Logo de la MGM

Desde el momento en que se avisó que la MGM sería vendida en partes, las diversas empresas interesadas se habían movido de forma sumamente discreta, pero al acercarse la fecha de la subasta, están comenzando a dar señales de vida. Al parecer, las más interesadas son News Corp y Time Warner, aunque ninguna de las dos ha especificado que es lo que esperan llevarse. Quien está más seguro es Fox, que sigue firme en su interés de adquirir la franquicia de James Bond, pero si bien no ha mencionado alguna otra compra a la vista, tampoco se podría descartar. Por lo pronto, tendremos que estar alertas, pues los movimientos económicos van a ser sumamente complicados.

AOL is putting the finishing touches on a high-tech system for mass-producing news articles, entertainment and other online content, the linchpin of Chief Executive Tim Armstrong’s strategy for reviving the struggling 25-year-old Internet company after Time Warner spins it off next month. Mr. Armstrong’s goal is to make AOL, which has been losing visitors and revenue, a magnet for both advertisers and consumers by turning it into the top creator of digital content. He hopes to do so in part by turning some media and marketing conventions on their ear, and potentially blurring the lines between journalism and advertising. AOL is betting it can reinvent itself with a numbers-driven approach to developing content, based on what Web-search and other data tell it is most likely to attract audiences and sponsors. Instead of waiting to sell ads until an article or Web video is produced, AOL—which has scores of niche sites, such as beauty and fashion site Stylelist, in addition to its AOL brand—says it plans to offer marketers the chance to work with its editorial team to create custom content. AOL says that its ad model will allow advertisers to be affiliated with the content but not control what is written or created. Media experts and others say that disclosing when articles or videos have been shaped by advertisers will be crucial to AOL’s credibility.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703300504574565673001918320.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Nếu bạn là một nhà đầu tư chứng khoán, trước khi quyết định mua cổ phiếu, bạn cần phải hết sức cẩn trọng. Ðặc biệt là cần tính toán kỹ và xác định xem cổ phiếu của công ty đó có giá trị hay không. Tốt nhất là nên nắm được cách thức đầu tư và an toàn nhất nên chọn các công ty đã có những thành công và tiếng tăm nhất định trên thị trường.

Nói thì rất dễ, nhưng để tìm ra được những dấu hiệu quan trọng giúp bạn nhận biết việc đầu tư của mình có chính xác và khôn ngoan hay không lại không đơn giản chút nào. Dưới đây là cách thức và các dấu hiệu giúp bạn nhận ra các cổ phiếu có giá trị trên thị trường.

Đầu tiên, bạn hãy lập ra một danh sách các công ty lớn, đã phát hành cổ phiếu ra thị trường. Sau đó bạn sẽ thường xuyên theo dõi sự lên xuống giá cổ phiếu đó trên thị trường.

Tuy nhiên, để xác định đâu là một công ty lớn, cổ phiếu của nó sẽ có giá trị trên thị trường, bạn cần phải căn cứ vào năm dấu hiệu phân biệt quan trọng sau đây:

1. Có thương hiệu nổi tiếng và uy tín trên thị trường

Trước hết, bạn hãy nghĩ đến các thương hiệu nổi tiếng trên thế giới mà chủ sở hữu của nó đã đầu tư vào sản xuất trong đất nước bạn, dưới dạng các công ty 100% vốn nước ngoài hay các công ty liên doanh. Ví dụ như General Electric, Microsoft, Apple, Marlboro…, đó là những thương hiệu được xếp hạng trong 40 thương hiệu nổi tiếng nhất trên thế giới, theo sự bình chọn và đánh giá của Tổ chức tư vấn thương hiệu Interbrand. Dấu hiệu này rất quan trọng, đảm bảo sự thành công trong kinh doanh của công ty này trên đất nước của bạn, và hiển nhiên cổ phiếu của họ chắc chắn sẽ có giá trị trên thị trường. Nếu bạn quyết định đầu tư vào cổ phiếu của những công ty này, mức độ rủi ro sẽ rất ít.

2. Kinh doanh những sản phẩm và dịch vụ có ý nghĩa

Bạn hãy tìm kiếm những công ty mà sản phẩm, dịch vụ của chúng thực sự là nhu cầu thiết yếu và là sở thích của người tiêu dùng. Các công ty dược phẩm: ví dụ  như hãng dược phẩm khổng lồ Novartis của Thụy Sĩ chẳng hạn, những sản phẩm do công ty này sản xuất ra như thuốc bổ Calcium và dầu nong… bán đắt như tôm tươi. Bất kể khách hàng là người lắm tiền nhiều của hay không dư dả lắm, họ đều sẵn sàng mua những sản phẩm như vậy.

Tại sao vậy? Bởi kinh tế ngày một tăng trưởng đã khuyến khích người dân có nhu cầu chăm sóc sức khỏe cao hơn. Đồng hành với sự thịnh vượng kinh tế là xu hướng ngồi làm việc tại chỗ trước màn hành vi tính nhiều hơn. Trẻ em cũng không thoát khỏi xu hướng này. Các nhân tố đó sẽ dẫn đến tình trạng béo phì, tăng huyết áp hay tiểu đường, khiến nhu cầu sử dụng thuốc gia tăng.

Bên cạnh đó, các hãng khác như Coca-Cola hay Yum!… cũng là chủ sở hữu những sản phẩm rất được người tiêu dùng ưa chuộng, và chắc chắn chúng sẽ còn được mua nhiều.

3. Thu nhập chắc chắn và đáng tin cậy, tăng trưởng trong bán hàng và lợi nhuận chính đáng

Tức là trước khi quyết định đầu tư vào cổ phiếu của một công ty, bạn nên xem xét ba vấn đề cơ bản của công ty là: thu nhập; lượng hàng bán ra trên thị trường và lợi nhuận.

- Về thu nhập, bạn có thể sử dụng một số chỉ tiêu sau để đánh giá sự chắc chắn và đáng tin cậy của công ty:

+ Chỉ số thu nhập trên một đơn vị cổ phiếu – EPS (Earning per Share): thu nhập dòng hay lợi nhuận sau thuế có thể được xem xét bằng tổng lợi nhuận hay xét trên một đơn vị cổ phiếu gọi là chỉ số EPS. Một công ty có sự gia tăng về tốc độ tăng trưởng thu nhập khi tốc độ tăng trưởng thu nhập của quý sau cao hơn quý trước. Một cổ phiếu tốt, có tốc độ gia tăng về tăng trưởng thu nhập cao hơn so với ba hay bốn quý trước. Tăng trưởng của chỉ số thu nhập ít nhất là 25% so với cùng quý của năm trước. EPS hàng năm của cổ phiếu tốt ít nhất phải tăng trưởng 25% so với ba năm trước.

