Silicon Valleywood

Consumer & Media Strategeries at Microsoft January 31, 2007

This FT interview with Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer is a must-read. The NY Times did a really good piece on Ballmer last weekend, but this one is straight from the source. Some good clues on what Microsoft thinks is (most) important, and how it plans to get there.

Today, the big phenomenon that we can embrace – the big fat thing for us to think about, embrace, endorse, compete with – is what does ad-funding mean? Whether it is for search, or whether it is for business-services, or whether it’s for other online services, what does that funding mean as a competitive business model and do we embrace it as is? Do we modify it? Do we just compete with it, with more of a transaction or subscription model? But how we deal with that is a Job One issue.

So rather than say search which is important (and search will be the way people think about it), I would say across the product line, thinking about that business model and how we embrace, extend, change or compete is very important.

Yeah, I think it’s safe to say they still have smart guys running things in Redmond.

I Guess a Stanford MS Doesn’t Count Outside the Colonies January 31, 2007

Quoting the Guardian: “Google, launched in 1998 by two Stanford University dropouts, Sergey Brin and Larry Page…” Ummm, actually, they were PhD candidates. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs — now they were dropouts.

Super Bowl Ads As Cheap Creative? I Doubt It January 31, 2007

This is a pretty silly interpretation of the consumer-created ads that are going to run on the Super Bowl. It’s not about lowering the cost of creative — it’s about engagement, and, of course, riding the hype tide. I suspect the marketers spent as much on creating the contests as they would have on traditional creative. But they’re getting a big bonus in marketing and PR, as evidenced by the story. And who knows, maybe they’ll get a cool ad…

For advertisers, consumer-created content is a cost-savings bonanza. Advertisers are paying more than $2.6 million for the most expensive 30-second spot in this year’s Super Bowl, up from $2.5 million last year. Just to produce a top-level 30-second ad can easily cost more than $1 million. A commercial produced by an amateur, by comparison, can be had for the price of a plane ticket and a trip to the game for the winner and some post-production cleanup for the ad itself.

Best Search UI — Yes, It’s from Ask January 28, 2007

Ask’s AskX experiment is the best UI from a mainstream search engine I’ve seen in years. If the results are good, it’s enough to make me switch. Try the “apple” experiment (Google’s first page of results have nothing to do with fruit, only computers and iPods; Microsoft’s Live Search does better). Woo hoo, faceted results. Why, oh why did AOL abandon using Teoma atop Google results?

I’m not sold on AskCity yet, but this is another great sign of life. But guys, if it’s so “secret,” why is it in the Journal?

New Home for Jupiter Research January 28, 2007

We’re moving. To the Cathedral of Commerce. The tallest building in the world till 1930.

When you come to visit, don’t get lost.

MSN Tidbits from Microsoft 4Q06 Earnings Call January 26, 2007

Microsoft doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about MSN on its earnings calls, but here’s the gist. Online services revenues — meaning MSN — grew 5% year over year to $624 million. But that’s dragged down by the dial-up access business MSN has been exiting longer than AOL has. Advertising was up a solid 20% year to year, and 24% sequentially, to $462 million, according to financial filings. Microsoft said display was healthy, and paid search grew “modestly,” but actually grew for the first time since MSN dissolved its Yahoo/Overture deal. Microsoft hopes to have revenue per search figures back where they were a year ago by the end of the fiscal year (June).

It lowered its guidance for the year, to growth of 3% to 8%, but said ad revenues should be up “in the mid-teens.” Remember, MSN is already halfway through its fiscal year — that ad outlook is comparable to what Yahoo is looking for, but for the calendar year.

Access lost another 100K subscribers from Q1, for a total of 1.8M. MSN ended this quarter with 8.9 million subscribers to other paid content and services.

For those keeping score, MSN’s 20% advertising growth rate was faster than Yahoo’s 15%, but its revenues are less than half the size. Google and AOL results to come next week.

More on Oscars and Long Tail January 25, 2007

Per my prior post, I got this from my Box Office Mojo newsletter. Invaluable site, btw, bookmark it now.

As a whole, this year’s crop of Best Picture nominees had grossed $243.7 million when nominations were announced. While it was a rise over last year’s $186.4 million–which was the least popular group on record–the tally was still relatively low in attendance. For the third year in a row, the Academy did not nominate a true blockbuster, but one movie had crossed the $100 million mark (‘The Departed’) unlike the previous two years.

And if you think the Best Pictures are “obscure,” check out where the Best Actors and Actresses come from. I’m thinking this — and Ellen DeGeneres — means lousy ratings for Oscar night. Memo from ABC to Hollywood: Thanks a bunch, guys.

One More Reason Portals Still Matter January 24, 2007

Google can’t do this. Not yet anyway. Yahoo, AOL, and MSN can. Can MySpace?

The deal calls for each of the three series — “Cooking with Tyler Florence,” “Home Entertaining with Michele and Gia” and “Home Improvement with Eric Stromer — to incorporate a GMC vehicle in the action. In addition, AOL will run pre-roll GMC ads during half of the shows’ streams and static banner ads will be fitted into each show’s home page.

Allegories? Uh, No, They’re Journalism January 24, 2007

Sigh. Ryszard Kapuscinski was a very, very good (New?) Journalist — does anyone call them that anymore? — and a brilliant writer. Read The Soccer War. Not sure what the Times obit headline writers are thinking.