Offering asides, recommended links, blogworthy quotations, and more, In Brief is the Northwest Progressive Institute's microblog of world, national, and local politics.

Friday, May 17th, 2013

Aside

Tumblr, do you *really* want to sell to Yahoo!? After what happened to GeoCities?

Rumors are flying this evening that Yahoo! is on the verge of acquiring Tumblr. A deal may be finalized this weekend, so long as Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer can get approval from Yahoo’s board of directors.

Yahoo is thought to have offered $1.1 billion for Tumblr. The company apparently considers itself worth more than that and is trying to get Yahoo to pony up even more, even though it has paltry revenue compared to more established tech titans.

The report about the behind the scenes negotiations reminded me of a news item from fourteen years ago: the sale of GeoCities to Yahoo for $3.4 billion. Yahoo spent more than three times the amount of money on GeoCities in 1999 that it is proposing to spend now to acquire Tumblr. What happened to GeoCities? It was ingloriously shuttered a few years ago. So much for that acquisition.

The rationale for buying GeoCities was that it would add a lot of value to Yahoo. That’s what geniuses like Scott Appleby said at the time:

Analysts say the potential acquisition of GeoCities, or a company like it, is a must for Yahoo!.

“I really think it’s the only strategy,” says Scott Appleby, an analyst with ABN Amro, adding that the growth cycle of the Internet is still in its infancy.

 ”Customers and consumers are still building behavior patterns,” he says. “Now is the time to build your network, now is the time to build your brand and AOL has proven that now is the time to build your business.”

In retrospect, the Yahoo-GeoCities deal doesn’t look so rosy. Yahoo is still around - but GeoCities is not. So much for GeoCities being a must-have.

Research has repeatedly shown that most corporate mergers and acquisitions fail to create value for shareholders. The business press loves to report on deals and rumored deals, but that has no bearing on whether they make business sense. That explains why dealmaking generates more headlines than returns.

Which leads us to ask: Tumblr, do you *really* want to sell to Yahoo? This is the company that bought Delicious and was going to close it before it found a buyer to keep it running. This is the company that let Flickr go into a stall. And this is the company that bought GeoCities for a whopping $3.4 billion in 1999 and then extinguished it ten years later. Don’t think the payout you’ll be getting will be any kind of insurance against a similar fate for Tumblr down the road.

So, David Karp and team, think long and hard before you decide to sell. Look at what happened to the other companies that Yahoo bought.

And heck, ask Yahoo about it. You might want to drop the word “GeoCities” during the negotiations and see what kind of reaction that elicits.

# Posted at 11:16 pm Pacific

Recommended Link

CBO says the federal deficit has shrunk - but the traditional media isn't reporting it 

Media Matters: “Following months of media calls for deficit reduction, cable news channels spent just over 7 minutes reporting on a revised Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projection that the 2013 deficit will decline by more than previous estimates. Broadcast network news evening shows did not cover the new report.”

# Posted at 12:11 pm Pacific

Recommended Link

Sacramento group, Maloof family reach deal for Kings 

The Maloof brothers have reportedly agreed to sell their controlling interest in the Sacramento Kings franchise to a local ownership group that will keep the team right where it is. The deal leaves Chris Hansen and his group with no stake in the franchise.

# Posted at 10:18 am Pacific

Recommended Link

Paul Otellini's Intel: Can the company that built the future survive it? 

The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal: “As the CEO steps down, he leaves the Intel machine poised to take on the swarming ecosystem of competitors who make smartphone chips.”

# Posted at 9:45 am Pacific

Thursday, May 16th, 2013

Quotation
We wish Seattle the best. Great sports town, great ownership group, and Chris Hansen and (Steve) Ballmer, and those folks — I hope they get a team at some point, I think they will. And this is just me, but I’m rooting for Seattle. If there is any way we can be helpful, you know, we will. They were awesome.
— Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, expressing hope that Seattle will get an expansion NBA franchise before too long.

# Posted at 10:00 am Pacific

Recommended Link

Meet a farmer who uses horses to plow his family farm 

Call them old-fashioned, but some farmers still prefer to manage their fields with horses rather than fossil-fuel burning tractors, as the New York Times’ Anne Raver found out.

