Rev2.org

A few months ago I migrated all things Rev2 into Google Apps, and  having a startpage, mail, documents, and calendar application at your finger-tips with your custom @rev2.org has been magical to say the least. Now, Google plans to bring this magic and make it easier for schools, teams, and businesses to use the Google applications with the newly launched Google Apps Team Edition.

Notably without Gmail (which is what makes the whole thing a breeze), Google Apps comes with Docs, Calendar, Talk, and Startpage. The way it works is that users’ supply their company, team, or school’s e-mail address and go through the regular process of registering by entering their name, e-mail address, password, captcha, the regular deal. When activated with the original address (so, for example, Google knows I really am a Rev2 employee), users are given access to the features.

Yes, it’s nothing new, nothing world-changing, nothing teams and businesses could try otherwise with the regular Google Apps service. What it does, however, is make getting started, setup, and running a whole lot simpler and easier for mainstream users. Now, users can sign themselves up to their business’ or team’s Google Apps setup themselves and don’t have to pass the administrative hurdle of changing MX records or getting their whole company to switch over and causing the IT department to have a nervous break-down.

What Google is doing in the online office space has to be applauded — being one myself, they are rapidly switching over customers from the standard $400 desktop piece of badware to a new style of collaboration, work ethic, and productivity. If the future and revolution of web office is to be, Google is a front-runner no-doubt. Embedded below is the official demo video.

 Update: BigNews, what looks like a Digg/Techmeme/Newsvine combo, is revealed. See our followup post here.

Digg has been publicly on the lookout for a buyer for quite sometime now with a reported $300 million price tag. IAC, once rumoured to be acquiring Digg, is said to now be working together with the company on a white label solution with their search property Ask.com. Silicon Alley and ParisLemon reported on the rumour earlier.

“I’ve seen it, and it looks great,” Silicon Alley Insider quotes a correspondent. If IAC is working on a user generated content system with Digg, it would have to be in response to AOL’s Propeller, which, while not the market leader, stands as a second or third to Digg and must drive a fair amount of pageviews to AOL’s online empire.

IAC has a strong portfolio in acquiring and working on new web services, and the partnership with Digg — if true — would be a good test in their search for new markets to capitalize in the emergence of Web 2.0. Additionally, Digg has a pageview model which would fit nicely with Ask.com. The company has also once been a sponsor of the related online video podcast Diggnation, which leaves another floating point for rumorists to ponder.

For Digg, which has long been seeking a buyer, it could be that the partnership is a stepping stone of a future acquisition. That said, it might not make sense to be building a separate white-label property now when you’re planning to buy the company itself in a few months. Also, partnering with a competitor of other potential buyers — namely Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL — might not be the best idea at this stage since it may be the show-stopper of a possible acquisition.

We’ll be sure to keep you posted on the rumor.

Wow. Microsoft just issued a press release stating they will be making a $45 billion bidding proposal to buy Yahoo! at $30 per share — a 62% premium on the share price of Thursday. As part of the deal, current Yahoo! shareholders will be able to choose whether to receive cash or fixed Microsot common stock.

If the sale goes through, it will be the Internet’s largest merger since AOL/TimeWarner, and among the biggest ones in history no doubt. This will mean the Internet will spell of one company: Microsoft. Imagine Yahoo! Mail, MSN, Hotmail, Yahoo! News, Windows Live, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Search, Yahoo! Search, Flickr, Del.icio.us, Zimbra, Tellme, Bill Gates, Jerry Yang, Susan Decker, Steve Ballmer, Sunnyvale, and Redmond, and now combine them together — the scale of this is hard to grasp. Something smells of a monopoly.

To Google, this will be a threat at a level it’s never faced before. After yesterdays earnings, I’m sure they’re worrying their pants off to the bank. When it comes to search market share, Microsoft + Yahoo! will own a 27% pie to Google’s 68.1%. Low in comparison, yet for Microsoft a huge 17% gain on its 9% with MSN and Windows Live Search. In their respective advertising properties, the Microsoft-Yahoo! duo will give Google-DoubleClick a good run for its money. And as for their respective sub-services — namely e-mail and news — MicroYahoo will undoubtedly lead the pack.

Release is copied below, full version here, conference call starting soon, I’ll be updating this post as things happen.

REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 1, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) today announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion. Microsoft’s proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock. The offer represents a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock on Jan. 31, 2008.

“We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners.”

“Our lives, our businesses, and even our society have been progressively transformed by the Web, and Yahoo! has played a pioneering role by building compelling, high-scale services and infrastructure,” said Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft. “The combination of these two great teams would enable us to jointly deliver a broad range of new experiences to our customers that neither of us would have achieved on our own.”

The online advertising market is growing at a very fast pace, from over $40 billion in 2007 to nearly $80 billion by 2010. The resulting benefits of scale along with the associated capital costs for advertising platform providers make this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today this market is increasingly dominated by one player. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a competitive choice while better fulfilling the needs of customers and partners.

“The combined assets and strong services focus of these two companies will enable us to achieve scale economics while reaching R&D critical mass to deliver innovation breakthroughs,” said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms & Services Division of Microsoft. “The industry will be well served by having more than one strong player, offering more value and real choice to advertisers, publishers and consumers.”

