NevOn

Imagine if Chevron had used a blog instead

Listening this morning to a BBC World Service radio interview with Peter Robertson, vice-chairman of the Chevron oil company, I was struck in particular by his commentary about a website where the public can join Chevron in an online discussion about the future of energy.

Overall, I found it a fascinating interview, with its discussion of wide-ranging topics including the future of energy, the evolving role of the energy industry (the oil companies) and corporate social responsibility. From a PR point of view, I think Robertson did a pretty good job for his company.

Concerning the online discussion, Robertson was talking about willyoujoinus.com, a website sponsored by Chevron, that's facilitating some discussion about the future of energy and what people think about it.

From a broad look around the site, and judging from the detailed information in Chevron's Community Guidelines page, this is actually a substantial undertaking (and clearly part of a broad public affairs effort):

The willyoujoinus.com discussion forum was created as a place for individuals and groups to exchange ideas on important energy issues. It is also a place for users to read, consider, respond, and perhaps be inspired to take individual or collective action in an environment of mutual respect.

To contribute your opinions, you have to register. And your comments are moderated:

Experienced outside moderators have been assigned to ensure that postings are relevant and appropriate, and otherwise meet the site’s community guidelines as described below.

All postings will be reviewed by moderators and published on the site within 24 hours if determined to be within these guidelines.

That's fine - comment moderation is hardly unheard of and, as long as the policy is clearly stated, unlikely to confuse participants nor set any wrong expectations.

The concept of this effort by Chevron - provide a place online where people can participate in broadly open discussion on a topical issue - is very good, precisely the kind of thing where a blog could work well as that place for open, even if moderated, discussion.

But willyoujoinus.com is not a blog. Instead it's a beautifully-designed and clearly well thought through corporate website with some blog-like naming (the words 'post' and 'comment' are used, for instance).

It's gatekeeper heaven, too, with its completely un-blog-like methodology of contributing your opinions via a web form that goes off to some unknown person or group of moderators  - what Chevron describes as "experienced outside moderators" (without giving a sense of who these people are: could be the PR agency for all I know) and, elsewhere in the site, as "contracted specialists in community moderation" (sounds scary!).

Imagine if Chevron had used a blog instead. With RSS feeds. With trackback capability. It could certainly still require registration and login in order for anyone to participate, and have comment moderation.

Most important, though, a blog could give this place personality and authenticity - two of the attributes which it currently and starkly lacks. And identify who the moderators are. Build some trust.

You're about 80 percent there with this, Chevron. Why not go the full 100? Put your pedal to the metal!

Engaging podcasts from IBM

I've been subscribed to IBM's investor relations podcast series "IBM and The Future of..." since IBM started this series last August.

Eleven podcasts so far, each one providing a worthwhile learning experience on wide-ranging topics relating to society, business and technology.

The latest one, IBM and The Future of Privacy, is a great example of how any organization can use this medium to address what might seem to be a pretty dry subject in a way that captures and holds a listener's attention. Engages the listener, in other words.

From the broad communication point of view, this series also demonstrates how podcasting can subtly reinforce a company's credibility and authority about the subject being addressed. And it doesn't matter how big or small the company is - you don't need to be a global corporation like IBM to realize the benefits from podcasting.

Not only that, it enhances one's overall perceptive view of that company and how it gives you another choice of getting hold of information and opinion in a way that gives you additional insight into the company and some of its people.

If the podcast is also one element among other open and connected communication channels - as is the case with IBM - then you have another good foundation for building sustainable relationships with your audiences (who then become participants).

Worth subscribing to.

Related NevOn posts:

• IBM's credible message: Blogging means business
• IBM starts investor-focused podcasts
• IBM publishes guidelines for employee bloggers

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SAP enters SaaS market

Yesterday, the German enterprise software vendor SAP announced it is entering the hosted software-as-a-service (SaaS) market with the expansion of its mySAP CRM offering to include a hosted option.

The first service SAP will offer as a subscription is its sales-on-demand solution, with pricing from $75/user a month, and with hosting services from IBM.

In a Business Week article yesterday discussing SAP's move, market researcher IDC estimates that, while on-demand sales made up only about 6 percent of the roughly $9 billion CRM market last year, that percentage could rise to as much as 25 percent in five years. A commentary by Line56 also yesterday says SAP's announcement illustrates a convergence of interests and models as the 1990s best-of-breed concept fades further into the distance.

DestinationCRM.com's report on the CRM market leaders in 2005 says a recent AMR Research report indicated that 47 percent of large enterprises, or companies with more than $1 billion in revenue, were going to look at the hosted model as part of their "going forward CRM strategy." If there is a single one-to-watch on-demand provider, destinationCRM says, it's Salesforce.com.

One to watch right now clearly is SAP. The obvious new-customer target for SAP would be Saleforce.com (whose CRM SaaS pricing starts at $65/user a month). That's not quite how Business Week sees it, though:

[...] While SAP's battle with Salesforce.com is lively, its most ferocious competition is with Oracle, the No. 2 corporate applications company. With the completion of its $5.58 billion takeover of Siebel Systems on Feb. 1, Oracle overtook SAP to become the leading traditional CRM software supplier.

Oracle already has both traditional and on-demand CRM products, as does Siebel. Now, with the combination, it expects to make headway against SAP in both spheres. That's partly because the uncertainty about Siebel's future has been resolved and customers are feeling more comfortable about buying its software again. Juergen Rottler, executive vice-president of Oracle On Demand, says Oracle will be much more aggressive about pushing on-demand services than SAP. "We believe that on-demand is the future of our business," he says.

Ones to watch.

[Technorati: oracle, saas, sap]

FIR Interview - Pete Blackshaw, Intelliseek - January 17, 2006

Following today's joint announcement by Intelliseek and Buzzmetrics on the merger of those two firms into a new company backed by media group VNU, Shel and Neville spoke to Pete Blackshaw, Intelliseek's Chief Marketing and Customer Satisfaction Officer.