Ví dụ: Tập đoàn Johnson & Johnson có thu nhập tăng trong 73 năm liên tiếp, có tốc độ tăng đột biến tiền lãi cổ phần (cổ tức) trong 44 năm liên tiếp, và công khai yết thị thu nhập kiếm được tăng trong 21 năm liên tiếp.Theo bạn, cổ phiếu của tập đoàn này có thực sự hấp dẫn không?

+ Chỉ số thị giá chia cho thu nhập của mỗi cổ phần – P/E là một trong những chỉ số phân tích quan trọng quyết định đầu tư chứng khoán của nhà đầu tư. Thu nhập từ cổ phiếu sẽ có ảnh hưởng quyết định đến giá thị trường của cổ phiếu đó. Hệ số P/E đo lường mốiquan hệ giữa giá thị trường (Market Price – PM) và thua nhập của mỗi cổ phiếu (EPS) và được tính như sau:

P/E= PM/EPS.

Thông thường, nhiều người cho rằng nên chọn mua những cổ phiếu có P/E thấp vì theo họ những cổ phiếu có chỉ số này cao là đắt và không nên mua. Nhưng trên thực tế, những cổ phiếu tốt nhất thường có chỉ số này rất cao.

Hệ số P/E rất có ích cho việc định giá cổ phiếu. Giả sử bạn đang muốn mua một cổ phiếu hiện tại chưa được giao dịch trên thị trường, nhưng chưa biết mua với giá bao nhiêu là hợp lý. Nếu bạn biết thu nhập của công ty này (EPS), bạn có thể lấy nó nhân với chỉ số P/E được công bố trên thị trường giao dịch chứng khoán của nhóm cổ phiếu tương tự như cổ phiếu này, bạn sẽ xác định được giá của cổ phiếu mà bạn muốn mua.

- Về sự tăng trưởng bán hàng: Đây là chỉ tiêu quan trọng nhất để đo lường một công ty có sức mạnh hay không và là nhân tố chính của tăng trưởng. Khi chọn lựa cổ phiếu tốt hãy tìm công ty có tốc độ bán hàng mạnh để làm tiền đề cho tăng trưởng thu nhập. Tiêu chí để xác định công ty có tăng trưởng bán hàng tốt nếu ba quý gần nhất có sự tăng lượng hàng bán lớn hơn hoặc bằng 25% so với quý gần nhất trước đó.

- Về lợi nhuận: có thể đánh giá trên hai chỉ tiêu:

+ Lợi nhuận ròng: đánh giá tỷ lệ chuyển doanh thu thành thu nhập. Trên quan điểm của nhà đầu tư, nên tìm những công ty có sự tăng về tỷ lệ lợi nhuận ròng/doanh thu. Con số này càng lớn thì có nghĩa công ty đang có xu hướng quản lý và các hoạt động khác tốt lên. Tiêu chí để xác định cho chỉ tiêu này là lợi nhuận trước thuế ít nhất đạt 18% doanh thu. Yêu cầu lợi nhuận sau thuế luôn đạt 10% trở lên.

+ Lợi nhuận trên vốn chủ sở hữu (ROE): Hệ số này phản ánh mức thu nhập ròng trên vốn cổ phần của cổ đông.

ROE= Lợi nhuận ròng/Vốn cổ đông hay giá trị tài sản ròng hữu hình.

Hệ số này thường được các nhà đầu tư phân tích để so sánh với các cổ phiếu khác nhau trên thị trường. Thông thường, hệ số thu nhập trên vốn cổ phần càng cao thì các cổ phiếu càng hấp dẫn, vì hệ số này cho thấy cách đánh giá khả năng sinh lời và các tỷ suất lợi nhuận của công ty khi đem so sánh với hệ số thu nhập trên vốn cổ phần của các công ty khác.

4. Chịu sự quản lý và điều hành bởi các nhà lãnh đạo tài ba

Đây là một trong những tiêu chuẩn và dấu hiệu khá quan trọng mà bạn nên tìm hiểu trước khi quyết định đầu tư. Nếu nhà lãnh đạo giỏi, công ty sẽ phát triển đúng hướng và sẽ là yếu tố đảm bảo sự thành công trong đầu tư vào cổ phiếu của bạn. Thậm chí, nếu chẳng may công ty rơi vào tình trạng gay go, trước bờ vực của sự phá sản, nhưng nếu được điều hành và dẫn dắt của một nhà lãnh đạo tài ba, rất có thể nó sẽ vượt qua được khó khăn, quay về đúng hướng.

Richard Parson – Giám đốc điều hành của Time Warner là một trong những nhà lãnh đạo tài giỏi như thế. Ông đã làm được một điều kỳ diệu: giá cổ phiếu của hãng gần như đã quay về mức trước khi rơi vào khủng hoảng, trước khi ông về nắm quyền. Sau cuộc sáp nhập khủng hoảng với AOL trong năm 2001, giá cổ phiếu Time Warner đã rớt tự do. Thế nhưng trong năm 2005, Parson đã dần kéo công việc kinh doanh của hãng truyền thông lớn nhất thế giới này trở về quỹ đạo cũ. Ông đã giải quyết dứt điểm từng vấn đề đau đầu của Time Warner , từ trả bớt nợ, bán bớt các bộ phận làm ăn không hiệu quả cho đến dàn xếp ổn thỏa các các cuộc điều tra liên bang và vụ kiện của các cổ đông.

Bạn có thể tìm hiểu thông tin có ích và ấn tượng về các nhà lãnh đạo giỏi, có uy tín trên các trang web giới thiệu về doanh nghiệp và doanh nhân. Ví dụ, trên trên web www.fool.com, có nhiều tin tức về những nhà lãnh đạo này trên chuyên mục “xác định sự quản lý có hiệu quả” (Identifying effective management) hay “Điều tra về đầu tư” (Investigative Investing).

