Jordan Rohan’s Keynote from Search Insider Summit
I was catching up on my RSS feeds this afternoon while waiting for the Spygate Game to begin and came across Jordan Rohan’s Keynote from Search Insider Summit by way of my friend and recently married, David Berkowitz (mazel tov).
Jordan covers some really interesting topics during his keynote including:
- Key industry developments in 2007
- Best of 2007 awards
- Predictions for 2008
- Today’s stock recommendations
It’s that time of year where we all recap 2007 and make our predictions for 2008 and I’ve started reading quite a few of them. Last year at this time, I had held a darrenSalon to go over trends and predictions on the UES of Manhattan and look forward to doing that again in January (more on that in a few days). Jordan’s predictions are insightful and I would like to comment on a select few below.
Key Developments in 2007
- US internet user growth decelerates, international still robust (China is “staggering”)
Personally, I’m trying to figure out the Chinese market. I’ve talked to a few people about it and all have encouraged me to move to China, but that’s not going to happen. I am very interested in what is happening in China as there are BILLIONS of people without the current resource to transact online… but when they do have that resource (we’re talking years away), the internet growth will be staggering.
2007 Awards
- Best Internet Acquisition Award: Microsoft/aQuantive – Microsoft needed it, and the aQuantive team is very strong. Runner-up: Omniture/Offermatica and Omniture/Visual Sciences – when you talk to ecommerce companies, and they’re dying to crank up post-click conversions. Second runner up: Yahoo/Blue Lithium – an acknowledgment by Yahoo that they need to sell other people’s ads, and the valuation here made more sense than Right Media.
- Worst Internet Merger Award (really 06 merger that fell apart in 07): eBay/Skype. The best thing he could say when it was announced was that if it was a zero, eBay stock would lose a couple bucks in valuation.
Agree with this 100%. aQuantive has a very solid offering and could be utilized throughout MSFT’s future acquisitions. A unified ad serving and measurement platform. In regards to eBay/Skype, they got caught up in all the hype around Skype. Did they look under the hood?
- Greatest Products Yet Unseen Award: Hulu, Ask 3D, Joost – great products, slick, they work; Ask has some of the best universal search he’s seen but no one’s using it
Below are all of the predictions for 2008 – copied from David’s blog. For the whole listing, please go to his blog which is linked to above.
Predictions for 2008
- AT&T Reset pushes Yahoo into play – MSFT is the favorite due to resources, fit; eBay will put up a fight
- Facebook and its Issues and Opportunities –
- Too much to-do over Facebook’s misstep with Beacon – and the under 25 set doesn’t mind so much
- Most interesting part of Facebook story is local angle (Crest WhiteStrips, Wal-Mart use Facebook to target students)
- Microsoft investment not a validation of $15B value for all Facebook
- Marketers might be asking the wrong questions and using the wrong data (more important to know when/where someone wants to transact than whether they’re an auto enthusias
- eBay continues to decelerate un-victoriously
- Company needs to make wholesale changes to auction platform, etc
- Ad networks thrive, fail based on technology – advertisers trust networks to plan media buy – weird dynamic. Recommendation to advertisers: mandate to networks to know where ads are running, see if you agree with plan
- Consolidation in domain aggregation, ecommerce, niche content: GMKT (Gmarket), NILE (Blue Nile), TTGT (TechTarget), CNET
- Lead generation to continue, data licensing to be scrutinized
- New developments in lead gen:
- Matchpoint.com – user-initiated, user remains anonymous, compares offers; this will change lead-gen altogether
- SilverCarrot – iFlipIt, if you hover over it, it unfolds (sort of like expandable banners), captures lead within ad unit, leads are veritfied against different databases, no data resale, creative controlled by lead gen company and agency
Today’s stock Recommendations from across RBC analysts, not just Rohan:
- Yahoo
- LulULemon (LULU, target $47) – stylish yoga apparel
- Silicon Valley Bank (SIVB, target $57) – for value-oriented investors
- Apple (AAPL, target $215) – iPod halo effect driving Mac sales
- GMarket (GMKT, target $32) – leading Korean eCommerce player
- MDC Partners (MDCA, target $17) – 9th largest agency holding company, owns 77% of Crispin Porter
Personally, I think this is going to be a big year for ad networks. We’ve had some consolidation in 2007/06, but in 2008, the networks are going to need to figure out how to play with each other. More on that in a seperate posting.
Also check out Jordan’s stock recommendations. The holding company that The Media Kitchen belongs to is MDC Partners. Not a bad recommendation.