Marketing Pilgrim

I’m going to say what most people will think when they read the news that former Ask.com CEO Jim Safka is back in the saddle again.

Did he really leave Ask.com for the stated reason that his brother had died?

Don’t get me wrong–losing a family member is crushing–but at the time, I couldn’t help but wonder if Ask.com was covering up Safka’s real reason for leaving.

It turns out that I don’t have to feel too guilty about my theory. In an interview–that appears to focus more on Ask.com than his new company Chegg–Safka reveals that his brother’s death was not indeed the only reason he left the company.

My reasons for wanting to leave were multifold. I always wanted to work for a company that was at an early stage and closer to my home. (Chegg is based in Santa Clara, Calif, and Ask is about 50 miles north, in Oakland.) It was a little earlier than I expected to leave Ask. But this in my mind was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

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OK, this is definitely nothing more than a rumor, but Google could be close to launching a real-time microblogging search engine.

Google Operating System spotted an unusual translation request at Google’s Transconsole site. What the heck is Transconsole?

You can volunteer to translate Google’s help information and search interface into your favorite language. By helping with our translation process you ensure that Google will be available in your language of choice more quickly and with a better interface than it would have otherwise.

So a recent translation request looked like this:

Now, it’s only a translation request by Google, but why would you need to translate "recent updates about QUERY" if you weren’t getting ready to launch a real time search engine?

UPDATE: Looks like there won’t be a Twitter TV show.

In an effort to capitalize on its increased attention, Twitter has agreed to a TV deal with Reveille Productions and Brillstein Entertainment Partners. And not just any TV series, friends, a REALITY TV series (cue the hallelujah chorus). I think we’ve all had this void in our life, and in our TV lineups in particular, that was missing something . . . something AMAZING. The Twitter reality TV show is just that.

Who wouldn’t want to see people stalk celebrities via Twitter? What’s that you say? You can already see people stalking celebrities on Twitter by simply visiting twitter.com? Blasphemy! This has number one TV rankings written all over it.

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Well, it’s been a relatively quiet week or so regarding Facebook so let’s see what the talk around town is. It looks to be about Facebook’s valuation and whether they are seeking money or not. Also, if they are seeking some more cash what is it for? Some say a stock buy back from employees. Some say something else. It’s social media’s version of ‘He said, she said’ but the truth must be in there somewhere, right?

After all, we couldn’t continue to function if there was no Facebook, correct? Sorry, it’s early and there isn’t enough coffee in me to cool the sarcasm on this kind of stuff. I realize that by writing about I add to the fray but unfortunately until someone comes up with something that can generate the kind of users that a Facebook or Twitter can we may be stuck with this for a while but I digress.

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So while we don’t look like we play along when the rumor mill gets started there is ‘talk’ that Apple is looking to purchase Twitter. Of course, it seems like everyone would like to purchase Twitter but there’s the sticky detail of Twitter saying yes that seems to elude most.

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington sums it up here

Rumors popped up that Apple may be looking to buy Twitter. “Apple is in late stage negotiations to buy Twitter and is hoping to announce it at WWDC in June,” said a normally reliable source this evening, adding that the purchase price would be $700 million in cash. The trouble is we’ve checked with other sources who claim to know nothing about any Apple negotiations. If these discussions are happening, Twitter is keeping them very quiet indeed. We would have passed on reporting this rumor at all, but other press is now picking it up.

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Does anyone else see the similarity between Facebook’s attempts to raise additional funds and last week’s episode of The Office?

A quick re-cap. Michael Scott’s paper company is offered a buyout by his old employer. On their way to the negotiation table, everyone is eager to ensure that Michael Scott doesn’t reveal that his company is actually flat broke, and desperate for the money.

(click to watch the clip at Hulu.com)

Enter Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg:

“We absolutely do not need to take money,” she said. “We might take money, but it doesn’t mean we need to.”

OK, while Facebook is not exactly flat broke, it is playing a game of brinkmanship with venture capital firms–which value Facebook in the $2-3 billion range instead of the $5-6 billion Sandberg wants.

If you were a betting (wo)man where would you put your money? Facebook getting the valuation it wants, or VCs getting something lower?

The more you read about the trouble inside Time Warner the more you have to admire Tim Armstrong for ditching his comfy job at Google for the top job at AOL.