Conversation points: The joining together of Intelliseek and Buzzmetrics; VNU and being acquired; developments in tracking and analysis of consumer-generated media; continuing support and development for BlogPulse and other Intelliseek offerings; the growing impact of video on consumer-generated media; the future of podcasting; Pete's observations about Naked Conversations.

Download the 26-minute conversation here (MP3, 11MB), or sign up for the Interviews RSS feed to get it and our future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a podcatcher such as the free Juice, DopplerRadio, iTunes or Yahoo! Podcasts, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon. To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, sign up for the full RSS feed.

Podsafe intro music - On A Podcast Intrumental Mix (MP3,5Mb) by Cruisebox.

• Related - FIR interview with Pete Blackshaw on August 16, 2005.

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel's and my podcast blog.)

Intelliseek acquired, forms part of new VNU-backed company as VNU looks to be acquired

Two of the leading companies in tracking and analysing what consumers are talking about online have joined forces to create, in the words of the formal press release, the new global standard for measuring and understanding word-of-mouth behavior and influence.

Market intelligence firm Intelliseek has been acquired by word-of-mouth research and planning company Buzzmetrics. The new combination will be known as Buzzmetrics Inc and operate under the Neilsen Buzzmetrics brand, backed by Dutch media group VNU who will own a majority stake in the new company.

Of additional interest to this deal is news today that VNU itself is in the final stages of being acquired by a consortium including some of the world's biggest private equity groups who made a non-binding offer for VNU yesterday, valuing the company at up to €7.3 billion ($8.8 billion).

The Financial Times reports that the bid comes from a group comprising Blackstone, Carlyle, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Permira, Hellman & Friedman, Alpinvest and Thomas H. Lee.

The FT said that a sale of VNU may prompt trade buyers to express interest in parts of the business. VNU comprises AC Nielsen, the market researcher, Nielsen Media Research, which monitors television ratings, and a smaller trade show and magazine division publishing titles including Hollywood Reporter and Billboard.

VNU said it expects to provide more information within three to four weeks, the FT reported.

Related NevOn post:

• FIR Interview - Pete Blackshaw, Intelliseek, August 16, 2005

[Update] Shel and I managed to grab an interview with Pete Blackshaw this evening (my time) to talk about today's announcement.

How Google could be the world's most valuable company

Google's share price could rise to $2,000, says the Daily Telegraph.

The Telegraph quotes Caris & Co, a US stockbroker, saying that Google shares had the potential to climb faster with the launch of digital services. Those shares closed at $465 on Friday after the company announced its online video library.

More from the Telegraph:

[...] Google floated two years ago at $80 a share. If its stock does rise as Caris forecasts, it will be worth $400bn (£225bn) and overtake General Electric to become the most valuable company in the world. Mark Stahlman, an analyst at Caris & Co, said: "We believe Google's addressable market has a chance to become much larger, more quickly than initially anticipated. . . [it will be] perhaps a $100bn annual sales company over time."

Goldman Sachs last week raised its share price target for Google to $500. Google pays no dividend and at current levels its stock is rated at 100 times earnings.

Google has its fingers in many pies (and check out what's in the lab).

Does anyone think Googlezon is pure imagination?

Transforming corporate identities beyond the razzle dazzle

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas certainly was the place this week for many companies to announce a dazzling array of new tech products, alliances and ventures.

The best place I found to keep up with what was going on was the excellent Engadget CES blog which had a non-stop stream of posts. Another good resource - CES Blog 2006 from VNU. Certainly far better efforts than the CES' rather lame blog.

Amongst all the new products and cool things being talked about, I found two corporate announcements of particular interest, one from Eastman Kodak Company and the other from Intel Corporation.

A press release (reg required) on Thursday afternoon from Kodak has Antonio M. Perez, Chairman and CEO, talking about the future of digital imaging and a new alliance with Motorola. Buried down in the body text is this small paragraph:

[...] Perez also unveiled the latest evolution of Kodak’s brand logo. This new look moves the Kodak name out of the traditional yellow box; giving it a more contemporary design, a streamlined rounded look and distinctive letters. This introduction is the latest step in the company’s broad brand transformation effort, which reflects the multi-industry, digital imaging leader Kodak has become.

And here's that new logo alongside the one that's familiar worldwide.

For such a major transformation goal, I found it surprising that Kodak revealed their new brand image in such an understated way. Little specific information in their online press center to give you real insight into their strategic thinking and what this means for organizational change other than the corporate-speak in the press release (so you could think it's no more than a bit of razzle dazzle) and a page about the evolution of the logo over the years.

Perhaps this is indicative of Kodak's corporate style and the way they do things. I found much more information in a feature yesterday in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (where the image above comes from) which gives you quite a bit more insight:

[...] The new mark, based on a customized typeface, is designed to give the company a contemporary look but be flexible enough to apply in new ways and new venues across Kodak's varied businesses - everything from tiny handheld digital cameras to computer software to the letters on Kodak buildings around the world.

The logo is one part of Kodak's larger effort to redefine its brand-name identity, through advertising, public relations, supplier and partner relationships and other in areas. "We want to break out of the box, in a lot of ways," says Betty Noonan, director of brand management and marketing services at Kodak.

While this gives you some more knowledge, it doesn't give you any sense of how Kodak plan to break out of the box or in what ways.

Contrast this approach with that of Intel, who pulled out all the communication stops to get their new message out to the world.

A fortuitous move in a boom-and-bust tech business

Wall Street Journal: Seagate Technology has agreed to pay $1.9 billion in stock to buy rival Maxtor Corp. The transaction unites two of the biggest makers of computer disk drives, a boom-and-bust business in which Seagate has long played the role of consolidator.

I've bought and installed quite a few hard drives in my time. In nearly every case, I've always bought Maxtor drives as I've always felt they were the best brand. Better than Seagate, better than Western Digital, better than any other.