5. Có lợi thế cạnh tranh nhất định

Trở lại ví dụ của hãng Time Warner và AOL sau khi sáp nhập. Mặc dù trong thời gian đầu, AOL gặp rất nhiều khó khăn, song họ vẫn giữ được nhiều khách hàng trung thành. Tại sao nhiều khách hàng vẫn trung thành với họ? Bất cứ một nhà cung cấp dịch vụ trực tuyến nào cũng muốn cung cấp cho người sử dụng một địa chỉ e-mail miễn phí và lôi kéo khách hàng sử dụng địa chỉ email của mình, chứ không phải của các đối thủ cạnh tranh. Và khi một ai đó đã sử dụng địa chỉ email do hãng của bạn cung cấp, chắc chắn họ sẽ không dễ dàng từ bỏ địa chỉ e-mail của bạn để sử dụng địa chỉ e-mail của một nhà cung cấp khác. Đơn giản là họ sẽ gặp nhiều rắc rối và đau đầu vì thông báo địa chỉ e-mail mới cũng như mất thời gian cập nhật và nhận thư từ từ nhiều địa chỉ e-mail.

Tương tự như vậy, hãng dịch vụ cho thuê phim Netflix của Mỹ là một trong những hãng có tên tuổi và tiên phong trong lĩnh vực cho thuê DVD và bán phim trên mạng internet. Khách hàng có thể thâm nhập vào danh mục các bộ phim mà họ muốn xem và khó có thể từ chối những dịch vụ mà họ cung cấp.

Đó chính là những công ty có một lợi thế cạnh tranh nhất định trên thị trường, mà khi quyết định đầu tư cổ phiếu, bạn có thể xem xét đến chúng.

Sau khi bạn đã xác định được đâu là một công ty mạnh, có triển vọng trên thị trường, bạn quyết định tìm kiếm và mua cổ phiếu của nó với bất cứ giá nào? Đừng làm như vậy. Các công ty chất lượng cao, giá cổ phiếu của họ thường ở mức trung bình. Nếu bạn trả giá cho cổ phiếu của họ quá cao, rất có thể sẽ làm ảnh hưởng đến hoạt động kinh doanh và tổn hại đến thu nhập của họ. Vì vậy, nếu bạn là một người kiên nhẫn, bạn nên chờ đợi thời cơ. Ví dụ: một hãng kinh doanh rất thành công, nhưng gần đây họ bán cổ phiếu với một giá hoàn toàn không quá cao như nhiều người nghĩ. Đó chính là hãng Coca-Cola. Chỉ số P/E của hãng này chỉ xấp xỉ xung quanh 22, thấp hơn mức trung bình trong lịch sử của hãng này.

“Một công ty lớn có giá cổ phiếu không quá cao”, đó chính là một công thức kiếm được nhiều tiền trong đầu tư chứng khoán trong nhiều thập kỷ nay. Bạn nên suy nghĩ về điều này trước khi quyết định mua cổ phiếu của một công ty nào đó.

Tuấn Anh (Dịch từ Motley Fool và tham khảo một số thông tin trên mạng)

Aol’s traffic statistics above show the downward trend in number of page views throughout the past year.  The have recently prepared to split from Time Warner, added lowercase letters to their logo, and launched this new re-branding campaign:

With users increasingly switching to other internet providers and other search engines, Aol seems to be desperately rebuilding their brand.  When the internet first became popular, Aol was arguably one of the most popular internet providers and it seems they have failed to keep up with the times.  What do you think of their new campaign?  Do you think comparing themselves artsy images, skateboarders, and back flips will help drive consumer acquisition, OR is this tactic too little too late?

A AOL cansou da caixa alta e virou Aol. Assim mesmo, com ponto no final. A criação da nova identidade é da Wolff Olins de Nova York, que já prepara uma das pioneiras da internet para sua fase pós-Time Warner.

Além da grafia alterada, a nova marca Aol. é representada por dezenas de fundos diferentes, com objetos e animais como balões, cachorro, peixe, etc.

A Aol., que perdeu muito de sua importância nos últimos anos, estreia a nova identidade e campanha publicitária no dia 9 de dezembro, querendo mostrar que é o “local online com o melhor conteúdo, e ponto”.

Além disso, o novo caminho aponta para combater dois problemas: a vertiginosa queda de receita através de assinantes, e por isso o foco em conteúdo, e a imagem que restou de “a internet que o seu pai usa”, ou melhor, que o pai dos americanos usam, já que a Aol. abandonou o barco no Brasil faz tempo.

Quentinha do Brainstorm 9!

"Lol."

AOL is releasing its ties to Time Warner officially on December 10th of 2009, just before the start of the new 2010 year. This is a bold move, and they declare that their advertising strategies and management of the brand are to be just as strong. Several new logos have been released as the proposed new logo of the company, a far cry from those used in years passed. Their company name has even been altered to conform to mainsteam culture, or at least that’s what I’m proposing this is an attempt at. As can be seen from the picture’s caption, many have already compared it’s decision to lowercase the “o” and “l” of the previously written AOL, to that of “Lol.”, a commonly used abbreviation among instant messengers and texters alike. (Remember: AIM is a deviation of the same company, one of the most used instant messengers, and my messenger of choice).

The Positives: To me, releasing from Time Warner is going to be difficult, and given that the brand, in my opinion, is suffering from lack of integration into today’s socially connected environment, and even from viral marketing, seeing as it’s merger did just that and merged the brand, making it no longer a singuarly used brand name, means that the only way this seperation is going to work for for AOL is by extremely strong marketing and brand identity. Without strong integration and brand identity, and spreading this via the social networking chains, AOL will die alone. This is smart on their part to work to redefine themselves, and basically, essential to their existence.

The Negatives: This is a whole new logo, which is always pass or fail with companies. Brand identity is what defines a brand in the mind of the consumer and places their awareness in the appropriate location. To change is to take a huge step outside of the box and hope to swim and not tie a stone to their foot with a crash to the bottom. Changing something so dramatically involves smooth transition and intense marketing strategies. This can’t be something tossed together overnight, but a well-thought out plan of action. Seeing as this is the first that I’ve heard of the break, and the official date is only days away, I’m truly hoping this isn’t as rash as I have the feeling it might be. It definitely says that to the consumer, and makes one doubt the power behind AOL’s management team.