In quarterly numbers just released, Time Warner’s revenue dropped 7% from 2008 to $6.9 billion, with AOL being the biggest culprit for the decline–it saw a drop of 23%!

Clearly AOL’s just not thriving under the wings of Time Warner and it now seems inevitable that the division will be spun-off as a separate entity. Reading between the lines, you suspect that Armstrong was all but promised that AOL would be released from Time Warner. Speaking to Ad Age, Armstrong said:

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According to Hollywood reporter Sharon Waxman, Google could soon decide which news you should be reading on a daily basis.

Waxman cornered Google CEO Eric Schmidt and grilled him asked him over cocktails to share his vision for Google News. Here’s what he reportedly said:

In about six months, the company will roll out a system that will bring high-quality news content to users without them actively looking for it.

Under this latest iteration of advanced search, users will be automatically served the kind of news that interests them just by calling up Google’s page. The latest algorithms apply ever more sophisticated filtering – based on search words, user choices, purchases, a whole host of cues – to determine what the reader is looking for without knowing they’re looking for it.

Does that sound like Big Brother to anyone else? Seriously, Google will decide the news that it thinks I should be interested in? What happened to free will?

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Despite once being Rupert Murdoch’s golden boy, it appears MySpace founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe has fallen out of favor. News Corp has announced that DeWolfe will be stepping down "in the near future" and will be left with a role on the board of MySpace China and perhaps some other adviser role.

There’s no announcement about who will take over from DeWolfe, but that’s not stopping AllThingsD from speculating former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta will get the job.

And really, that says it all. MySpace was once the hottest social network on the planet, then Facebook had the audacity to open its network up to everyone. Say what you want about the numerous interface changes at Facebook, but it appears the MySpace rival is gaining audience simply because it doesn’t allow you to set up pages with flashing backgrounds and tacky MP3’s that auto-load.

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Conflicting reports, none confirmed, are circulating today about Facebook’s latest attempts at raising funding. TechCrunch says that Facebook has been shopping itself around at a $4 billion valuation somewhat unsuccessfully, while VentureBeat says they just decided not to accept funding at that level.

In October 2007, Facebook announced a major deal with Microsoft—1.6% of the company for $240 million, placing the overall valuation at $15 billion. However, in the intervening eighteen months, the company’s speculated value has fallen off, being projected as low as $5 billion last June. By October 2008, many sources thought Facebook was headed for financial ruin.

TechCrunch’s story is that Facebook is having trouble coming up with new funding:

the company has been pitching hard for new cash at a much reduced valuation, hoping for at least $4 billion. And some investors are biting, but perhaps not at that price. A source with knowledge of the possible transaction tells us that General Atlantic may have submitted a term sheet at “around a $2 billion” valuation.

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It looks like the biggest April Fool’s Joke was on all of us. Despite persistent rumors that Google was in talks to acquire Twitter (the coolest thing since the last coolest thing since sliced bread), no deal is forthcoming. On its blog, Twitter explains that sometimes they tease talk.

While all this may be protesting too much from both parties, sources are now saying that Twitter CEO Evan Williams wouldn’t sell for a billion dollars, four times what Google is rumored to have placed the microblogging service’s value at.

When it comes to Internet businesses, though, Twitter needs to remember that timing is everything. If their endgame is acquisition, there are a few points they might want to keep in mind:

• the economy is down
• the mainstream (and less mainstream) media hasn’t yet turned on Twitter (as it has with previous darlings, including MySpace and Facebook)

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Rumors that Google is in negotiations to buy Twitter have been running rife for the past few months. TechCrunch kicks things up a notch by passing on a new rumor that “Google is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter.”

But, before you either jump for joy, or abandon ship, AllThingsD pulls a Lee Corso’eque “not so fast!”

While the “news” that Google was in “late-stage” talks to acquire Twitter, which TechCrunch reported last night, certainly sounds exciting, it isn’t accurate in any way, according to a number of sources BoomTown spoke to close to the situation.

In fact, Twitter and Google have simply been engaged in “some product-related discussions,” according to one source, around real-time search and the search giant better crawling the microblogging service.

At this point it’s hard to determine which is the more likely scenario. It seems pretty clear that Twitter will continue to grow in stature, so Google would be wise to buy the company now–before its valuation skyrockets.

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