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My 2 featured articles for the week ending Feb. 3, 2006:

Archived blogs for the week of January 30, 2006

1095 - February 2, 2006 - 11.52 AM EST

Wall Street still likes Google a whole lot

Even if Google missed its 4th quarter earnings estimates on Tuesday, and after suffering a 19 percent price drop in its stock in after-hours trading, many Wall Street analysts have in fact increased their per-share earnings estimates for the next quarter.

So yes, Wall Street still likes Google a lot! Six Wall Street investment bankers have since increased their first-quarter and fiscal 2006 earnings estimates for Google. All but one of seven stock analysts issuing research notes maintained their "buy" recommendation on the search giant.

"On the Street, missing one quarter has a short shelf life, especially since they are fundamentally growing and expanding their profits each quarter," said David Dropsey, a research analyst at Thomson Financial.

"The people who are trading in Google care about its future earnings", he said. Six out of 32 analysts have updated their earnings estimates for Google, bumping up their forecast to $2.06 a share for the first quarter from $2, according to Dropsey. And for its fiscal year, analysts now expect the company to generate $8.98 a share--up from previous estimates of $8.79.

"Based on the fourth-quarter performance, we are raising our forward estimates," Prudential Equity Group analysts stated in their research note, hiking their fiscal-year estimates up to $9.31 a share from $8.81. The research firm also bumped up its 12-month price target for Google to $500 a share from $400.

Google shares closed at $432.66 during regular trading on Tuesday, with its stock falling as much as 19 percent in after-hours trading following its disappointing earnings report. When the regular trading session opened Wednesday, Google shares traded down 9.22 percent to $392.75 a share in early morning trading.

You can read the whole story on Search Engines Today.

Posted on Businessblog™

1094 - February 1, 2006 - 5.46 PM EST

Rumors flying of Google to acquire Napster

Will Google acquire Napster or will it build its own version of an online music service?

Is the possibility of Google entering this online music market just another unsubstantiated rumor or is there some validity to it?

Whatever happens, there seems to be many questions and very few answers.

Though Napster's stock spiked by as much as 50 percent yesterday in the wake of a report that said Google might acquire the online music service, Napster's shares fell after Google denied it had any interest in buying the company.

That may have settled one rumor, but there is yet another one in the works.

According to the same story in the New York Post that originally reported the possible Napster relationship, Google has also been looking to develop its own music service.

Google did not return calls seeking comment.

While the truth has yet to be revealed, what we do know now is that Google introduced a music search feature that will return relevant information about artists, including links to sites where their music can be purchased, last December.

At that time, Google noted that the feature does not represent a move toward becoming a music retailer, but rather establishes it as a middle man, referring searchers to places where they can buy songs.

Google Search Quality Product Manager David Alpert said that the more information the company can make easily accessible with a simple search, the better.

Google is working to refine the service to enable users to type in a song name or album name and get the same streamlined results.

Posted on Businessblog™

1093 - February 1, 2006 - 2.05 PM EST

Podcast search engine retrieves audio content

Podscope is a new application that lets users search for audio content. The advent of podcasts (online radios shows in MP3 format available for download) has given Internet searchers a new problem.

How do you search the content of podcasts? After all, audio files don't have any written content other than the file title itself, and at best, a short RSS description field.

The podcast search engine Podscope claims that it has the solution. Unlike most search engines of this kind it actually analyzes the podscast sound and develops a searchable database based on automatic transcripts.

We are talking about a serious voice recognition technology here.

This means that you do not have to listen through hours and hours of programming to find a show that covers your topic of interest. Instead you search the index of Podscope’s close to 5000 podcasters.

Posted on Businessblog™

1092 - January 31, 2006 - 6.32 PM EST

Google's new Click to Call service

Today, Google has confirmed it has contracted with VoiceOne to provide Internet telephony services.

Google's proposed click-to-call service will let users speak with advertisers directly on its search results, without having to pick up the phone and dial the number. The service will be free.

Florida-based VoiceOne has entered an agreement with Google and has already been providing services to it, Shawn Lewis, chief technology officer of VoiceOne parent VoIP Inc., said in an interview.

Lewis said he believes that the contract expires in two years and that he could not provide further details because of a nondisclosure agreement.

"We are working with VoIP, Inc. on a click-to-call advertising test which we began late last year," a Google spokeswoman said in an e-mail response to questions. "We have no further details to share at this time."

Posted on Businessblog™

1091 - January 31, 2006 - 5.14 PM EST

Google misses profit target, stock plunges

After the close on Wall Street, Google's stock fell as much as 19 percent today. Google missed the Street's quarterly earnings expectations because of a higher-than-expected tax rate.

Earnings, excluding one-time items, were $1.54 per share, below the consensus expectations of $1.77. Since its August 2004 IPO, the company has beaten the consensus profit forecast by 10 percent to 40 percent and its shares have risen steadily, often spectacularly. The drop slashed billions off the company's market value.

"Its valuation means it's priced for perfection and perfection was not delivered this quarter," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment manager at Solaris Asset Management.

Net income for the fourth quarter rose to $372.2 million, or $1.22 per diluted share, from the year earlier quarter's $204.1 million, or 71 cents a share. Gross revenue grew 86 percent to $1.92 billion as advertising revenues soared, meeting analysts' targets.

Shares of Google later recovered slightly to $370, a loss of 15 percent, in volatile trading. Google's tax rate was higher than expected by Wall Street, according to Reuters Estimates. At the tax rate initially forecast by Google, adjusted earnings would have been $1.81 per share, versus the consensus of $1.77.

Posted on Businessblog™

1090 - January 30, 2006 - 5.33 PM EST

Ad revenues jump 12 percent at MSN

According to Microsoft, advertising revenues at MSN increased 12 percent in the company's fiscal second quarter.

This increase was despite ongoing investments in the area Microsoft said would continue in 2006.

The company's executives announced MSN's results as part of its earnings report for the quarter, which ended December 31.

While overall ad revenue, including search, was up, display ad dollars saw an even bigger gain, growing 20 percent in the quarter as compared to the year-ago period.

Part of that increase came via a hike in advertising rates, said Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell. Microsoft yesterday announced the promotion of Joanne Bradford to oversee a global media sales force.

Total revenues at MSN, which also include subscription dollars, came in at $593 million, resulting in operating income of $58 million. That represented a 2 percent year-over-year decline in revenues, due to investments in MSN and a 33 percent decline in Internet access revenues, which was expected.

Posted on Businessblog™

1089 - January 30, 2006 - 4.42 PM EST

Yahoo leads wireless Internet portals during 4Q

According to new numbers from M:Metrics, Yahoo has an early lead in the race to become the wireless Internet portal of choice for American consumers.

An average of nearly 13 million consumers per month accessed Yahoo's services from their handset during the fourth quarter of 2005, the firm said.

Second-place America Online Inc. lured nearly 9 million users per month, due largely to the company's strong instant messaging following. Microsoft Corp.'s MSN portal and Google Inc. each drew 7 million consumers.

Yahoo users were the most likely to use the portal for a variety of services including weather, news and maps. Google edged out Yahoo in the area of mobile search, while The Weather Channel was the most popular source for weather information.

Posted on Businessblog™

Copyright © Serge Thibodeau 2006. All rights reserved.

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