Monday, 31 August 2009
19%...
Can Arqiva create a viable ad platform?
Saturday, 29 August 2009
Blinkx at work on search engine for online video
But a small San Francisco company called Blinkx is betting that behavior is going to change in coming years. In the same way consumers turned to search engines when the number of text Web pages on the Internet exploded, they will soon rely on new types of search engines to navigate the Internet's rapidly expanding offerings of video, if Blinkx and analysts are right."
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Yahoo Gets With The Program, Finally Lets You Play Videos In Search Results
There! Pause It There–The Expression on Randall Stephenson’s Face Is Priceless.
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
YouTube’s Profit Plan: Spend Less, Sell More (Duh)
"How is Google (GOOG) going totransform YouTubefrom a money pit into a profit center?
Part of the magic trick will involve cutting costs. That’s hard to see play out in real time, except when we get flare-ups likeYouTube’s fight with Warner Music Group (WMG) over new contract terms. The other part of the abracadabra–selling more ads on more videos, particularly “viral” hits–is easier to spot, particularly because YouTube keeps pointing it out..."
from All Things Digital
2014: a media odyssey
Monday, 24 August 2009
Gosh, 250 million users...
Letter to Blinkx's IR department outlining questions to be asked at the AGM
Investor Relations Department,
Blinkx,
105 Piccadilly
London, W1J 7NJ
CC: Dr Michael Lynch, CEO, Autonomy
24th August, 2009
Dear Sir/Madam.
I will be attending the next Blinkx AGM on 22nd September.
At the AGM, I would like to put some questions (below) to the Blinkx management team, and particularly Mr Chandratillake.
I would be grateful if you would advise me of the formal process for asking such questions in the AGM environment.
Yours faithfully,
____________
xxxxx xxxxxxx
Questions for the Blinkx management team, to be put at the AGM on 22nd September 2009
1/ Why has Blinkx, to date, failed to release a branded video search app for the iPhone? Or for the Pre? Or for the Android OS? Or to release a branded video-search widget for Facebook users to embed in their pages? Why has Blinkx so pointedly and continually ignored opportunities to allow end-consumers of video to search against the index of 35m+ hours of video which Blinkx holds, thereby monetizing that index?
2/ There has been much speculation among Blinkx shareholders as to whether or not Blinkx technology drives video search functionality for Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine. I would like a definitive answer one way or the other, please.
3/ Blinkx as a company – and especially CEO Suranga Chandratillake – has made many bullish predictions for the company’s future growth and profitability. Yet none of the company’s management team, so far as I am aware, have ever bought the company’s shares in the open market. I also note that recently F&C Asset Management Plc has sold down its holding in Blinkx. If the company has such a bright future, why aren’t the management team buying shares, and why is one of the company’s largest shareholders selling?
