Biz Wax

Move Over Vulcans! Live Long & “Prosper” is Now Revised Online!

spiritedmaverickmedia — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 02:20:15 EST

Borrow. Lend. Prosper. Prosper.com is our alternative to using traditional banks, lenders and credit unions! It is an online community where borrowers post a profile, credit is examined (AA through E) and loans go up to $25,000. It is a lending community…people to people.

Who goes to borrow there? Single mommies that need new tires, students needing to pay off loans or need a student loan, folks going back to school, dental work and braces, bathroom remodeling, grandma’s needing a little sugar, business start up, business expansion, closing costs on homes, car and motorcycle repairs or purchases, debt consolidation to rasie credit scores and many other reasons.

How easy is it? If you’ve never ever joined a social network such as one of my favorites LinkedIn.com, Prosper.com makes it very easy and user friendly to become a borrower and/or a lender…such genious minds! Here’s how it works:

1. Let’s say you want to borrow money. Log on, set up your profile, they run and rate your credit, you enter your story and reasons why you want the loan and why you are a good candidate. Utilize photos and get “endorsements” from family and friends. Your invites are encouraged to bid even $50 towards you but it’s not required. Prosper offers them a $25 incentive if they do decide to kick in. Start your interest rate off high, as Prosper suggests, because the lending people will bid it down in many cases.

2. Like Ebay fashion, you set yourself up to have your loan bid on by anonymous people lenders. Say you start out with six days, this gives the lenders time to shop through all the profiles, scope your’s out and what I’m finding is that most of the bidding usually happens on the last day in the last couple of hours.

3. Once your total amount needed is met and pooled together by all of the people who bid on your loan, it goes through a trustee and the loan is repaid within three years by you. It shows you how much interest you will pay and what your payment will be.

Go ahead and look at the people and their credit rating and their purpose for needing money and how the people in our communities come together for people seeking funds. Great stories!

Now, as a lender, which offers great returns but not the safety of an FDIC, you can earn almost 3x’s the amount…even if you invest $50 or $25,000. YOU MAKE MORE…you are in control of who you want to bid on…break your bids up on many people…start with one and go for others. Wow! How exciting is that! Plus it’s short term…three years goes by quickly. Good things come to those who wait!

We give Prosper.com a five star over all rating. What a great concept! It’s worth it! Nothing ventured, nothing gained, even if it is the experience you walk away with! Go for it!

Ladies! Let Lori Alberigi Pamper You Out for Your Wedding, Wine Country Date, Looks and Style!

spiritedmaverickmedia — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:04:21 EST

Ladies, ever been to the wine country…the real one in Northern California? Healdsburg, Windsor, Calistoga, St. Helena…okay, even you, gentlemen…you can picture the real wine country and romance that flourishes along with the vivid picturesque visuals in your creative mind!

Meet Lori Alberigi who has been making women look incredibly fantastic by bringing the true and stunning beautiful lady inside, out to the world!

When you look and feel great, your hair, nails, the atmosphere, the anticipation of the romantic days and nights ahead, making memories that will last a life time…this is living! Even if you get a chance to do this once, it is well beyond worth your while. See Lori Alberigi and let her prime you for your venture!

Gentlemen, if you want a romantic escape for your woman, take her to Northern California, let her be pampered by Lori, then take your gal to Calistoga to look at galleries, wineries, restaurants and more! Go to the coast by the way of a refreshing drive through the redwoods where you will pass the Russian River and watch as it it pours into the Pacific Ocean, lined with seals. Dine in Bodega…there are a ton of great Bed & Breakfast Inns…the possibilities are endless.

Start off your date righ when first arriving and go to Lori Alberigi. Yes, she’s all Italian, very professional, cost effective value and well worth the experience that goes along with your venture into the wine country or wedding!

Marisa Ryan: Radio Personality, Psychic Medium, Spiritual Advisor

spiritedmaverickmedia — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:22:03 EST

TODAY’S HOTTEST PSYCHIC MEDIUM! SHE IS THE REAL DEAL!

