Kaplan feels that while Lehman and Merrill were “essentially non-participants” in the online ad space, AIG may have more of an effect, as it has been a fairly large online spender.
The poor economy has already been factored in to estimates. Last month, for example, eMarketer revised its 2008 online ad spend forecast downward to $24.9 billion. That estimate was slightly lower than the one eMarketer released in March 2008, which said that US online ad dollars would hit $25.9 billion this year.
Paul Levine, VP products and marketing for ad marketplace operator Adbrite, points out that online is in a lot better shape than it was after the 9/11 market hit. “The online market is filled with much more diverse categories. Tech, cell phones, travel and e-commerce spenders are still big online, even in the face of growing pressure to pullback.”
Nevertheless, the news isn’t all bad. Forbes.com CEO Jim Spanfeller says that “a possible silver lining is that we might now actually be close to the bottom of this cycle and over time an improving economy will help everyone.”
Newspaper-sized E-Reader unveiled to public
Plastic Logic, an electronic paper display technology company which last year received $100 million in venture funding, is publicly showing off its new electronic newspaper reader.
The device, which was introduced at the Demo conference this week, and on which both the New York Times and PaidContent.org are breathlessly reporting, is the size of a piece of copier paper and can be continually updated via a wireless link. It can store and display hundreds of pages of newspapers, books and documents.
The Plastic Logic device uses the same highly legible black and white E-Ink display technology as the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader. E-Ink does not use LCD technology of computer monitors and televisions; that means it doesn’t have a back light but at the same time, it can be viewed in high sunlight like at the beach.
The display of the new Plastic Logic unit weighs just two ounces more than the Kindle but is about twice the size. The device is thinner than a pad of paper.
The reader is slated to go on sales in the first half of next year. The New York Times reports that the display is big enough to provide a newspaper-like layout, though Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta says the device was originally positioned to display business documents.
Amazon’s Kindle already does newspapers, but it’s harder to navigate in a smaller book size format.
Which newspapers will be on the Plastic Logic device? We’ll have to wait until the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January to find out. That’s also when the company will reveal pricing.
For now, check out the company’s Demo presentation here: http://www.demo.com/demonstrators/demo2008fall/147390.html
Plastic Logic’s device is not the only digital reading device focusing on the newspaper market. PaidContent.org reported earlier this year on a venture called FirstPaper which is backed by Hearst Interactive.
The company, based in Palo Alto and New York, is developing on the Linux platform and will run some version of the Firefox browser. PaidContent.org points to an article in the Seattle news site Crosscut that this past July referenced the Hearst-backed device and said that the screen would be “almost as big as a tabloid paper.” Hearst quickly denied the report. The company does distribute electronic versions of some of its newspapers on the Kindle.
Hearst seems to be hedging its bets: the company is also an investor in E-Ink.
Another device that can read newspapers is the iRex iLiad which is 8.5 by 6.1 inches. The Netherlands-based company has deals with Les Echos in France and NRC Handelsblad in the Netherlands.
The holy grail of e-newspapers, of course, would be a flexible display that can be rolled or folded like a newspaper. That’s still years off, says E-Ink. But a display with moving images and clickable advertising should be ready in just a few years, the New York Times quotes E-Inks VP for marketing Siriam Peruvemba as saying. Color should be ready by 2010.
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- Apartments.com Offers Tips for Living Together this Valentine’s Day
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- Groupon Announces Fourth Quarter 2011 Results