The combination will create a more efficient company with synergies in four areas: scale economics driven by audience critical mass and increased value for advertisers; combined engineering talent to accelerate innovation; operational efficiencies through elimination of redundant cost; and the ability to innovate in emerging user experiences such as video and mobile. Microsoft believes these four areas will generate at least $1 billion in annual synergy for the combined entity.

Microsoft has developed a plan and process that will include the employees of both companies to focus on the integration of the combined business. Microsoft intends to offer significant retention packages to Yahoo! engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.

Microsoft believes this proposed combination would receive all necessary regulatory approvals and expects that the proposed transaction would be completed in the second half of calendar year 2008.

Microsoft is also committed to working closely with Yahoo! management and its Board of Directors as they, along with Yahoo! shareholders, evaluate this compelling proposal.

Yahoo! announced today they have acquired Maven Networks, a Boston-based startup that provides video-hosting and advertising for big media sites such as Fox, CNET, and CBS Sports. NewTeeVee reports the price to be in between $160 - $170 million. TechCrunch broke the story earlier rumouring BrightCove to be the likely contender.

It’s possible Yahoo! has plans to integrate advertising inventory and technology from Maven with some of its other properties — its own video service and Jumpcut, an online video editing startup it bought shortly after the Google/YouTube deal, being two strong contenders. A demonstration of their ad network capabilities can be found on the foodnetwork.

While I can see Maven Networks fitting in nicely Yahoo!’s other properties, I must admit I am a little surprised that it’s not AOL that got away with the sale (thought, rumours say, it was a part of the bidding war.) With AOL trying to initiate their Platform-A idea, Maven would have been a great addition.

It’s safe to say that Yahoo!’s playing catchup in what seems to be their very dark days. They’ve missed the boat on almost everything that has taken place in the last few years — from search to online video to social networking — and their attempts seem half-hearted and simply unsuccessful. Though with a supposed restructuring in the works, you can’t say the same thing about their up and coming antics. Or can you?

Kara Swisher of BoomTown had some juicy details to reveal today about Facebook, apparently as blabbingly told to all by founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at an employee meeting in Palo Alto Theater. For the record, most of these details are the root of all that question-dodging, executive talk, and light awkwardness in his 60 minute piece and many of the recent keynotes discussions he’s been involved in. Eric Schonfeld of TechCrunch put all these details in a neat list, which I’ll very creditingly steal for Rev2 readers instead of creating my own (again, very creditingly):

•  2007 Revenues: $150 million
• 2008 Revenues: $300 to $350 million (projected)
• 2007 Headcount: 450
• 2008 Headcount: 1,000 (projected)
• 2008 Capital Expenditures: $200 million (i.e., servers)
• 2008 EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization): $50 million
• 2008 Cash Flow (EBITDA - CapEx): negative 150 million.

The most interesting detail, of course, is the fact that Facebook will be running at a negative 150 million cashflow for 2008, despite Zuckerberg’s comments that “something we’ve tried to with Facebook ever since the early days is run at break-even.” Of course, as Swisher points out in her post, that is only because of the recent $300 million Microsoft investment that gives them the thin-air $15 billion valuation.

After playing with some of those figures in my head, I think we can safely expect an IPO around late 2009/early 2010. Call me naive, but if they’re able to run at a -$150 million cashflow and their Microsoft investment gives them $300 million (not to mention any forthcoming ones over the next year) — tell me that doesn’t make clear leeway for an IPO in two years!

Regardless of whether they’ll be running at a break-even or a negative cashflow, one thing is for sure: if Facebook is to IPO, with a $15 billion+ valuation, their current revenues aren’t going to cut it. Through Ads or Beacon, they’re yet to find that killer strategy to make them susceptible to be a successful — or at least profitable — company later on. And with a deadline of 2010, time’s running out.

Back in 2004 Google top three executives made a pledge to all work together for 20 years. This pact was made back in August 2004 just before the company’s initial public offering. The three men involved, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt. All this information was stated in a joint interview for Fortune magazines 4th issue.

“We agreed the month before we went public that we should work together for 20 years,” said Schmidt, who added that he will be 69 years old by that time. Page would be 51 and Brin 50.

Each of the three gentleman are currently billionaires with Schmidt being Google CEO/Chairman, Page is President of Products and Brin President of Technology. This will eventually be a huge hit to Google is all three of these execs actually stick to their pact and leave at the end of 2024.

Google’s stocks are currently hovering around 548, and I don’t expect Wall Street to do any favours for the world’s most valuable Internet company in 2008. Google also has their Q4 2007 results coming out on Thursday so stay tuned for the analysis of those reports.

After having what seems like a decent quarter, Amazon announced today that it has bought audiobook giant Audible for approximately $300 million, or at a price of $11.50 per share. Although two companies have long been in competition with each other, it’s clear the New Jersey-based 200 employee company founded in the dotcom-rush has had the market lead in terms of format penetration and sales.