Noted Problems:

1. As mentioned, this resembles “Lol.” – I hope they plan on being more social network oriented if that’s the approach they were going for. Changing tyography styles or manipulating what was pre-existing is drastic. Sometimes, a change in font type or style is necessary more than just an alteration. Be sure this is truly what you want to say about yourself and that you are prepared to have valid backing for why you chose this for your brand. (Read more about this topic at: http://snippetsection.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/the-font-that-changed-50-years-of-ikea-history/

2. Graphically, I’m not so sure that leaving the first letter capitalized is so wise. It looks a bit off. I would have gone with all lowercase if I kept the same style and font type. This is too similar without a real reason behind it. Any marketer knows that switching your letters around a bit isn’t re-branding. If it doesn’t have some serious validity, you end up causing the opposite effect: a lack of respect for the marketing team.

3. The logos chosen (See more at: http://mashable.com/2009/11/23/aol-logos/) don’t seem to have anything to do with the brand. They remind me of signing into my bank account online and having to pick from the random pictures until I see something I like that I feel fits me, or even a different array of random AIM profile icons. AOL is more than instant messaging, and definitely was defined before, now it looks sporadic and jumbled with no real sense of definition. The bottom 3 are the absolute worse, because they aren’t even true objects to me, just squiggles someone drew out. Did they hire preschoolers to liven up the brand a bit with crayon art? I can’t even tell what half of them are, much less why that should speak AOL to me, of Aol. in this case. Strong brand identity and management of a brand calls for one strong, single, unified symbol that should feel, speak, even sound like that of the brand. When you see it, you should recognize it as AOL’s logo and should understand why you relate it as such. These haven’t even hit photoshop yet… I see halftones and pixels!

courtesy of MediaMemo

As of December 9th, Time-Warner is splitting the sheets with AOL who returns to becoming a publicly traded corporation.  On May 28, 2009, Time Warner decided to cease operations with AOL, and spin it off as an independent company once Google’s shares cease at the end of the fiscal year.  Time Warner reports that its shareholders will receive one AOL share for every 11 Time Warner shares that they own.

By anyone’s account who has used for followed the AOL brand from it’s popularity early in this decade, the brand has continued to struggle to maintain it’s once dominant market share.  Today, the company has made some bold moves to restructure its operations, hiring former Google executive Tim Armstrong to lead the effort to bolster content and functionality.  Don’t count AOL out just yet.

So how has AOL chosen to make this refreshed direction known to their users and the public?  With a new logo, of course, designed by the creative minds at Wolff Olins.  According to AOL’s corporate release:

“The identity itself is a platform for expression and creativity reflecting the content, products and services which AOL offers.  Some of the world’s best creative artists, including Universal Everything, GHAVA and Dylan Griffin created art and animations for the brand.”

The new brand identity will be fully unveiled on December 10, when AOL common stock begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

But will it be enough to reposition the aging brand in the minds of consumers who may associate it with the speed of dial-up?  Only time will tell.

What do you think about this new position?  Does it help you to think of AOL in a new way?

PUEDES LEER AQUÍ EL ORIGINAL

Malos tiempos para ser periodista, recopilando despidos de los diferentes medios

Llevo varios días viendo a través del excelente blog 233grados (forma parte deLainformación.com), como se van produciendo día tras día noticias negativas en diferentes periódicos, principalmente Expedientes de Regulación de Empleo (EREs), despidos o reducción de sueldos.

A modo de resumen detallado, recopilamos aquí los diferentes despidos o EREs que se han producido en los últimos meses y que según el observatorio de la Federación de Asociaciones de Periodistas de España (FAPE) se ha llevado por delante 3.000 empleos en los medios de comunicación españoles :

• AP despide 91 empleados (20 noviembre)
• La voz deGalicia recorta salarios y evita los despidos (19 noviembre)
• 6 empleados menos en ABC.es (19 noviembre), mientras el año pasado despidió 252 trabajadores de su edición escrita (52% de la plantilla)
• Público despide a 16 trabajadores de sus 181 empleados (18 noviembre)
• GPS editora de revistas como Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Muy Interesante o Mía abre un ERE para recortar 93 puestos de trabajo (18 noviembre)
• Cien despidos en la editora de The Guardian (12 noviembre)
• La Región de Orense abre un ERE para despedir 35 trabajadores de sus 203 empleados (10 noviembre)
• 6 despidos en 20minutos.es (6 noviembre)
• Cierre de la Opinión de Granada de Editorial Prensa Ibérica se lleva por delante 45 empleados, 25 de ellos periodistas (5 noviembre)
• Despido de cuatro profesionales de la redacción de la agencia Colpisa (5 noviembre)
• Time Warner despide a 500 personas de sus revistas (4 noviembre)
• La BBC recorta sueldos y puestos directivos (29 ocutbre)
• El New York Times anuncia 100 despidos de su redacción (20 octubre)
• Motorpress Ibérica despide 76 trabajadores (9 octubre)
• …

Como podemos ver los casos de EREs o despidos es considerable y en los últimos días parece haberse acelerado….Estas cifras se añaden a los 46.600 despidos que hubo en los EE.UU durante el año 2008 así como los 4.000 que hubo en España en el mismo año.

A modo de resumen nos encontramos ante un sector en mínimos que genera una gran destrucción de empleo y que añade a la crisis económica un problema grave de modelo de negocio debido al impacto de  internet. En este entorno tan negativo, ¿alguién se anima a ser periodista? Cómo bien dice Silvia Cobo en su blog Lola como mola, emprender es el probable futuro de los periodistas!!!

AOL will launch a new look and logo along with its official spinout from Time Warner (s TWX) on Dec. 10, as it tries to become a content-centric company. Wolff Olins, a global brand and innovation consultancy, worked on this new look and logo which seeks to replace the older, more iconic AOL branding. The minute I saw the logo (and its various interpretations), my first reaction was simple: lame. It is ambiguous at best, and as sexy as the obese, shapeless humans living on Axiom, the flagship of the BnL fleet in Pixar movie “WALL-E.”

Why such a visceral reaction? Perhaps because I grew up with the old AOL (all caps) and am mad at change — a malady normally associated with aging. Jokes aside, the new logo fails to capture what is going to be a smaller, nimbler AOL, one that is represented by a collection of smaller, iconic brands such as Engadget and Joystiq. AOL should ask for its money back!

