Posted by: on May 13
In my most recent column, I wrote about the dust-up between craigslist and its minority shareholder eBay, and the lawsuit eBay filed against craigslist last month.
One thing that occurred to me: craigslist is plainly unhappy with eBay (and its craigslist-esque free classifieds service kijiji), but buying out eBay's roughly 25 percent stake would probably cost something like $1 billion.
And either borrowing that or finding a different investor to buy out eBay could likely force all manner of changes on the ridiculously successful, ridiculously homespun site.
Unless, of course, craigslist decided to countersue eBay--which they did earlier today in San Francisco--and among other things ask:
Continue reading "craigslist Countersues eBay"
Posted by: on May 12
Here is the one thing you need to know about the Cablevision deal for Newsday.
This publicly traded company was up against two moguls, who each owned a nearby newspaper. Both Mort Zuckerman’s and Rupert Murdoch’s respective stewardships of the New York Daily News and the New York Post have been less about business than about ego. Both had every incentive to bid ultra-high to knock out costs at their newspapers, and, possibly, knock the other guy out of the game entirely.
Cablevision outbid both, and by a pretty sizable margin.
Continue reading "The One Thing You Need To Know About Cablevision Buying Newsday"
Posted by: on May 08
In Seattle for a couple of days, doing some reporting for some upcoming columns, and have been running around too much to be too active in this blog.
But want to pass along this: If you are remotely interested in the images that underpin much of today's popular and media culture, by all means check out Lauren Collins’ excellent piece in the New Yorker about Pascal Dangin, who’s apparently the fashion and ad world’s top photo retoucher.
Continue reading "Semi-Required Reading"
Posted by: on May 05
Minneapolis Star Tribune owners Avista Capital Partners knock down this New York Post report that the paper's bankruptcy pends imminently. Sort of.
Emphasis added to amplify the not-so-subtext:
Continue reading "Less Than Ringing Endorsement Of The Status Quo At The Minneapolis Star Tribune Sighted"
Posted by: on May 02
There are (still) people within Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s orbit that still think that a post-mayoral bid for the New York Times would be a worthy next-act for the Mayor, who will be term-limited out of his job at the end of next year. This, even though Bloomberg has been reasonably emphatic about what he thinks about the idea.
As I write in this week’s column, this is a very pretty notion: here comes the benevolent billionaire to ‘save’ the Times from the vicissitudes of the market and Murdoch. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and there are very strong arguments against this happening.
But a longtime reader floats a whole ‘nother notion in a series of emails:
Continue reading "Bloomberg-New York Times: OK? No Way. But Then Someone Raises A Newer Notion . . ."