To Amazon, this will mean a huge bump in assets and presence in digital media. With the help of Amazon, Audible should now be able to offer even lower prices and bring their inventory to a broader audience. In terms of revenues, Amazon adds about $80 million of annual revenue to its income statement through Audible. And now with the help of each other, this number is likely to grow — there are a number of opportunities for both companies to leverage given their position.

Personally, I’m a loyal Audible user and, even though through DRM, find their service to be one of the best server-to-device experiences out there. In all it takes about a minute to make your purchase, around five for the file to download, and a second for it to go into your iTunes library once it has. While I haven’t tried Amazon’s own audiobook service, I can’t imagine it is as good as Audible’s — when it comes to spoken word entertainment, they’ve done nothing but nail the market.

The acquisition seems like another step in Amazon’s strategy to be a viable company in the day and age of new media and Web 2.0. As they revealed through yesterdays’ earnings report, there’s plenty of value in their non-core strategies — like their web services and book-reading device Kindle. While e-commerce is undoubtedly where they make their bread, there’s no saying as to where they’ll get tomorrow’s cake.

Brooklyn-based handcrafts store Etsy which launched back in June 2005 (and I distinctly remember purchasing a T-shirt from when it first crossed my radar) has announced it has raised a $27 million round from existing investors Union Square Ventures and Hubert Burda Media, and Facebook investor Jim Breyer of Accel Partners. From an idea to a company that’s grown to 50 employees in the last couple of years, it’s another milestone for the company.

Joining the board of Etsy will be Jim Breyer, who’ll be alongside Caterina Fake of Flickr and Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures. Having run a break-even since its launch — the revenues of which impressively serves its 50 employees — this is the first time the company will have resources to expand and grow alongside its core business. As co-founder Rob Kalin outlines in this blog post, apart from hardware costs, a significant portion of the investment will be used to fund new features and product expansion — things like a new checkout system, revamped search feature, and expanding to other currencies and languages.

It’s hard to imagine how far that “neat idea with a slick design” I visited back in 2005 has gone to be. And it’s rightly so. What seemed to many (including myself) like a very niche idea, now produces million dollar revenue figures. For sticking with the idea alone, let alone getting it out to the world, having a viable business model, and following a one-of-a-kind vision — the credit and stature of Etsy is well-deserved.

What’s interesting to me is after getting this far, and now with a (lead) Facebook investor onboard, how much growth they will be able to sustain. Certainly, the idea — an online store that sells hand-made goods from people all around the world — has potential to appeal a much broader audience, and while doing great in terms of revenues, is yet to hit critical mass. For example, my mother — as well as I’m sure yours — would love this site, but I can’t see any way she’d find out about it except for me telling her. Getting to a profitable business is one thing, and reaching critical mass is another. The question is, now with the added resources, will Rob and his team be able to carry out the challenge? Certainly, some great rewards wait on the other side.

Are you based out of Paris? Did you download your favorite music collection from Limewire or any other P2P software? According to a new pact between French Internet Service Providers, the government and film and music rights owners, you’re Internet access could potentially be barred.

According to the new agreement, users will receive a warning for each illegal download and if they repeat their “mistake” for three times, they could loose their Internet access.

I’m sure everybody is keen to find out answers two couple of key questions: why & how? Why is this being done? It is being used to target intruders who make multiple copies of music for profit. I’m also trying to explore how the authorities are going to differentiate between a torrent of legal software and copyrighted content.

The deal has invoked mixed reactions from experts and internet users. According to head of recording industry, John Kennedy, “This is the single most important initiative to help win the war on online piracy that we have seen so far”. French president Nicolas Sarkozy says, “The Internet must not become a high-tech Far West, a lawless zone where outlaws can pillage works with abandon or, worse, trade in them in total impunity. And on whose backs? On artists’ backs.”

On the other hand, French consumers’ groups and politicians, say that the deal is too restrictive. Needless to see the average internet user is unhappy. The project has not been voted yet. Before any action is taken there must be a legal complain of downloading on a specific file by the music producer. Not only that, the independent authority has to find downloaders of the file and warn them.

But the question remains: why would an ISP loose on customers? The whole scandal sounds like a breach of freedom of information.

I’m sure this will get the French protesters lining up.

The Dutch Ministry of Justice has temporarily put a ban in place which would restrict its 30,000 workers from accessing Wikipedia at work. It might come across as a shocking news, but the development is not really unreasonable.

The ministry is planning to analyze the misuse of Wikipedia during this temporary ban. It has been reported that 800 Wikipedia entries were edited from the ministry computers.Majority of these changes were minor but some of them did involve political figures and parties. The worst part was that these entries were being updated during work hours affecting productivity during work.

Ministry spokesman Ivo Hommes said, “We’re doing this as a temporary measure while we investigate how much use - and misuse - our people make of Wikipedia, and what we can do about it”.

As a reader when you come across this news, you might find it disappointing as access to an encyclopedia is being limited in the 2.0 era of user-generated content. Similar questions were raised when Telstra had banned its employees from using Facebook. In both the cases worker productivity-loss came as a big issue.

Update: Even Facebook seems to be facing the heat of bans. An update from The MEMRI Blog quotes that Syria has blocked Facebook.