It was an auspicious occasion, the business titans of the West standing shoulder to shoulder at the dawn of a new century. On the stage of the Shanghai International Convention Centre, in late September 1999, the crème de la crème of business achievement smiled at the hundreds of delegates, both Chinese and from around the world, who had gathered for the Fortune Global Forum.

From AIG’s Hank Greenberg to Viacom’s Sumner Redstone, from Yahoo!’s Jerry Yang to General Electric’s Jack Welch, the three-day gathering was a veritable who’s who of corporate America.

Among the high-powered throng were two other men, perhaps less well known to the crowd. Gerald “Jerry” Levin, chairman of Time Warner, the media giant which had been formed 10 years earlier from the $14bn (£8.4bn) combination of Time Inc and Warner Communications; and Steve Case, chairman of AOL, the dotcom darling which had effortlessly swallowed Netscape for $4.2bn just months earlier.

It was at this rather grand gathering that the first seed was sown. Case pulled Merv Adelson, a long-time Time Warner board member, to one side, and asked him whether Time Warner’s board had thought about merging with AOL. Adelson went straight to Levin, who shrugged and initially dismissed the suggestion. But within three months – after a series of clandestine meetings in New York and Boston and a dinner at Case’s home – the two men announced the $360bn combination of AOL Time Warner on January 10 2000.

One of the world’s biggest media content companies was to merge with one of the largest distributors of internet content – a match made in mergers and acquisition heaven. It was the biggest corporate merger the world had ever – or would ever – see, and the supposed start of an expectant new age where traditional media companies would work hand-in-hand with their internet rivals.

Or at least, that was the theory. But within months – before the merger had even received regulatory approvals – things were beginning to sour. By December 2000, Time Warner issued a damaging profit warning that saw its shares plunge by 14pc within a day. It was downhill all the way from then on, and by the time the two companies formally combined in January 2001, it was clear to insiders that the cultural clash between the two would prove insurmountable.

A decade on, with AOL on the verge of stepping out from Time Warner’s shadow, by means of a long overdue demerger scheduled for December 9, the corporate world now has a chance to assess not only what went wrong, but also what the implications are for the two companies as they emerge from a decade-long corporate headlock – and for the rest of the industry as well.

Levin and Case knew little of one another – and arguably of one another’s businesses – before they struck the deal. An ageing Levin, a lawyer by training, had worked his way quickly through Time Inc’s corporate ranks, and while aware of the need to have an internet strategy, had little idea of the best way to get one.

Case, 20 years his junior, could not have been more different, having worked first in marketing for Pizza Hut, and then at a business which initially delivered computer games down telephone lines and eventually grew into America Online (AOL). A poster child for the internet age, by the age of 40 he had amassed a $1.5bn fortune and was running one of the world’s 25 biggest companies.

In the negotiations for the deal, Case used AOL’s larger market value to dominate Levin. He made sure he would have his key men around him, with AOL lieutenants taking the top financial job and one of the co-chief operating officer roles. Case became chairman and Levin chief executive in charge of operations. Neither man wanted to cede control.

According to Nina Munk, whose book Fools Rush In is the authoritative account of the merger and the subsequent fall-out, “even before the deal was announced, it was clear to just about every insider that this was going to be a fiasco”.

“As one of the top bankers who worked on the deal told me, trying to merge AOL with Time Warner was ‘like trying to mate a horse with a dog’,” she told The Sunday Telegraph.

Munk’s argument is that the deal was motivated not by logic or strategy but by egos, in particular the “fragile ego of an ageing Jerry Levin”. Board discussions quickly became fraught following the merger itself. Ted Turner, a director and the company’s largest shareholder, went public over his dislike of Levin, while Case and Levin came to blows on several occasions. The door to the chief financial officer’s office became a revolving one, with four occupants in three years and by the start of 2003, Case and Levin had both fallen on their respective swords.

The boardroom ructions meant that the new company never really merged. Although each of the two original companies had its own reason for merging – AOL wanted broadband capability from Time Warner Cable and additional content to use across its sites; Time Warner desperately needed a way to digitise its content and reach out to a new online audience – neither strategy was played out in practice.

Integration did not take place – apart from at a corporate level – and as the various business units continued to stand alone, so the expected financial benefits from merging the two companies did not emerge. Negative synergies even developed, as AOL was held back from getting involved with external providers, in part because of a great suspicion of AOL managers by their Time Warner counterparts who believed they wanted to take over the entire company.

One of the biggest blows to the merger was the damaging revelation that AOL had been inflating sales to cope with falling advertising in 2000 and 2001 to the tune of $190m. The company paid a heavy price, with write-downs leading it to report a $98.7bn loss for 2002 – the largest in US history at the time. It also had to pay sizeable fines.

Given all this coincided with the bursting of the dotcom bubble – without which the all-share merger would never have been possible in the first place – it was perhaps no surprise that the men behind the disastrous merger jumped ship, and by January 2003, Dick Parsons, formerly co-chief operating officer, was left to single-handedly sort out the mess. What Parsons started – a slow unravelling of the merger which began with the removal of the AOL name from the merged business in 2003 – his successor Jeff Bewkes has accelerated in the 22 months he has been chief executive.

Where Parsons was heavily criticised for not being swift enough in demerging parts of the empire, Bewkes could not be accused of being slow to act. In his first year fully in charge – Parsons only stepped down as chairman at the end of last year – he has completed the demerger of Time Warner Cable, which produced $9bn in cash which he still has to hand, and paved the way for the impending demerger of AOL.

Unlike his forebears, Bewkes is not a fan of marrying distribution to content, believing the two should be separately managed, and has taken what many view as the correct decision to focus the company on its niche: content. Although a firm believer in the power of the internet in terms of increased viewers and readers, he does not see the need to reinvent content for online readers, rather just repackage and direct it in the best way possible.

Whilst its publishing division, the Time magazine business, is struggling – sales fell 18pc in the three months to September – Bewkes has recently dismissed suggestions that he might turn most of its 23 magazines into online-only operations.

When it comes to television, Bewkes believes in what he calls “branded networks” – that speak to specific segments of the audience. In the US, the business, through its Turner division, has a stable of strong cable channels including TBS, which positions itself as the home of comedy, TNT, the home of drama, and CNN, the home of independent news. The content-led strategy flows through into Bewkes’ remaining two divisions – premium content cable channel HBO and film business Warner Brothers – and is one he is set on.