http://blinkxshareholders.blogspot.com/
Holding(s) in Company
TR-1: notification of major interests in shares
1. Identity of the issuer or the underlying issuer of existing shares to which voting rights are attached: | Blinkx plc | |
2. Reason for the notification (please tick the appropriate box or boxes) | ||
An acquisition or disposal of voting rights | X | |
An acquisition or disposal of financial instruments which may result in the acquisition of shares already issued to which voting rights are attached | ||
An event changing the breakdown of voting rights | ||
Other (please specify):___________________________________________ | ||
3. Full name of person(s) subject to the notification obligation: | F&C Asset Management Plc | |
4. Full name of shareholder(s) (if different from 3.): | See Box 9 below | |
5. Date of the transaction (and date on which the threshold is crossed or reached if different): | 17/08/09 | |
6. Date on which issuer notified: | 18/08/09 | |
7. Threshold(s) that is/are crossed or reached: | 5% | |
8. Notified details: |
A: Voting rights attached to shares | |||||||
Class/type of shares if possible using the ISIN CODE | Situation previous to the Triggering transaction | Resulting situation after the triggering transaction | |||||
Number of Shares | Number of Voting Rights | Number of shares | Number of voting rights | % of voting rights | |||
Direct | Direct | Indirect | Direct | Indirect | |||
GB00B1WBW239 Ord 1p | 14,320,973 | 14,320,973 | 13,760,175 | - | 13,760,175 | - | 4.93% |
B: Financial Instruments | ||||
Resulting situation after the triggering transaction | ||||
Type of financial instrument | Expiration date | Exercise/ Conversion Period/ Date | Number of voting rights that may be acquired if the instrument is exercised/ converted. | % of voting rights |
- |
Total (A+B) | |
Number of voting rights | % of voting rights |
13,760,175 | 4.93% |
9. Chain of controlled undertakings through which the voting rights and/or the financial instruments are effectively held, if applicable: | ||||||||||||||||
|
Proxy Voting: | |
10. Name of the proxy holder: | F&C Asset Management Plc |
11. Number of voting rights proxy holder will cease to hold: | n/a |
12. Date on which proxy holder will cease to hold voting rights: | n/a |
13. Additional information: | |
14. Contact name: | Frances Smith |
15. Contact telephone number: | 01223 488500 |
This information is provided by RNS
Notice of AGM
BLINKX PLC
NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS
Cambridge, England - 17 August 2009 - blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX.), the world's largest video search engine, announces that its Annual General Meeting will take place on Tuesday 22 September 2009 at 9.00am (London time). The meeting will take place at blinkx's headquarters in Cambridge Business Park, Cowley Road, Cambridge CB4 0WZ.
All shareholders not planning to attend the meeting in person are urged to send instructions for the voting of their shares so that they are represented at the meeting. Please contact your financial intermediary for the procedure to follow.
Copies of blinkx's Notice of Annual General Meeting, Form of Proxy and Directors' and Auditors' Reports and the Statement of Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2009 were recently mailed to shareholders, and may also be obtained directly from blinkx as well as from your financial intermediary. blinkx's annual report for the year ended 31 March 2009 will also be available on blinkx's web site located at www.blinkx.com/investors http://www.blinkx.com/investors.
About blinkx plc
blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX) is the world's largest and most advanced video search engine. Today, blinkx has indexed more than 35 million hours of audio, video, viral and TV content, and made it fully searchable and available on demand. blinkx's founders set out to solve a significant challenge - as TV and user-generated content on the Web explode, keyword-based search technologies only scratch the surface. blinkx's patented search technologies listen to - and even see - the Web, helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results not available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for many of the world's most frequented sites. blinkx is based in San Francisco and London. More information is available at www.blinkx.com.
This information is provided by RNS
blinx on Nielsen Top 10 Video
Blinkx Plc
17 August 2009
blinkx Joins YouTube, Hulu, and Yahoo! on Nielsen's Top 10 Video Sites
Traffic to blinkx.com continues to soar as more users turn to search
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - August 17, 2009 - blinkx, the world's largest and most advanced video search engine, today announced that it has broken into the top 10 most popular video sites, according to a recent Nielsen VideoCensus report of video usage in the U.S. Ranked by video streams for July 2009, the short list also includes top industry brands YouTube, Yahoo!, MSN, MTV, and CNN.
In addition to a ranking of top online video brands, Nielsen's survey recorded significant growth in online video usage overall. According to the report, there has been a 31% increase in the number video streams since last year, and a 42% growth in time per viewer.
'As video content on the Web continues to explode across hundreds of sites - whether HD-quality movies, news, or UGC, consumers need a simple, accurate, way to find it,' said Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO, blinkx. 'With over 530 content partners and 35 million hours of video in our index, blinkx is simply the best way to find what you're looking for - from skateboarding bulldogs to breaking news to episodes of Lost. We're delighted to have achieved this kind of growth, and believe this is only the beginning.'