# Posted at 9:45 am Pacific

Wednesday, May 15th, 2013

Quotation
If the NDP wants to form government, they need to stop relying the belief that the Liberals will simply play themselves out of power in British Columbia and find their nerve. Offer clear policies which promise change in and of themselves by addressing the concrete needs of British Columbians; not vague promises that someday, things will be better.
— Michael Stewart: Eby and Heyman offer answers to NDP heartbreak

# Posted at 5:15 pm Pacific

Chat Transcript

Attorney General Eric Holder slams Darrell Issa for "unacceptable and shameful" conduct

  • DARRELL ISSA: Yes, you didn’t want us to see the details. Mr. Attorney General…
  • ERIC HOLDER: No, this is what you typically do.
  • DARRELL ISSA: Knowing the two…
  • ERIC HOLDER: I’m not going to stop talking now. You have characterized something as something…
  • DARRELL ISSA: Mr. Chairman, will you inform the witness as to the rules of this committee?
  • ERIC HOLDER: It is too consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of Congress. It’s unacceptable, and it’s shameful.

— via

# Posted at 1:33 pm Pacific

Quotation
There’s very little legislating going on the House floor.
— GWU political science professor Sarah Binder. The House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans, is holding yet another vote to repeal the Patient Protection Act, instead of bothering to work on pressing issues.

# Posted at 1:30 pm Pacific

Quotation
I think when one analyzes the results on a riding by riding basis, one notes that there were 12 ridings where the combined NDP and Green vote was larger than the Liberal candidate who won in each one of those ridings. So, in other words, if there had been some strategic agreement between the Greens and the NDP, the NDP would’ve formed government with somewhere in the neighbourhood of 45 seats.
— Grand Chief Stewart Phillip: ‘Gold rush mentality’ trumps human rights and social needs in B.C. vote

# Posted at 1:01 pm Pacific

Recommended Link

Kings sale: Talking Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer off of the Maloofian ledge 

California sports radio host Tim Montemayor says his NBA sources tell him that key people within the league have been talking to Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer, trying to get them to understand that allying themselves with the Maloof brothers - who are reviled in Sacramento and disliked by the other owners - is not a good idea and hurts their prospects of landing Seattle a team.

# Posted at 10:51 am Pacific

Tuesday, May 14th, 2013

Quotation
Going with the “Let’s Sing Kumbaya”/Wasn’t Jack Layton’s Legacy Great? approach to the rough and tumble of BC politics was never smart. The NDP came into the election armed to the teeth with issues and hardly fired a shot. Yet, it’s not just Topp and it’s not just Broadbent. The NDP has to stop talking to itself and its long term supporters and start talking to Canadians of every kind.
— Georgia Straight commenter James G, assessing the B.C. NDP’s disastrous 2013 performance. The B.C. Liberals and Christy Clark won a fourth consecutive majority government on Tuesday night, shocking pollsters.

# Posted at 11:07 pm Pacific

Monday, May 13th, 2013

Recommended Link

Geography of Hate: A map of geotagged tweets laced with hate speech in the United States 

Worth checking out: “The Geography of Hate is part of a larger project by Dr. Monica Stephens of Humboldt State University (HSU) identifying the geographic origins of online hate speech. Undergraduate students Amelia Egle, Matthew Eiben and Miles Ross, worked to produce the data and this map as part of Dr. Stephens’ Advanced Cartography course at Humboldt State University.”

# Posted at 1:05 pm Pacific

Quotation
But Sacramento’s position remains the same: There has never been anything wrong with the Sacramento market – except for the Maloofs. The only reason the Kings are for sale to interests outside Sacramento is because the Maloofs have been trying to move the team for years.
— Sacramento Bee columnist Marcos Breton: Seattle haunted by screw-up

# Posted at 9:37 am Pacific

Thursday, May 9th, 2013

Quotation
We are warned in the Bible not to plow inequity, not to eat the fruit of lies… Where in the Bible are we assured of safety if we do? I see no assurances of that.
— Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, objecting to an unnamed colleague’s suggestion that God will protect the Earth from the climate crisis.

# Posted at 11:46 pm Pacific