To date his strategy appears to be paying off and while third-quarter results showed a slight dip in profits, he told investors the outlook for 2010 would deliver “steady and attractive” returns, perhaps why Time Warner’s share price has risen almost 50pc since the start of this year.

AOL’s future, however, does not look as bright. Although the strategy of chief executive Tim Armstrong is almost identical to that of Bewkes, focusing on content and increasing on-site advertising, the challenges he faces are more significant. Not only is he in the process of asking just over a third of AOL’s 6,900 workforce to take voluntary redundancy, but he also has to get the outside world to understand not only that AOL actually still exists, but what it stands for today.

At the recent Money and Media conference in New York, Armstrong stressed that AOL would not be the unfocused one-time internet behemoth of the past. Instead, he said he wants it to be the king of content, content people might not readily realise belongs to AOL. The company has slowly acquired a wide and varied network of news websites and blogs, from special interest news sites like Politics Daily and Blogging Stocks, to locally-focused news sites like the “Patch” sites currently operating in New Jersey and Connecticut. He’s also focused on delivering video content online, and is a strong believer in the power of social networking tools to deliver content, through the likes of Bebo and also AOL’s popular AIM and ICQ online chat tools. The theory is that the content and its viewer-base will drive advertising, in particular banner and display advertising.

But that’s where the mis-match is between Armstrong’s rhetoric and reality. What he does not really talk about is the fact that the “vast majority” – according to Time Warner’s recent results – of AOL’s profits come from its dying internet access subscription business. That business lost 2.1m users in the year to September 2008, and now has just 5.4m users and counting, downwards. The media business, which relies for some of its web traffic on the access business, loses approximately $600m a year. Unless Armstrong can work out how to replace those profits – and quickly – AOL’s financial future looks highly uncertain.

Just as AOL finally emerges from Time Warner’s shadow, two other media companies look set to travel the same rocky route. Comcast’s advanced discussions with General Electric about a joint venture with the industrial conglomerate’s NBC Universal division is exactly the marriage of distribution and content that failed at AOL Time Warner.

And just as they did nearly 10 years ago when that merger was taking shape, Wall Street’s technology and media analysts are getting over-excited at the prospect of Comcast and NBC joining forces, in spite of the lessons of the recent past.

It would “accelerate new business models, momentum for online authentication, new approaches to on-demand and online windowing content, and interactive advertising initiatives,” wrote Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Cohen in one note. Very few have sounded caution, although Macquarie’s Ben Stretch did note earlier last week that there appear to be growing “howls” about the deal, arguing that “vertical integrations fail to add value”.

Some media giants appear to have learned from the mistakes of their rivals, with Sumner Redstone’s Viacom spinning off CBS and creating Viacom’s cable networks business, while Barry Diller’s IAC has demerged a number of smaller entities to provide value for shareholders and strategic focus. Yahoo!’s decision to essentially hive off its search engine to Microsoft and focus on big-name advertising clients is somewhat similar.

Indeed, although not directly related, the lessons of the financial crisis are also prescient here. Some argue that the marriage of consumer banks to investment banks in the 1980s and 1990s created a toxic atmosphere which led to the creation of derivative products and the absence of risk management, the after-effects of which are still being felt. The excess and lack of forethought seen in the AOL- Time Warner deal is similar to this.

In a corporate world where big has always tended to be seen as better, perhaps the implications of the fall-out from the AOL-Time Warner fiasco might stop other business leaders wandering aimlessly down the value-destructive path trod by Case and Levin 10 years ago. The titans were brought down to Earth with a crash.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/6622875/Final-farewell-to-worst-deal-in-history—AOL-Time-Warner.html

I commute everyday from Chappaqua to 11th Avenue and 57th Street in New York City. I like my commute, but last Monday was special. When I got off the Shuttle at Times Square I saw and heard the black bluegrass band performing one of those quadruple time reels in perfect sync with the frenetic commuters. Then when I came out of the subway at Columbus Circle, I got the first view of the trees in front of the Time Warner building all lit up for the holiday season. These were not ordinary lights, but ice cool blue diamond strands finely decorating every branch. It was pure magic. Then, as I walked down 58th street between 10th and 11th Avenues, I heard, saw and felt a posse of mounted police at full gallop run past. I love New York.

Glenn Britt made 15 million dollars last year and can’t relate to the pain most families are going through.

Gefunden bei heise.de:

19.11.2009 16:41

heise Jobs

AOL streicht 2500 Stellen

AOL macht sich schlank für die Börse: Im Zuge der geplanten Umstrukturierung sollen rund 2500 Jobs gestrichen werden. Wie das Wall Street Journal am heutigen Donnerstag berichtet, will sich die kurz vor der Abspaltung von der Mutter stehende Time-Warner-Tochter von mehr als einem Drittel der Belegschaft trennen.

Insgesamt sollen jährliche Kosten in Höhe von 300 Millionen Dollar eingespart werden. Das Unternehmen beschäftigt derzeit rund 6900 Mitarbeiter.

Sollten im Rahmen des derzeit laufenden Abfindungsprogramms nicht genügend Mitarbeiter “freiwillig” das Unternehmen verlassen, werde AOL kündigen müssen, sagte AOL-Sprecherin Tricia Primrose der Zeitung. Time Warner will die ungeliebte Internet-Tochter nach acht verlustreichen Jahren in die Eigenständigkeit entlassen und an die Börse bringen.

Der spektakuläre Zusammenschluss von Time Warner und dem damaligen Internet-Star AOL auf dem Höhepunkt der New Economy war eine der größten Fusionen der Branche, entpuppte sich dann allerdings als kapitaler Fehler. AOL hatte sich Time Warner für 160 Milliarden US-Dollar im April 2000 einverleibt und schuf so den Riesen AOL Time Warner. Nach dem die Dotcom-Blase geplatzt war, strich der Konzern das “AOL” im Herbst 2002 wieder aus dem Namen. Als Zugangsanbieter verlor AOL in den letzten Jahren rasant an Bedeutung und hat sein Geschäftsmodell im vergangenen Jahr voll auf den Portalbetrieb umgestellt. (vbr/c’t)

The women-centric collection of sites is shaking up the web — and traditional media.

Lisa Sugar's celebrity blog morphed into an online empire. Photo: Sugar Inc.