No real evidence to prove they were the best, purely perception and then experience with the brand.

Anyway, as the Journal says, hardware is boom and bust, a commodity business today, and the marketplace is a tough one:

[...] Disk drives are in heavy demand to store data in computers and a growing array of consumer products. But competition is fierce, forcing manufacturers to keep boosting the storage capacities of their products while driving down prices.

By acquiring Maxtor, Seagate hopes to drive a larger volume of products through its network of factories, boosting the utilization of those plants and increasing profit margins. The deal is expected to boost Seagate's earnings per share on a cash basis after the first full year of combined operations, they said, though Seagate may not retain all the revenue Maxtor now generates.

A tougher market still for traditional drive manufacturing with flash-based storage gaining market traction. So Seagate's acquisition could be fortuitous, says Business Week. Or maybe not if a differently-focused market assessment from Forbes is any guide.

I think BW has it right.

Dell's hell as earnings fall short

ZDNet: Dell announced on Monday that third-quarter revenue will fall well short of expectations due to sluggish consumer sales and a faulty component in its OptiPlex desktop PC. [...] The leader in computer manufacturing blames its shortfall partially on sluggish consumer sales in the U.S. and U.K. [...] Dell fell into similar territory in [the previous] quarter's financial earnings report, when it reported it had lost market share in nearly every regional market.

Might this be the twist in the tale of Dell Hell as religiously chronicled by Jeff Jarvis?

One stop for earnings call transcripts

One of the blogs I find of great informational value is The Internet Stock Blog ("news and analysis of Internet stocks, no buy or sell recommendations," it says in its masthead).

Recently, the blog started including a most useful new service - full transcripts of some of the most popular companies' earnings conference calls.

What's especially useful is that all these transcripts are in one place, they're free and you don't need to register anywhere.

One interesting one - the Q&A from eBay's Q3 2005 earnings conference call. Useful to read, especially the Q&A re Skype which you can keep in your mind when you read this story in eWeek headlined eBay CEO: Voice Phone Calls to Be Free Within Years.

Lessons from Interpublic's global financial chaos

The Financial Times reports the sobering story of marketing and ad agency group Interpublic who, after over 400 acquisitions and global expansion, found itself having to restate its accounts for the past ten years and be the subject of an SEC investigation into its accounting practices:

[...] The company discovered "instances of deliberate falsification of accounting records, evasion of taxes in jurisdictions outside the United States, inappropriate charges to clients, diversion of corporate assets, non-compliance with local laws and regulations, and other improprieties." In terms of their impact on Interpublic’s restatement, the biggest problems were in Turkey, where the company has said it might fire senior local managers at its McCann and FCB agencies.

And if that wasn't enough:

A more subtle issue facing Interpublic involved legal local business practices. One such question turned on vendor discounts or credits – cash that agencies receive in return for buying large blocks of advertising time or space on behalf of clients. In Latin America, the Mediterranean and other regions, agencies often keep this money.

Interpublic’s problem was that this practice was difficult to reconcile with some of its global contracts with clients and with its obligations under US GAAP. It is clearly trying to make amends. Paying back this money accounts for most of the $250m that Interpublic has set aside to compensate hundreds of counterparties under the restatement.

[...] Advertising agencies face the risk that their more distant outposts will not produce enough revenue to justify the cost of compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley. This is a big issue for Interpublic. While discussing the earnings restatement, Interpublic executives said overall professional fees – mostly for compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley – represented 4.7 per cent of the company’s $2.9bn in first-half revenues. If that trend continues, and the company suggests that it will, Interpublic could end up spending an astonishing $300m this year on accountants, lawyers and other professional service providers. That compares with professional fees of $28.5m as recently as 2002.

The lengthy FT feature considers the role of Michael Roth, Interpublic’s chairman and CEO, and what he's been doing to clean Interpublic's house since he assumed the top job last January. The FT reports that Roth's learning experiences include:

• Get accounting systems in place before you go global. Interpublic’s financial woes have been compounded by a failure to unify its operations' IT systems.
• Beware of "local business practices". Interpublic has found it hard to reconcile legal activities in foreign countries with the demands of US accounting standards.
• Think hard about Sarbanes-Oxley. Interpublic could spend as much as $300m this year on professional services. Not all foreign opportunities are worth the accounting costs.
• Follow the clients. More big corporations are giving global advertising assignments to streamlined networks. Marketing services holding companies should take note.

Financial Times | When globalisation goes wrong (paid sub)

Keeping Apple coolness intact

The problems with scratches on the new iPod nano that hundreds of users reported during the past two weeks hasn't turned out to be the brand, reputation and PR crisis for Apple that it could have been.

Thanks largely to a public acknowledgement that a batch of nanos did suffer from a manufacturing defect regarding the screens and that Apple would replace affected nanos for free, the company has emerged unscathed with its coolness factor intact.

Obvious lesson - if your product does clearly have some kind of defect, and your customers are loudly complaining, admit to it quickly and say what you'll do to fix the problem. Apple did just that and defused the matter. Contrast this with the now famous Kryptonite bicycle lock case study (it is a case study now, I'm sure) from 2004. Or the Dell hell saga this year. Or the more recent "truth about the Land Rover Discovery 3" which is still developing.

One company got it right, three didn't. And it's nothing to do with blogs, no matter what anyone says - it's to do with being honest and listening to your customers wherever they speak: blogs, chat rooms, the daily paper, down at the pub, wherever. And responding to those collective conversations in a way that shows your customers that you do actually care.

Of the four companies I've mentioned, I'd guess that Apple at least has read the social customer manifesto.

At the Apple Expo in Paris the week before last, the iPod nano stole the show according to a BBC News report:

Of all its products, it is the iPod which has set alight Apple's brand the most in recent years. And among the other computer-related items on show at the Apple Expo in Paris during the week, the iPod Nano still stood out. The star of this year's Apple Expo was as slim and elegant as an after-dinner mint. Apple's latest candy-covered iPod, the Nano, comes in two or four gigabytes.

