“Fair Share”: Google, Trust, Anti-Trust….and What Happens Next

On the other hand, Google is particular has become the gateway of our times. It is the number one sender of traffic to news sites -- 25-35% as a rule. In saying that news companies are free to tell Google not to index them, and that Google will be glad to comply, you can practically hear the ...

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Chronicle Crackdown Prompts Question: Where’s the Bay Area Online Super Startup?

Could the Chronicle indeed go away? Well, don't expect anyone to buy it. The newspaper market is, to use the kind word, illiquid. Frozen solid by two minor problems: 1) the credit meltdown, which will someday ease; 2) no one knows how to hell to value a newspaper company because no one has ...

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APT Launches. Now Let’s Track the Yahoo Bump

Open your windows, and you can almost hear a muted "Yahoo!," wafting out of the windows of many newspaper buildings across the land this week. "Yahoo!," as in the long-awaited launch of the ready-for-newspaper-integration ad platform has begun. Though I have doubts that this ...

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Centro’s Real Cities Signals Online-Only Ad Push, Fueled by Technology

Today’s announcement that Centro is taking over the Real Cities Network isn’t really an exclamation point. It’s more like a period, marking movement between eras. Centro has brought local news websites significantly more revenue over the past several years. Real Cities, on the ...

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Frankly, Candidly, Truthfully: Newspapers CEOs Talk About 2Q

It’s time for second-quarter newspaper earnings reports, with Gannett leading off Wednesday, with the long tale of woe to follow. Given the many newspaper staff cutbacks, which I thought might include the investor relations people, I’ve put together a few boilerplate remarks that I ...

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Yahoo and Newspapers: Playing with Fire

As Yahoo burns, the newspaper industry watches, hoping it won’t get singed. The Google/Yahoo search ad agreement has drawn lots of comments over the past couple of weeks, but its impact on newspaper consortium members has gotten little attention. The deal itself, if implemented, ...

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King of the City Journalism is All the Rage

Consider the new Big City American journalism and the emerging cast of characters owning it. It’s a page right out of the history books when a few well-heeled titans controlled the press, and its new incarnation could have all kinds of implications for the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium, for ...

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The Newspaper Consortium’s MicroHoo Hedge

Everything’s timing, and QuadrantOne’s formal launch may be bolstered by the fortune of events, in this case the Microsoft bear shadowing Sunnyvale. Today, it announced the addition of Newspaper Consortium publishers — adding 138 web sites (both newspaper and broadcast). ...

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Four Things About QuadrantONE

QuadrantONE moseyed out of the gate last week, after a few false starts. It got good ink because it offered good numbers: a potential of 50 million unique visitors waiting to be served in 27 of the top 30 markets. The new network will leverage sites owned by its four co-owners, Gannett, ...

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Rupert and Jerry Could Mean More than “Our Space”

Okay, I’ve pulled myself away from the larger American drama of Barack and Hillary, and her coming "Alamo Firewall." Which brings me to another reality show. Maybe we could call it "Rupert and Jerry’s Our Space." (You know "Our Space is a very, very, very ...

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