The state of affairs in publishing is beyond depressing. Unless, of course, by publishing you mean the shiny new online-only startups who are behaving as if it were boom times for journalism. An example is Sugar Publishing, the 3 1/2-year old blogging company that focuses on young women. Run by the husband-and-wife team Brian and Lisa Sugar, the San Francisco company has 12 sites, 114 people, and boasts an online audience that’s approaching that of Time Warner’s (TWX) People.com (almost 8 million monthly visitors in October for Sugar versus 12 million for People, says comScore).

It gets better. According to Brian Sugar, his little company will be profitable this quarter as well as all of next year. What’s more, only half the company’s revenues come from advertising against the work of its journalists — a shocking figure given that traditional media companies get, well, all of their revenues from their scribbling. “Editorial is a marketing expense to drive people to something bigger,” he says.

Sugar started as former ad-agency media-buyer Lisa Sugar’s dream to be a writer. In 2005 she created a celebrity-oriented blog, PopSugar, which, once it started picking up steam, told her marketing-veteran husband that she was on to something. By this point the online world already was littered with sites that mimicked what trade publications have done forever. Sports sites also were plentiful. The “women’s” category was wide open. Sugar added additional sites, focusing on fashion, beauty, food, mommying, and the like. Along the way the company attracted a venture investment from Sequoia Capital — which is doing pretty well these days, despite what you might have read in a certain traditional business magazine.

Generalists, not specialists

Two broad themes define what’s cool and exciting about Sugar: the way it does journalism and how it makes its money. According to Brian Sugar, every staff writer is trained on how to do everything it takes to produce a  blog post, from writing and Photoshop to editing videos. That is so antithetical to how it works at big-time magazines, where specialization rules. Sugar’s money-making tactics also signal a break from the past. It recently bought a company called ShopStyle, whose site allows users to shop for products they like and takes referral commissions from retailers. ShopStyle is so popular that Sugar licenses it to other sites, creating a lucrative revenue stream for Sugar off the audience of other online publishers. Sounds like Google’s (GOOG) AdSense, right? Sugar calls the licensing product ShopSense.

More is in store. The company is rapidly building out its video capabilities. It plans to launch a video game on Facebook next year. (Shopping and gaming have similarly addictive qualities to them.) It has sites in the U.K., France, and Germany and plans to open in fashion-conscious Japan next  year. The company also provides a platform for its users to create their own blogs on Sugar’s sites. Brian Sugar says a quarter of the posts on Sugar’s sites are “curated” from blogs on its platform.

Not everything works for Sugar, but online it’s easy to thin the herd. Sites devoted to politics (CitizenSugar) and recommendations (SugarLovin’) flopped, so Sugar killed them.

Sugar is a nascent success and an example of what magazines may become. It doesn’t provide an answer to the question of what will become of long-form journalism, because it chose a segment that wasn’t exactly bubbling over with ponderous feature stories to begin with. All the same, that something is working in publishing these days, and that’s at least some hopeful news.

Wow, gestern war viel los … viel Spaß!

• Das Tamagotchi ist zurück, und es ist bunt!
• Designbewusste Raucher greifen zu dieser Wasserpfeife
• Google Sites Become Prettier With Templates
• Bing Captures Almost 10 Percent Search Share In U.S.
• Microsoft – PDC09: Die Wolke nimmt Gestalt an
• PDC: Microsoft will Details zum Internet Explorer 9 veröffentlichen
• Before You Go Online: Talk to Your Customers Offline
• Vorabversion von Open Virtual Desktop 2 veröffentlicht
• STUDY: Most Fortune 100 Companies Don’t Get Twitter
• Suchmaschinen – YouTube setzt auf Bürgerjournalismus-Trend
• End of an Era: Pirate Bay Tracker Shuts Down
• Persevere 1.0 – Javascript-Application-Server erschienen
• Microsofts .NET Micro Framework wird Open Source
• Microsoft – Beta von Microsoft Office 2010 zum Download
• Digitale Besitztümer als Erbe: Wer bekommt die Passwörter?

• Apple – Apple Tablet: “Das nächste große Ding”
• Location Is Everything: Foursquare’s API Is Proof
• Twitter Opens Up People Search for Twitter Apps
• Google Translate Now Talks and Translates in Real-time
• AOL and Time Warner Divorce on December 9th
• Indect findet Flashmobs verdächtig
• Trash or Treasure? The New York Times Tries Crowdfunding
• HttpTorrents Downloads Torrents via Your Browser [BitTorrent]

(Fortune magazine) — Thanksgiving is upon us. That makes it a perfect time to contemplate turkeys — as in “What a turkey that deal was!”

Almost all of this year’s winners have some connection to the federal government, because the feds have been such a huge factor in the financial markets.

But have no fear: Rising stock prices and cheap money, combined with the greed that is beginning to displace fear, are producing plenty of private sector poults that will be tomorrow’s full-grown birds.

Cash for Clunkers. It was a well-intentioned plan that was supposed to increase consumer confidence, spur fuel efficiency, jump-start the auto industry, and help create American jobs.

Instead it disproportionately benefited foreign car companies, which create fewer North American jobs per auto dollar than the Detroit Three do. And sales came mostly from inventory, doing little to increase production and jobs.

What’s more, by junking clunkers, the program removed many low-end vehicles from the used-car market, running up prices for the lower-income people who’d normally buy them. So we hurt the people most in need of help, while throwing taxpayer dollars down the drain.

As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Citi sells Phibro too cheap. Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) selling its energy-trading business to Occidental (OXY, Fortune 500) seems a prudent sale of a risky operation by a troubled company. In reality, it was a giveaway of taxpayer money because Citi, 34% owned by the U.S., got a crummy price.

Phibro fetched merely its book value — the amount by which its assets exceeded debts. That means no value was placed on the business itself, which had been churning out substantial annual profits.

Citi sold so that it wouldn’t have to deal with whether — or how — to pay Phibro’s top guy his contractual bonus of about $100 million. Alas, Citi’s politically expedient sale, designed to make the firm look good, shortchanged its creditors and shareholders. Another example of how optics can be so expensive.

Selling TARP warrants the wrong way. The smartest part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, as far as taxpayers are concerned, was the Treasury’s getting stock purchase warrants from the institutions that borrowed TARP money.

The dumbest: Forcing the government to immediately sell back the warrants to institutions that repaid TARP loans and were willing to go through a complex pricing procedure.

