I had a chance to talk to John McCrea today regarding the acquisition of his company by Comcast, and while a lot of the raw information is probably found elsewhere or in other analysis, the way he laid it all out to me showed me exactly how much sense the joining of these two organizations really made. This is a return visit for him, and he and I always have fun when he’s on the show.
Given that Comcast isn’t a huge shareholder in the Web 2.0 property market, a lot of questions were going around as to what this could possibly integrate with, how much integration Plaxo would make within the Comcast organization.
As it turns out, this buyout came as a result of a long relationship that they’ve had since the Plaxo tools were integrated into the suite of tools given out to Comcast broadband subscribers. Since then, they’ve continually discussed what an expansion of that partnership would look like.
When he was describing the future of all this, a conversation from an episode of Elite Tech News sprang to mind from a few weeks ago. The topic was whether or not Twitter and FriendFeed would ever see mainstream adoption, or if would forever remain the loved utility of us blogosphere folks.
The argument against it becoming widespread was that it just isn’t accessible. For it to be useful, the users really need to be on a wide variety of services like Digg, Google Reader, and Twitter already. This is in contrast to the future that McCrea sees with Plaxo Pulse, where your TV and movie viewing habits will tracked through the Pulse system, and integrated into the set-top box experience.
Yes, the TV becomes the platform, but just as important, the barrier to entry will no longer be existent. My 92 year old gramma knows how to use the TV. Explaining FriendFeed to her would be about as useful as explaining underwater basketweaving to her in Latin. Thus, Plaxo’s lifestreaming utility is the first to break into the mainstream.
This is a potentially groundbreaking partnership in a number of ways, and McCrea definitely puts an interesting new spin on the whole partnership I hadn’t heard yet.
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mashable109:http://mashable.com/2008/05/15/plaxo-john-mccrea-comcast/
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The last time we talked about Harvard alumn magazine 02138, it was in connection with the ConnectU - Facebook lawsuit. Now the magazine that made their bones off the private details of Mark Zuckerberg, according to the Boston Globe, 02138 has been acquired by Manhattan Media with the plan of expanding it into a social network with event sponsorship for not just Harvard, but each Ivy League school:
The deal was something of a surprise; Manhattan Media’s involvement had been kept quiet, and published reports said in April that Sandow Media, publisher of Worth magazine, was on the verge of buying 02138, which is named for Harvard’s ZIP code.
While the price was not disclosed for the purchase, it sounds like they’ll be keeping all their staff and increasing their publishing frequency. 02138 will be joining 10 other publications homed at Manhattan Media, including Avenue magazine, New York Press, City Hall and The Capitol.
All that translated, it looks like all the Ivy League schools will be getting their very own personalized quasi-Valleywags. It isn’t necessarily a periodical I’d pay for, but then again I’m not an Ivy Leaguer, and in the tradition of New Media/Old Media fusion properties like this, they’ll not be including a pay-wall in their plans, opting for an ad-only supported business model.
mashable109:http://mashable.com/2008/05/15/02138/
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The IPO market is getting ugly for many startups, but the sun is still shining for special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs — sort of shell companies with blank-checks to acquire other companies opportunistically.
SPACs are raising money hand-over-fist with public offerings, and since they have only 18 to 24 months to spend their stash, they’re eager to deal. Two SPACs, in fact, have recently cut deals with biotech startups, and chances are good they’ll be nosing around other venture sectors. Check out the SPAC phenomenon in this piece over at VentureBeat Life Sciences.