While it has suffered some teething problems - Apple has agreed to replace one batch prone to scratched or cracked screens - it still symbolises everything the company stands for, says Phil Schiller, Apple's head of worldwide product marketing. "Apple is a company that makes products that are very advanced technology and yet incredibly easy to use. And we have a tremendous number of engineering skills and talents to do this.

"And it's the magic of how that all comes together to make a product work just the way a customer would want, that's easy and that you love to have as a part of your life."

GM's Bob Lutz: The disruptive communicator

He was the first General Motors executive blogger when the GM Fastlane Blog launched last January. Now he's the first GM executive podcaster on FastLane Radio, GM's podcast series launched in February.

GM vice chairman Bob Lutz stars in a Q&A discussion with Bill O'Neill, GM's executive director of communications. During much of the 20-minute podcast released yesterday, Lutz and O'Neill talk about cars, the North American market, the competition, fuel economy and performance, and other car-related themes.

I found it especially interesting when, about 15 minutes in, Lutz starting talking (passionately) about why he got into blogging and commented at some length on how he sees the medium and its value both for GM and its audiences, contrasting blogs with traditional and formal corporate communication. He remains consistent with his advocacy that a blog gives the company direct and unfiltered feedback from customers and car enthusiasts.

Amongst others things, Lutz said one of his biggest frustrations has always been that "the media has the voice and you don't" unless you buy advertising. But such advertising, he said, is distrusted so a medium like a blog is extremely effective when you want to state your point of view or correct something. Plus it makes you feel a lot better when you're able to do that, Lutz said.

He also commented on who he believes are the key audiences for the GM FastLane Blog - fellow bloggers ("a large group of people listened to by friends who don't blog"), and the media who, he says, gain "therapeutic value" through seeing that GM reacts openly and honestly and which may cause those media to see that "this isn't a one-way street." He added that, as the company now has direct access to customers, in the long term that could pose a threat to conventional print media.

Such directness and disarming informality is a hallmark of Lutz as the GM new media champion, with a disruptive approach to traditional communication that I find exhilarating in a leader of one of the world's most traditional companies. Would there were more like Bob Lutz!

If I have any criticism of the podcast, it would be that O'Neill's questions seemed somewhat leading. A little too much of "I know that GM has..."  and "I know that you are..." etc has a bit of a rehearsed air about it. Maybe it's because I'm a communicator myself as I believe that the senior communicator conducting an executive interview like this for a podcast means it will likely appear to many as less than wholly credible when it sounds less than wholly natural and a bit too polished. I wonder what it would be like if Lutz were engaged in conversation with, say, a customer or a dealer.

Much might depend on the communication objectives of the podcast. Which leads me to another thought. Ostensibly, the podcast is aimed at the same people who use the blog which is about GM's cars and not GM's business. It's only available via the blog. Yet in listening to the conversation, I'd say it would be of interest to others like investors and the financial community as it would give those audiences another dimension in understanding GM's business and its leadership.

In any event, it's a great job and an interesting development in GM's evolutionary use of new media channels.

• Related - Bob Lutz interview for Naked Conversations, the new book on corporate blogging due out at year's end, in April 2005.

Communicating the power of 3

Listening to eBay's investor conference call last night which took place to discuss eBay's acquisition of Skype, and following along with the slide presentation (PDF), it's now clearer to me what the expected synergies are from this deal from eBay's and Skype's perspectives.

It's something they're calling the Power of 3:

(Click to see a larger image.)

What this diagram illustrates to me is a simple addition to the eBay/PayPal business model:

• On eBay, sellers go where the buyers are, and vice-versa.
• With PayPal, more sellers (and not only eBay sellers) offer payment options by that means, and more buyers use that option.
• Integrating Skype into the eBay/PayPal mix gives buyers and sellers the means to quickly and easily get in touch with each other if they want to, and for free if they make their calls entirely via the internet no matter where each of them is. Talk about facilitating global commerce!
• Each part of the mix feeds the other, enhancing the richness of each element and helping to bolster and grow the whole eBay offering.

So that's my concise business takeaway from this deal.

Of course, it's far more complex than that. Questions such as why did eBay buy Skype at all - could they not have simply entered into some kind of service agreement with Skype? Or why did they spend so much - many seem to think it's a very expensive acquisition. There have been plenty of instant analyses during the past 24 hours, both by mainstream media and interested bloggers, that address such questions and provide many different answers.

Three such analyses I've read today, and which I easily understand, are What will Ebay do with Skype? (Financial Times, paid sub), eBay Opens a Whole New Channel (Business Week Online), and Skype - Chapter 2 (Skype Journal). Read them and see what you think.

So where does this place the Skype user, the customer? What's in it for him or her?

Well, I'm a long-term Skype customer - I use all the service offerings - a frequent PayPal user and a very occasional eBay user. I'm probably a hot target type for eBay post-acquisition as getting someone like me to use eBay more must be part of their plan. (If the Dutch eBay site offered the interface in English as well, I'd use it more!)

But speaking as a Skype customer, I think this is a terrific deal for Skype and its users. All the information I've seen and heard since the deal was announced yesterday indicate to me that the customer will be a winner as Skype continuing as a stand-alone business will be able to develop its services with the support and resources of a robust and solid business led by people who demonstrate clarity of purpose and clear direction. There's a lot of confidence there to back up the hard financial facts which I like.

The interesting thing now will be for eBay and Skype to demonstrate all this to customers at a time when the internet phone business is looking poised to really take off. Skype may well have a presence in 225 countries and territories worldwide and be the market leader in every major country, as founder Niklas Zennström said in yesterday's investor call. That matters little to the customer in, say, Italy who continues to have a painful experience calling his auntie in, say, Costa Rica. And when there are viable-looking alternatives like Microsoft Teleo, Google Talk and Gizmo, I wonder what customer/brand loyalty will really mean.