As the pioneer in video search technology, blinkx has built a reputation as the smartest way to find rich media on the Web. The company has made more than 530 partners and indexed over 35 million hours of video and audio content to date.
About blinkx
blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX) is the world's largest and most advanced video search engine. Today, blinkx has indexed more than 35 million hours of audio, video, viral and TV content, and made it fully searchable and available on demand. blinkx's founders set out to solve a significant challenge - as TV and user-generated content on the Web explode, keyword-based search technologies only scratch the surface. blinkx's patented search technologies listen to - and even see - the Web, helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results not available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for many of the world's most frequented sites. blinkx is based in San Francisco and London. More information is available at www.blinkx.com.
About Nielsen
The Nielsen Company's online and mobile solutions deliver comprehensive, independent measurement and analysis of digital audiences, advertising, video, consumer-generated media, word of mouth, commerce and consumer behavior. Nielsen enables clients to make informed business decisions about their digital and mobile strategies. For more information, please visit www.nielsen.com.
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Comment: markets don't seem too impressed though, do they?
Saturday, 8 August 2009
The guy doesn't even know what his job is!
Thursday, 6 August 2009
News Corp. Swings to Loss on “Impairment”–and, by “Impairment,” I Mean “MySpace”
Reporting earnings this afternoon, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal and this Web site instead posted a decline of 32.5 percent.
And, to think, News Corp. lowered that forecast twice last fall.
Anyway, the company lost $203 million, or eight cents a share, in its fiscal fourth quarter. Revenue fell 10.5 percent to $7.67 billion, dragged down by a decrease in ad revenue and $403 million in impairment charges and $228 million in restructuring costs, both largely attributable to, ahem, “red-hot social networking site” MySpace."
from All Things Digital
----------
Comment: Message to Rupert Murdoch: BUY BLINKX, DUMBASS!
Online Ad Spending Obviously Still Lousy
Worldwide spending on Internet advertising declined by five percent in the second quarter of this year, slipping to $13.9 billion from $14.7 billion, according to research firm IDC. That’s the second consecutive quarter that revenue has dropped year-over-year, and IDC expects it to do so again in the current quarter. "
from All Things Digital
Mining for Video Gems
Blinkx, a video search company, creates some stylish order around the vast video haul. Blinkx bills itself as the world's largest video search engine and says it has indexed more video, audio and TV shows on the Web than anyone: 35 million hours of it. Chief Executive Suranga Chandratillake figures that's about two-thirds of the video content online. The other third is mostly locked up, requiring payment or passwords to view it."
from Forbes.com
------------
Comment: "How Blinkx aims to become the Google of video." Well Blinkx has one thing in common with Google - they are both yet to make a profit from video search...
And that picture of Chandratillake? Confirms everything I've ever thought - the guy is too f**king laid-back by half, you ask me...
On the upside, good to see an article on Forbes. Maybe it will attract the attention of a predator (MS, Google, Yahoo, News Corp), which is the only way investors are going to see a return anytime soon...
Murdoch to charge for all online content
Published: August 5 2009 21:32 | Last updated: August 5 2009 21:32
Rupert Murdoch has vowed to charge for all the online content of his newspapers and television news channels, going well beyond his prediction in May that the company would test pay models on one of its stronger papers within the year.
The comments by News Corp’s chairman came as he predicted a “high single digit” rebound in the group’s operating profits next year. The worst of the media sector slump might be behind the company, he said, as he reported “some good signs of life” in advertising.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
Pay-out to staff as Bloomberg sales fall - Aug-05Social sites losing popularity with young - Aug-06In depth: Media - May-06Lex: Plenty of room at MySpace - Jun-17Upbeat Cisco talks of ‘tipping point - Aug-06Newspaper and television revenues would be down “very low double digits” next year, but growth in cable properties such as Fox News would leave advertising revenues flat and total revenue up 4 per cent.
