Another Online Giant Reported Earnings...

That'd be Time Warner (AOL). Seeking Alpha transcript. Running on the road, no time to fully grok. However, recall that many believe the company (AOL) is being prepped for a liquidity event.

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:33 AM
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Two New Behavioral Ad Firms

Matt has the scoop on Aggregate Knowledge and Wunderloop, both are Database of Intentions-based ad services....

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:28 AM
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Dog Bites Man. Google Crushes It.

Just landed. Everyone knows Google crushed it again. But the stock seems to be priced already for crushing performance, because it did not pop in after hours. In fact, it dipped.

Seeking Alpha has the transcript of the earnings call. It's really worth a read if you want to geek out - esp. Larry and Sergey's comments on search and advertising, and the Q&A from the analysts.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:32 PM
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Google Earnings Preview

Google reports earnings today.

Bear Sterns sent me an earnings note which declares:

Strong Paid Search Growth and International Market Share Gain Reaffirm Positive Outlook

· Paid Search Data Indicate Strength for Google. comScore released the December domestic paid search data yesterday. Google.com had 1.27B sponsored clicks in 4Q06, or a YoY growth of 63%. On a sequential basis, Google.com grew sponsored clicks by 22%. We think the solid sponsored clicks data reaffirm our positive outlook for the quarter. We are projecting $2.22B for Google's 4Q06 total net revenues, or a 71.9% YoY and 18.9% Q/Q growth.

I will be on a plane for the earnings call, so I'll ask you all to let me know how it went in comments. I can only imagine another crushing quarter. With the leverage Google has, it strikes me the real danger is knowing when to pull back.

Earnings call webcast will be here.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:32 AM
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Yahoo's Brand Universe Strategy

I don't get it.

Now, that doesn't mean it's not brilliant. I mean, in 1996, I told my fellow senior managers at Wired that the world didn't need another search engine (we started Hotbot anyway and I'm pretty sure that's the main reason Lycos bout HotWired).

From GigaOm's coverage of Yahoo's media day:

Throughout presentations from the Yahoo Media Group, a part of the new “Audience” division, the key word, uttered more times than we could count, was “promotions.” And so, in both overt and subtle fashion, Yahoo is a company transitioning itself into what’s essentially a marketing platform.....
The most obvious example of Yahoo’s increasing bent towards marketing is its new “Brand Universe” initiative, announced in November. The company will tie together its disjointed properties — such as search, groups, Flickr, Answers, avatars — to lead back to pages about a certain pop culture topic — for instance, Nintendo’s Wii.
..Yahoo says it will launch 100 such pages by year’s end; next up are the Sims, Halo, Lost, the Office, Transformers, and Harry Potter.

It feels off in some way, but exactly how has not struck me yet. Also, the new person who comes in to run the Audience group - a person not yet hired - might not like this idea. Then again, there is something to it that strikes me as an accurate read of today's culture - brands are the new water coolers. Hmmm.

The Yahoo Wii page. More coming soon....

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:25 AM
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