If the foundation's solid, communicating the 'Power of 3' now has center stage.

Ebay says it is acquiring Skype

It's now official - Ebay is acquiring Skype.

A press release on the Ebay investor relations website makes it clear:

London, September 12, 2005 – eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY; www.ebay.com) has agreed to acquire Luxembourg-based Skype Technologies SA, the global Internet communications company, for approximately $2.6 billion in up-front cash and eBay stock, plus potential performance-based consideration. The acquisition will strengthen eBay’s global marketplace and payments platform, while opening several new lines of business and creating significant new monetization opportunities for the company. The deal also represents a major opportunity for Skype to advance its leadership in Internet voice communications and offer people worldwide new ways to communicate in a global online era. Skype, eBay and PayPal will create an unparalleled ecommerce and communications engine for buyers and sellers around the world.

“Communications is at the heart of ecommerce and community,” said Meg Whitman, President and Chief Executive Officer of eBay. “By combining the two leading ecommerce franchises, eBay and PayPal, with the leader in Internet voice communications, we will create an extraordinarily powerful environment for business on the Net.”

[...] eBay will host an investor conference call to discuss the announcement at 5 am Pacific Time today. A live webcast of the conference call can be accessed through the eBay’s Investor Relations website at http://investor.ebay.com. An archive of the webcast will be accessible through the same link.

See Ebay's PDF press release for the complete announcement.

[Edit] Skype has also posted the press release.

Ebay acquisition of Skype looks imminent

Still just a rumour? Last Thursday, the Financial Times reported on a strong rumour that Ebay was in talks to acquire Skype.

This morning, the FT has this story prominently displayed on its home page:

Ebay was in the final stages late on Sunday night of sealing an agreement to buy Skype, the fast-growing provider of voice calls over the internet, for more than $2.6bn, according to a person close to the situation.

The deal, which ends a flurry of takeover approaches from other internet and media companies, could cost as much as $4.1bn, if Skype hits certain performance targets between now and 2008.

Financial Times | Ebay set to seal Skype deal for over $2.6bn (paid sub)

Strong rumours persist about Skype acquisition

From the Financial Times this morning:

Skype, the European internet telephony provider, on Thursday played down talk of an imminent takeover, declining to comment on a report that Ebay had joined the list of potential suitors with an offer valued at up to $5bn. Ebay on Thursday declined to comment on a report in the New York Post that it offered to buy Skype.

Early last month, a rumour circulated that News Corp was considering buying it for $3bn and on Monday, Hutchison, the telecommunications group, denied a report it was about to buy a 5 per cent stake in Skype. However, Hutchison is affiliated with TOM Online, the Chinese internet and wireless communications group, that on Monday announced a partnership with Skype.

Microsoft is also reported to be interested in the company.

The New York post story includes this comment:

A source said Skype has been in exclusive negotiations with eBay for some time, but the agreement expires in the next few days.

Microsoft snaps up Teleo

The instant messaging market just shifted up a few gears with the news today that Microsoft has acquired Teleo, the Skype-like internet phone/chat service.

In a press release this morning, Microsoft said it plans to use this acquisition as a means to greatly extend the capabilities of MSN Messenger. An announcement on the Teleo website said:

[...] Microsoft plans to incorporate and expand upon Teleo’s technologies, integrating them into the MSN services infrastructure, with plans to ultimately deliver new VoIP consumer applications in future releases of MSN services, such as MSN Messenger.

Teleo has been in beta since it launched earlier this year (that beta programme is now discontinued, according to the website). I tried it in February and it did look very attractive as an alternative to Skype at a time when Skype's offering lacked much of what it now comprises.

Microsoft's new tool is a bit different to that of Google who launched Google Talk last week. The difference is that while Google Talk enables you to connect to other users via your PC for free voice and text chatting, it doesn't have real phone calling capability, ie, the ability to make and receive phone calls from regular phones such as you can with Skype and its SkypeIn and SkypeOut offerings.

Teleo, on the other hand, has many similarities to Skype including that phone-calling capability.

That gives a pretty clear idea on what Microsoft is thinking as CNET News' story indicates:

[...] Microsoft has its eyes set on something more like Net phone company Skype's service, however. A key part of Teleo's technology is focused on making calls from a computer to an ordinary telephone, a feature that company executives said would start finding its way into MSN Messenger before the end of 2005.

What's next? What about Gizmo which I experimented with last month? Maybe Yahoo will come knocking on that door.

Newsworthy to start the day 9-8-05

> The driving force behind the spectacular market debut of shares in the Chinese search engine company Baidu.com on Friday was its resemblance and ties to Google, whose own offering created a sensation last year, analysts said over the weekend. Shares in Baidu soared Friday on the Nasdaq stock market in one of the most successful initial public offerings since the peak of the dot-com era. The stock more than quadrupled by the end of the day, instantly creating the most valuable Internet company in China. The shares were priced at $27 but opened at $66 and then soared to $122.54. [...] Investors in Baidu include Google and the Silicon Valley venture capital firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson and IDG Ventures. Foreign investors are trying to cash in on an Internet boom in China, where there are now estimated to be about 100 million regular Internet users. (New York Times)

> The rumor that Cisco is looking to buy Nokia for its wireless networking business makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, says Business 2.0. Yes, wireless networking is becoming increasingly important to Cisco. But why buy Nokia, which has a massive consumer cell phone business that Cisco has no clue how to run and a hefty $73 billion market cap, when Ericsson and Lucent are far cheaper and far better fits especially Lucent which only has a $13 billion market cap, sells only to enterprises just like Cisco, is based in the U.S., and arguably has just as strong a set of backend wireless networking technologies as Nokia. (Business 2.0 Blog)

