Blodget knows a little more than me

A worthy read on Yahoo and Google from ex Merrill analyst Henry Blodget

Implications of Yahoo! Underwhelm

The key question is whether the revenue deceleration (from 51% in Q2 and 46% in Q3 to 39% in Q4) is:

1) the result of a broader industry slowdown, in which case Google is screwed, too, or

2) the result of Google eating Yahoo!’s lunch, in which case Google will probably have another strong quarter or two.

In any case, the global online advertising industry no longer seems to be growing fast enough to justify the sector multiples–Google’s included. One lesson from 2000 is that, when the rest of the industry is grinding to a halt, the market leader can’t keep going like a bat out of hell forever, no matter how much share it steals.

Posted by Henry Blodget on January 17, 2006 at 05:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)

Google Radio Buy A Big Deal

Okay, this is another big step for Google toward revenue diversification and dominance of all media. Google is buying dMarc Media Networks, which provides an electronic dashboard that allows advertisers to research, buy, and manage radio campaigns on a market by market basis. Depending on dMarc’s performance, Google might end up paying $1.1 billion for it–a boatload of money for most mortal companies, chump change for Google.

So let’s extrapolate: If there aren’t already, there will soon be companies like dMarc for all media: Television, newspapers, magazines, telemarketing, outdoor advertising, etc. Google will buy the leading player in each market. Advertisers will go to Google to design and manage coordinated advertising campaigns across all media–with Google, presumably, taking a cut of every dollar spent on other companies’ media properties (the TV and newspaper equivalent of AdWords for Google Network Partners). Other media companies will continue to manage the expensive hassle of creating content, and Google will monetize it.

The profit equation, in other words, will look similar to the current one on the web: Other companies create the content, Google helps users find it and advertisers find them. In exchange for this service, Google keeps a fat cut of the profits.

Not a bad business if you can build it (which Google seems well on its way to doing).