News Corp put the seal on a brutal fiscal year with a fourth- quarter net loss of $203m (£119m), dragged down by $680m in impairment and restructuring charges at Fox Interactive Media, whose MySpace social networking site cut more than 700 jobs in the period.
The latest writedown to boom-era acquisitions masked a 30 per cent fall in quarterly adjusted operating profit to $948m, in line with lowered projections, and adjusted earnings of 19 cents per share, narrowly ahead of Wall Street forecasts of 18 cents.
However, they resulted in a $3.4bn net loss for the full year, down from net income of $5.4bn a year earlier, reflecting $8.9bn in impairment charges.
The sweeping decision by the owner of titles including The News of the World and The Australian to abandon the practice of giving away news in exchange for attracting a large audience for advertisers could embolden other publishers warily examining paid content models.
“We intend to charge for all our news websites,” Mr Murdoch said.
“If we’re successful, we’ll be followed by all media,” he added, predicting “significant revenues” from charging for differentiated news online.
He warned that “the big competition will be coming from the BBC,” which offers online news for free, but said: “Our policy is to win.”
Mr Murdoch said News Corp was highly unlikely to develop its own electronic reader, but took aim at Amazon’s Kindle device by praising the rival Sony Reader.
He insisted that News Corp would retain a direct relationship with its subscribers to its content via e-readers, information that Amazon has refused to hand over.
Chase Carey, who recently returned to News Corp as chief operating officer, said the online charging policy would extend to cable networks such as Fox News.
However, he criticised TV Everywhere, the cable industry strategy championed by Time Warner to offer shows online to paying subscribers, as a “defensive” response and said News Corp aimed instead to develop “offensive” models.
Declines in revenue and profit across television and newspaper assets offset strong gains from cable networks businesses in the quarter, in which News Corp’s cash pile grew to $6.5bn.
from ft.com
-----------------------
Comment: Murdoch should use some of that cash pile for acquisitions. Blinkx would be a perfect fit for his various media properties, from his online video operations to Utarget...
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
UPDATE: Google To Buy Video Compression Firm On2 For $106.5M
all Google needs to do now is combine that video compression technology with good video search...
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Is Apple plotting a search of its own?
There have been a couple of recent mentions of the idea on the web, SearchEngineWatch.com and Silicon Valley Watcher, Tom Foremski's blog. Techcrunch reported lots of rumours about an Apple Search engine in November last year but they died down as nothing emerged to substantiate the idea."
from The Register
Q&A: Nick Bell on the opportunities offered by online video
To get some front-line opinion of the marketplace, we spoke to Nick Bell, co-founder of the up-and-coming interactive video platform, Quick.tv, about this complex and often overlooked marketing medium."
er, they mean explode, surely?
from Econsultancy
Sunday, 2 August 2009
Why Google wishes Steve and Carol a happy marriage
from The Observer, 2nd August 2009
This is exactly the sort of thing I mean...
Why is there such a massive mismatch between what Chandratillake says and what he does?
A perfectly reasonable question for a shareholder to ask, no?
----------------
30 July 2009
Autonomy Corporation plc
=-------------------------
Director's Share Purchase
=-------------------------
Autonomy Corporation plc ("Autonomy") announces that Robert Webb, Autonomy's
Non-Executive Chairman, notified the company that on 28 July 2009 he purchased
8,109 Autonomy Corporation plc OrdinaryShares in the open market at a price of
1224p per share. Following this transaction, Mr Webb's total beneficial holdingin the Company is 8,109 Ordinary Shares.
from ADVFN
Rivals strive to topple Google in quest for the 'perfect search'
From The Observer, 2nd August 2009
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Follow-up letter to Dr Michael Lynch of Autonomy
Dr Michael Lynch,
CEO, Autonomy Corporation,
Cambridge Business Park
Cowley Rd
Cambridge
CB4 0WZ
Dear Dr Lynch.
Many thanks for your letter of the 29th July: I am fully aware of how busy you must be and appreciate your taking the time to reply.