> Microsoft has quietly released a redaction tool for Office Word 2003 to let users black out sections of confidential data from documents. The security tool, available as a free download, plugs into Microsoft Office Word 2003 to offer a simple interface for marking sections of a document for redaction. [...] The tool could come in useful for government departments and businesses worried about the leakage of sensitive documents and confidential legal information. It could also be used to protect details in insurance and other contracts that are printed or distributed electronically. The redaction tool works perfectly for securing documents without losing formatting and design. Without the tool, businesses will typically delete the sensitive text, but this disrupts the format. In addition to providing document security, Microsoft is using the tool to show off the extensibility of the Office 2003 document processing suite. (eWeek)

> Budding amateur photographers and citizen journalists should not be tempted to become star stalkers says the founder of an amateur photo agency. Kyle MacRae, whose agency Scoopt represents mobile snappers so they get paid for their work, said there are serious ethical issues at stake. Following the London bomb attacks and Asian tsunami, news outlets have been keen to exploit mobile snaps and video. Cameraphone growth has let more people capture events as they happen. Such hazy snaps usually taken by amateurs who witness events before they hit the headlines are proving valuable to traditional news organisations. Although Mr MacRae is passionate about the potential impact witness or citizen journalists can have in changing what becomes newsworthy, he said that should not mean people go out deliberately searching for that elusive scoop. This week, the UK Chartered Institute of Journalists also warned news organisations against actively encouraging people to do that, adding that people should be paid for their contributions too. (BBC News)

> A top shareholder in Skype said on Monday it wants to see the fast-growing Internet telecoms software firm stay independent after a report of failed takeover talks with media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. "The company (Skype) is worth a lot more independent," said Timothy Draper, managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a Californian venture capital firm which he says owns between 10 and 20 percent of Skype. "I would prefer that it (Skype) remains independent," Draper told Reuters in a telephone interview. By allowing users to make free phone calls around the world on the Internet, Skype is regarded as one of the biggest threats for telecoms operators. Founded just two years ago, it already counts more than 48 million registered users. "Skype is in a wonderful strategic position, it's becoming the standard communication platform for more and more people," Draper added. (Reuters via eWeek)

IBM starts investor-focused podcasts

Reuters: IBM is the latest major company to embrace podcasting. [...] The world's largest computer company said on Friday it plans to introduce a series of occasional podcasts on its investor relations site as part of a broader effort to communicate directly to its investors and the wider public about hot topics.

This is a significant move in business podcasting. Until now, every company who has embraced this medium has used it as part of broad marketing, communication and customer relationship activities. This is the first example I'm aware of where a company - a publicly-held one at that - has jumped into a business area that many people consider to be a risky one for such open, informal and transparent communication channels ("What about regulations and the SEC?"). Clearly not so if you do it right.

I do like the strap line on the podcast home page:

You’ve read our point of view. Now hear what we think.

Interestingly, in the explanations on that page on how to get the podcast and the various podcatchers you can use, it includes iTunes. What better way at the moment to reach the mass podcast-listener market?

The first investor relations-produced podcast - IBM and the Future of Driving, an 18-minute recording - is available now. Nicely produced (definitely not an indy-type podcast).

IBM's announcement yesterday is not their first move into podcasting - the IBM Systems and Technology Group, for instance, already podcasts as this podcast on 26 July indicates.

Yet more examples of the growing uptake of an effective and complementary communication medium by large corporations. Not especially in the IT industry, either, as this embryonic list indicates.

IBM continues to delight with their innovative communication ideas. And you can be absolutely sure other companies have similar plans in the works.

Related NevOn posts:

• IBM publishes guidelines for employee bloggers
• IBM creating an army of evangelists

Game sex scenes denial hits GTA maker's share price

BBC News: The best-selling Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas game has been given an adults only ratings in the US after explicit sexual content was found in it. The Entertainment Software Rating Board changed the rating as the game's publisher Take Two admitted it created sex scenes found in the title.

There would be nothing especially remarkable about this news were it not for that fact that Take Two denied that the explicit scenes were in the game from the outset, saying instead that they were the result of modifications made to the game by a game fan. Now they've come clean with the truth.

Here are the immediate consequences of being caught out with an untruth:

[...] The news had an instant impact on shares in Take Two, owner of GTA maker Rockstar Games, which fell 11% in after-hours trading. The change in rating led to shops such as Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy removing the game from their shelves as they have a policy of not stocking titles with AO ratings.

BBC News | Technology | Hidden sex scenes hit GTA rating

[UPDATE 22/7/05] From the Financial Times 21 July - Adult rating damages Take-Two:

Take-Two Interactive Software lowered its fiscal third-quarter guidance yesterday [...] The video game maker said it expected to post a loss of 40-45 cents a share on sales of $160m-$170m for the quarter ending July 31. Analysts had been expecting Take-Two to report a quarterly loss of 6 cents a share on sales of $213m. Shares in the company were down about 6 per cent at $25.40 in after-hours trading.

Email has its disclosure risks, too

Financial Times: Versatel, the Dutch telecoms company, on Thursday denied it was the source of an e-mail announcing that it may be bought by Deutsche Telekom, triggering legal and regulatory probes into the document's origin. Dutch media received the e-mail, purportedly from Versatel and Talpa, an investment company that is its biggest shareholder [and the investment vehicle of Dutch billionaire entrepreneur John de Mol], shortly after midnight on Thursday and broke the news shortly after 7am.

With so much focus on blogs and the potential risks of inadvertent (or deliberate) disclosure of sensitive information, this is a timely reminder that other long-established communication channels can also be easily (mis)used to do exactly the same thing.

And this from the FT's report:

[...] Betten Beurs Media, a financial website, and ANP, the national press association, later accepted they had acted without checking the document's authenticity. Both agencies apologised and withdrew their stories.

