commbasics

Lots of companies are deep into quarterly reports, trying to justify their stock prices.  And in a very timely fashion, Stephen Ohr of Gartner comes out with a post on his personal blog with a reality check.  It's a little chilling but worth checking out.

The biggest question I hear now is "Can you make money off of media?"  That question isn't just about social media, but all kinds of media.  For traditional media, most people are leaning toward a "no" answer, even though many people are still trying.  For new media (blogs, social networks, podcasting) most lean toward "no" but with a question mark because they are hoping they are wrong.  they think they might be able to, but they can't figure it out. Speaking from personal experience now (experience over the past 6 years since I got into this, I've decided upon a definite "yes" for both.  There is a "however" attached to it. Media can be a profit center, but only when you change your definition of what a profit center is.  There was a time when revenues were directly attributed to media investment (primarily advertising) But there was never a direct correlation.  The more you investe...

News today is that Bloomberg is buying BusinessWeek from McGraw-Hill.  According the Eric Savitz at Barron's the selling price is a bargain basement $2M to $5M.  Of course, it also includes acquisition of $40M in debt.  BW has more than 400 employees but has been cutting staff steadily for a decade, so you know how big it once was.  It's name is mentioned with the same gravitas as the Wall Street journal, Barrons, even the New York Times. I remember sitting in on an interview by Kathy Rebello, then a senior editor, after a product review at CES.  For the company (not a client) it was a major coup to get a live sit down with a BW editor, especially Kathy.  And I watched as she took the story apart and reduced the CEO to tears begging for her not to write the story.  Every client I had wanted to be in BW and every time they said it I told them about that time.  BW was never a friend of any business, but they were always a real watchd...

The A tweet from Brian Fuller led me to a new blogger that had a great post on why FPGA start-ups fail .  Not only was it a good review of the basic problem from a technology it also gave a good overview of the business challenges.  Oliver Coudert, who has been banging around the EDA world for quite a while, including chief technologist at the infamous Monterey Design (arguably the most spectacular flame-out in the EDA industry) pointed out that no FPGA start-up provides a significant enough advance in FPGA technology that Xilinx and Altera can't overcome it at the next process node.  He also points out that with those two holding 87 percent of the market, it's tough for any company to get a serious toehold against the giants. One thing is missing though. Neither Altera nor Xilinx really compete directly against each other as much as they do against the ASIC world.  In every presentation I have seen from either company, neither ever mentions the oth...

A tweet from Brian Fuller led me to a new blogger that had a great post on why FPGA start-ups fail .  Not only was it a good review of the basic problem from a technology it also gave a good overview of the business challenges.  Oliver Coudert, who has been banging around the EDA world for quite a while, including chief technologist at the infamous Monterey Design (arguably the most spectacular flame-out in the EDA industry) pointed out that no FPGA start-up provides a significant enough advance in FPGA technology that Xilinx and Altera can't overcome it at the next process node.  He also points out that with those two holding 87 percent of the market, it's tough for any company to get a serious toehold against the giants. One thing is missing though. Neither Altera nor Xilinx really compete directly against each other as much as they do against the ASIC world.  In every presentation I have seen from either company, neither ever mentions the other. ...

    Just finished  the launch of a social media program for a public company in the electronics sector and it was a great experience.  We had a packed room with about 50 people live and around another 10-20 on line around the US.  Got a few pointed questions and answered pointedly with several stepping up and say they want to learn more... even in marketing!     That's an important statement.  In 2007 Time magazine reported a study that 55 percent of technology customers used social media to decide what to buy but only 34 percent of marketers in technology companies were using social media to reach their customer base.  Last week, PR Week put out a study showing that decisions makers are only increasing  their dependence on social media, yet marketers in tech are at best, still holding at 34 percent.  In fact, the survey showed on 6 percent of companies using social media are incorporating inpu...

This one slipped by me.  Eddie Correia, long a fixture at BZ Media, apparently is not longer there.  Got an update on Linkedin that he was looking for freelance work.  He was one of my favorite editors to work with in the embedded world; always up to speed on the latest technology and news and a heck of a writer.  BZ sold Software Test & Performance magazine to Redwood Collaborative Media back in January, and Eddie moved over with the rest of the team.  He also ran the conferences associated with the magazine, which is where the money is in tech media now. Anyone looking for a good writer should look him up.