Consequently the strongest borrowers, with the most attractive stocks, repaid the loans early and got their warrants back just as their stocks were rising. In the real world, the idea is to cut your losses short and let your profits ride. At TARP our gains were cut short.

The Treasury’s most desirable warrants, except for J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), have been sold, fetching $2.9 billion, according to SNL Financial. Even with $1.3 billion (my guesstimate) for J.P. Morgan, warrant proceeds won’t cover TARP’s $2.6 billion loss on bankrupt CIT and failed United Commercial Bank, and its likely losses on AIG (AIG, Fortune 500), GMAC (GJM), and about three dozen other borrowers who’ve missed payments on $2 billion of loans. Next time let’s remember: Take losses first, gains last.

Turkey of the decade. Now that Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500), my employer, is finally dumping AOL, the old America Online, it’s time to close the books on the biggest takeover turkey ever that didn’t end in bankruptcy.

That was Time Warner’s swapping its shares, which represented real assets, for AOL’s bubble stock. The day the deal was announced, Jan. 10, 2000, Time Warner closed at the equivalent of $184.50 a share. After almost 10 years of travail, the $184.50 has shrunk to about $42.25, consisting of one Time Warner share and 0.25 of a Time Warner Cable (TWC) share. The 77% decline is triple the S&P 500’s decline over the same period.

But enough grousing. Let’s enjoy America’s quintessential holiday. May your turkeys be on your plate, not in your portfolio

MediaCensus, the data arm of Morning BRIDGE just recently released data on the number of high-definition launches by provider each week, compared over three months. According to its MediaCensus Chart that shows only HD counts (excludes video-on-demand, pay-per-view and broadcast), launches remain strong,

In the current economic environment, everyone is buzzing that newspaper and magazine subscription rates have been getting killed. And it’s the combination of the rise in social media tools (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc.) and digital content consumption sites (Hulu, broadcast network sites, etc.), and the decline in the global economy that’s leading to a significant drop in discretionary income among households, and movemenet away from more traditional media. Many blogs, research firms such as NPD, and service providers are saying that digital media is not seeing a drop off, and in fact subscriptions are either flat or slightly rising. What many, including the press are failing to miss, is that within certain service providers, revenue per household clearly is falling. Hence layoffs at all the major service providers. I’ve heard this first hand from ex-VPs I’ve run into form service providers like Comcast and Verizon. In cable services particularly, there’s been a drop in revenue realized per household, as consumers cutback on packages and tiers. They may be holding onto the HD tier, but they are cutting back on the number of premium channels, sports bundles, etc. that they used to subscribe to, in order to reduce their monthly spend. It may be as small at cutting $8 per month, but across millions of subscribers, it’s hurting provider bottom lines. It’s not uncommon to see households cutting back to basic cable, especially if one or two spouses have been impacted by job loss.

MediaCensus, is the data arm of The Morning BRIDGE’s parent MediaBiz, and for a complete list of HD launches by provider, you can contact them at info@mediabiz.com for more details.

Time Warner, a media company best known for serving cable customers throughout the nation, today announced the split of the company, currently known as AOL Time Warner, into two separate entities.AOL was best known for being the genesis of the internet and e-mail boom in the mid to late 1990s, with its trademark phrase “you’ve got mail.”

Shareholders in AOL Time Warner will receive 1 share of AOL for every 11 shares of Time Warner that they currently own. The divorce of AOL comes amidst the current CEO’s goal of refocusing the company on news and entertainment.

At the time the deal was consummated in 2000, the merger with AOL was seen to be a grand dream to create one of the world’s largest media firms. The dreams quickly faded with the tech bubble burst of 2001.

Article sourced from USA Today

USA Today Article- AOL Time Warner Divorce

It’s been a long decade, but AOL will once again be an independently traded company on December 9, when Time Warner will spin off shares. Every Time Warner shareholder will receive shares in AOL using the following formula: one share of AOL will be distributed for every 11 shares held in Time Warner. In other words, we finally have an approximate market capitalization for AOL. The business will be valued at 1/11th the value of Time Warner. At today’s market cap of $37.8 billion for Time Warner, based on a closing price of $32, that implies a $3.4 billion market cap for AOL. So the AOL business which was valued at $5.7 billion just last July when Google sold back its 5 percent stake, is now worth even less—not to mention the initial $20 billion valuation when Google first invested in 2005 or, going back even further, the original $109 billion merger with Time Warner way back in 2000.

CNN laid off its four Web anchors on Thursday and said it had stopped producing continuous live video for CNN.com, curtailing one of the Internet’s biggest news experiments. The company, a unit of Time Warner, also said it was making new investments in on-demand video. CNN.com established a broadband channel in 2005, first as a subscription site and then as a free advertiser-supported service. At its center was a live-anchored newscast from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. each weekday that often resembled a minor league rendition of CNN on television, complete with many of the same correspondents and guests. The programming was “very ambitious and very expensive,” said Andy Plesser, who analyzes online news sites as the executive producer of Beet.TV. CNN has seen substantial revenue gains from online video advertising this year, but company officials concluded recently that the live-anchored Webcasts were not cost-effective. Of the roughly 100 million video streams that CNN.com says it delivers each month, only two million to three million of the streams were for the service, called CNN.com Live. CNN.com will still show live streams of events like press conferences.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/business/media/13anchor.html?_r=2&ref=media

As AOL prepares to spin off from Time Warner in an IPO, it wants to gussy itself up so that it looks as appealing as possible tp ublic investors. Today, AOL disclosed that it plans yet another restructuring which could cost as much as $200 million. The biggest cost savings from any restructuring is usually through layoffs, and the latest round has already started at AOL, with 100 let go this week and as many as 1,000 of its 6,000 jobs at risk of being eliminated.

Despite new leadership under CEO Tim Armstrong, AOL has yet to turn around financially.  Last quarter, revenues sank 23 percent to $777 million.  The biggest drop came from subscription revenues to its legacy Internet access business, down 29 percent, but advertising revenues also took a hit, down 18 percent.  AOL depends on display advertising, which has not yet rebounded like search advertising appears to be doing.

By cleaning up house and removing as many costs as possible before the IPO, Armstrong is trying to make AOL as lean as possible. But eliminating salaries and benefits can only go so far. He has to show that his new content strategy can create actual growth as well.

Article @TechCrunch