So it's not only bloggers who sometimes shoot from the hip ;)

Blog censorship and the impact on doing business in China

The many conversations in recent weeks about blog censorship in China won't lead to any meaningful conclusions, I reckon.

While the first amendment rights to free speech that many bloggers passionately post about is a US concept (and hardly likely to make inroads in China any time soon), it is something I also strongly believe in. And like many bloggers whose posts I've read, I think people in China should be able to talk as openly and freely as I can here in The Netherlands.

Restrictions on personal freedoms of speech in China are tightening even more, though, with bloggers there as a target according to a story in the Financial Times last week:

[...] New rules require all bloggers to register with the government the true name of the site author by June 30 or face their blog being shut down. Web crawlers will be deployed to seek and block unregistered sites. Financial penalties for non-compliance are prohibitive - up to RMB1m ($121,000). Internet service providers will also be held liable for providing hosting services to banned sites.

The FT's article included some detailed commentary on what such restrictions on personal expression could mean for foreign companies doing business in China:

[...] Where the regulations may have a bigger impact is on the growing number of offshore companies - and their chief executive officers - who are using blogs to communicate with customers. Bob Lutz of General Motors and Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems are just two examples of chief executive bloggers. Companies that have blogs - and that are also pursuing a China investment strategy - will need to make a decision and take advice on how such blogs may or may not come within the purview of the new regulations.

A number of companies, in particular search engine companies, are choosing self-censorship at this time.

The FT concluded with a question: How will the people the global corporations most need to influence in China - the local population - respond longer term to a company’s decision to adhere to local law versus prioritising free speech?

It's a good question but, as with the blog censorship conversations I mentioned earlier, I can't see any black-and-white answers.

Financial Times | Blogs come on to censors' radar (paid sub required).

Corporate responsibility reporting enters the mainstream

International accounting firm KPMG has published the results of its latest survey on corporate responsibility reporting.

The survey report shows continuing support for corporate responsibility and open communication by the leaders of many of the world's most successful and biggest companies:

Corporate responsibility (CR) reporting in industrialized countries has clearly entered the mainstream, with Japan and UK in the lead. There has been a dramatic change from purely environmental reporting up until 1999 to sustainability reporting in 2005, encompassing social, ethical, environmental and economic indicators. The CR performance has definitely caught the eye of the financial sector which is reflected in the two-fold increase in reporting in this sector since 2002.

In the report's introduction, Mike Rake, Chairman of KPMG International, says: "The survey reflects the growing importance within the business community of corporate responsibility as the key indicator of non-financial performance, as well as a driver of financial performance. It also reflects the responsibility that business has to be transparent and accountable not just to shareholders but also to the wider community."

With its comprehensive coverage of over 1600 companies - including the top 250 companies of the Fortune 500 and top 100 companies in 16 countries - the survey provides a truly global picture of reporting trends over the last ten years.

The bottom line:

[...] The important business drivers for corporate responsibility for companies are:

• to have a good brand and reputation
• to be an employer of choice
• to have and maintain a strong market position
• to have the trust of the financial markets and increase shareholder value
• to be innovative in developing new products and services and creating new markets.

The report also includes this definition of the phrase 'corporate responsibility':

"The commitment of business to contribute to sustainable economic development, working with employees, their families, the local community and society at large to improve their quality of life." - World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), 2004.

Download KPMG International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2005 (PDF)

See also - short article in yesterday's Financial Times (paid sub access) with a good analysis of the survey report.

Related NevOn post:

• Nike breaks new ground in communication transparency

Fear and loathing with Sarbanes-Oxley

The Financial Times has a story about how CEOs and CFOs feel about providing the financial markets and investors with guidance regarding a publicly-listed company's future earnings.

The issue of how best to share critical information with the public is such a hot potato, the FT says, that few corporate officers, auditors and investor relations professionals are prepared to go on the record with their views:

[...] The fear and confusion surrounding earnings predictions speaks volumes about a corporate climate that is full of uncertainty. Haunting every decision about what the market needs to know is Sarbanes-Oxley, the legislation that makes chief executives and chief financial officers personally accountable for the veracity of financial statements.

Then there is the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation FD (for “fair disclosure”), which states that companies cannot share “material news” selectively – that is, with a small group of analysts or institutional investors. Yet the pressure to deliver smooth earnings, and to minimise stock-price volatility, has not diminished.

Two recent studies suggest that, due to nervousness over compliance, more companies are backing off from giving any guidance at all, or are giving it less frequently. In an annual survey of finance executives at big US corporations by Greenwich Associates, 55 per cent of the 385 respondents said they had issued some form of earnings guidance during 2004, down from 72 per cent in 2003. And when the [US] National Investor Relations Institute questioned 527 of its corporate members on their guidance practices, two results jumped out. The number of companies providing only annualised guidance nearly doubled, from 16 per cent in 2003 to 28 per cent last year. Those giving quarterly guidance (either exclusively or in addition to annual estimates) fell sharply, from 75 per cent to 61 per cent.

“Everybody’s afraid,” says Frank Redican, a veteran of brokerage house Josephthal Co. in New York who now runs his own investment firm. “Sarbanes-Oxley changed something, but I’m not sure what.”

Financial Times | Chief executives can’t win at the numbers game (paid sub required)

Related NevOn post:

• Testing time for Sarbanes-Oxley

Nokia's rap on the knuckles

BBC News: Phone maker Nokia has been reprimanded by Finland's financial market watchdog and stock exchange for not releasing positive earnings news quickly enough. Listed in New York and Helsinki, Nokia followed US rules but did not abide by Finland's, the regulators said. Nokia should have told investors about the improved fourth-quarter earnings and sales on 14 January, and not have waited until 27 January as it did. Nokia shares jumped more than 6% when the good news came out on 27 January.

From reading this concise BBC News story today, plus other news reports on the net, it's hard to see how Nokia could have made such a high-profile error like this, given their knowledge and significant experience under the regulatory frameworks of multiple jurisdictions.

It looks like Nokia got off lightly, a rap on the knuckles, with the Finnish regulators giving them the benefit of the doubt (read the statement from the Helsinki stock exchange). A one-time benefit, no doubt.

Now this from Nokia's spokesperson quoted in the BBC report:

"We are a multi-listed company and we are obliged to follow the laws of all countries," spokeswoman Arja Suominen said. "According to our understanding, rules gave us time to communicate. Of course in the future we will take the decision into consideration."

I'd say the communicators need to be 100% familiar with the exact disclosure requirements in each jurisdiction, even if no one else in the company appears to be.

Yet having said that, I know from my own experience that it can sometimes not be an easy task to correctly interpret the sometimes vaguely-worded disclosure requirements of stock exchanges.

In The Netherlands, for instance, the Euronext exchange in Amsterdam had a helpful and useful booklet at one time that sets out the matter of disclosure by listed companies - when, how and under what circumstances. (That booklet doesn't seem to exist any more as I can't locate it on the Euronext website.)

But the over-riding factor on disclosure and when to disclose relied on what to many people was too vague a criterion - in essence, you had to make a public announcement on anything that might affect the share price, up or down. As to what 'anything' might be, that was left to corporate common sense - if you have reason to believe that a given event or circumstance could affect your share price, then you disclose. You err on the side of disclosure, not the other way around.

While I can imagine that narrowing such a seemingly-vague condition isn't easy, with so many variables, it would lessen anyone's misunderstanding - and, hence, aid their understanding - if it were a lot clearer.

So to help communicators get fully in the picture on disclosure requirements, whatever the stock exchange, regulators need to ensure their requirements are clear so that the communicators get a chance to actually understand them.

FeedDemon acquisition gives NewsGator a complete RSS offering

The news today from Nick Bradbury, the developer of the FeedDemon desktop RSS aggregator for Windows, that his company Bradsoft has been acquired by NewsGator is a significant move in the market for tools and applications that enable you to more easily and effectively retrieve, manage and use information.

NewsGator enables you to subscribe to RSS feeds through its online aggregator services, or via email and into Microsoft Outlook. It does not have a desktop RSS aggregator.

With FeedDemon - arguably the leading such application for Windows - NewsGator will be able to address a more complete market opportunity through providing the tools for people to manage their information both online as well as on the desktop with a stand-alone application.

Not only that, FeedDemon will integrate closely with NewsGator's online synchronization platform. This means that you can use FeedDemon on multiple computers and keep all your RSS content synchronized between them and your online RSS content, a feature FeedDemon already offers with the Bloglines web-based RSS aggregator (Bloglines, incidentally, was acquired by Ask Jeeves in February).

As Nick explains it further:

[...] Beyond that, having a server-side piece offers a lot of interesting possibilities. Coupling a rich desktop client with a first-rate server-side aggregator provides the best of both worlds: you get the power of a Windows application and all the flexibility of a web-based approach. There have been a number of features I've been wanting to add to FeedDemon that required a server-side piece which I can now provide.

While these changes won't happen overnight, we've already been working hard on a new release of FeedDemon - version 1.51 - which will include much better integration than currently exists. You should expect to see the first beta of FeedDemon 1.51 a couple of weeks from now.

Read the formal announcement in NewsGator's press release.

As for existing FeedDemon customers (I'm one), Nick's post contained some great news:

I think you're going to like this :) NewsGator uses a subscription model, and FeedDemon will become part of their subscription plans. All existing FeedDemon customers will get a two-year business standard subscription for free - and this includes upgrades to FeedDemon. In other words, if you've already bought FeedDemon, you'll get brand new versions of FeedDemon and a subscription to NewsGator Online free for the next two years.

Now that's a sweet deal!

Related NevOn posts:

• Getting more from your RSS feed
• Top ten reasons for using RSS
• Understanding RSS from the non-tech view

IBM creating an army of evangelists

Silicon Valley Watcher: Early next week IBM will introduce the largest ever corporate blogging initiative in a bid to encourage any of its 130,000 staff to become online evangelists for the company.

Tom Foremski's report today in Silicon Valley Watcher makes for very interesting reading.

He says IBM's plan comes hot on the heels of their Q1/05 financial results, which missed financial analysts' expectations and led to IBM announcing layoffs of up to 13,000 employees, with the majority of those lost jobs in Europe. Also see this ZDNet report with additional commentary.

Tom's report says that IBM hopes blogging could help stem further losses if it can galvanize employees into becoming an army of online evangelists for IBM's products and technologies. Employees will be taught what blogging is, and they will be guided on what is appropriate blogging content.

The goal is to help improve IBM's competitive position in key IT markets by having more of its tech gurus participating in online communities and discussions.

This huge-scale blogging plan is visionary, to say the least, but the goal must be regarded as extraordinarily ambitious. Mind you, imagine if only one percent of IBM's 130,000 employees become outward-facing bloggers - that's 1,300 new bloggers suddenly on the scene, about as many as Microsoft currently has in total (that was the number in March, anyway).

But we already know that IBM has been making strong moves into corporate blogging for some time. In early March, I posted commentary about their 2,800 internal employee blogs. I bet that number has increased substantially and geographically in the ensuing two months.

There are also the efforts IBM is making to categorize and tag content on their employee intranet, a behemoth site(s) with over five million pages. The goal there is clear - enable employees to more effectively find and use information, and enable them to assign attributes to information in a way that makes it easy and simple for others to find and make connections to and from it.

This is all about reducing costs, and improving workplace efficiency and employee productivity, as well as the obvious goal.

For the moment, a last word from Tom's report:

This type of evangelism through blogging can be extremely effective and potentially reduce advertising and marketing costs-a very large line item for most companies. Such savings could offset job cuts-the traditional way IBM and other tech companies reduce their costs.

Update 16 May: IBM publishes guidelines for employee bloggers.

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