A few years back, I was driving home from work on a Sunday night and tuned into a popular radio show called Angels In Waiting. A host of psychics would give live “on the air” readings to callers about their loved ones who passed on to the other side. I have always been fascinated with this and yet of course, skeptical…and the more I listened to the clear confirmations from the listeners as they were making contact with their loved ones on the other side, my interest grew.

The psychics didn’t say things that everyone could identify with. Personal and intimate things that only that person would know had unfolded. I had to have a reading. I needed closure in my life to know that my loved ones are living in spirit and are okay.

The psychic that stood out to me the most was Marisa Ryan because she was right on target, has a nice personality and is serious about helping people with her gift. I called and made my “over the phone” reading appointment with her.

MY DAY came and I was so excited. Marisa Ryan called me exactly at the time and day she scheduled, not one minute before or after. Marisa connected with my loved ones on the other side and said things that only myself and the other people could ever know. She even clearly stated where I was sitting, what my surroundings were, and that my friend who passed on said to tell me about the boss who had said something negative to me earlier, to just ignore him. It was such a wonderful experience to make closure and be reassured that they were all fine…It’s true! there really IS conact! I felt a release of grief that I was carrying for years and was able to live freely without question, making my dreams come true.

Marisa Ryan performs in person and on the phone readings about our loved ones that have crossed over as well as makes contact with our personal spirit guides to help us get clear on our path and perhaps make better decisions about our life’s direction.

Marisa Ryan is the Founder of The Awareness Institute in Corona, California. Her clients range from every age, across the world and even well known celebrities. Her personality is chearful, serious and confident with a strong intention to help people with their lives.

Marisa Ryan is the host of her own radio show Spirit Talk Radio that you can listen to a demo of online and she is in the middle of writing a book. Soon you will be able to watch video clips on her new web sites.

Marisa Ryan is an amazing woman that has helped thousands of people reconnect with loved ones that have crossed to the other side as well as commincates excellent advice from our personal spirits, giving us a more clear direction. You will know.

Visit one of her web sites at MarisaRyan.com and call her at 951-371-4448 and get the help you deserve! I can only speak from my own experience as well as from her clients’ testimonials, Maris Ryan is your spiritual advisor!

Tip: When you have your reading with Marisa and she communicates with you, validate when she is correct. Some times you might not understand a picture of what your loved one is trying to convey to you and it’s okay but hang on to it because you will get the message later on!

Tell Marisa that Deanna Cross from Biz Wax sent you!

The Happy Gardener is Featured on Woman’s Day.com as #1 out of 15 Make Money at Home Businesses

spiritedmaverickmedia — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:48:32 EST

The Happy Gardener - Independent Organic Gardening Consultant of Southern California

I have an organic business called The Happy Gardener that educates people about healthy alternatives and also helps entrepreneurs start their own part or full time businesses in the organic, green industry. The good thing is that it is something valuable and needed monthly and as the seasons change. There is great community involvement like “Plant a Row for the Hungry” and fund raisers for schools and organizations where they get to keep 40%.

Valuable and needed as in, not a fad where someone will grow tired of it, not need the product monthly or by season. It is unique in that it is the only organic product approved as safe for the environment, animals and children. If you read the back of other very popular “organic” garden products that can be purchased in the garden sections, read the labels my friends, there are definately warnings issued. The Happy Gardener organic products are truly safe to use.

Woman’s Day.com has featured The Happy Gardener as their #1 out of 15 “Make
Money from Home” businesses and it is also a top 10 on AOL and with Forbes.

You can view the article and our THG feature by going to this link Woman’s Day.

For more info please call # 641-715-3429 with access code 746208 to hear a 5 minute recorded message.

If you would like to become a member and use the “only approved as safe for the environment gardening products” it is $39 and you can take six months to decide if you would like to become a consultant for $69 and you receive a starter kit. NO Parties are necessary but are fun and rewarding…word of mouth, passing out catalogs, having a demonstration of the product, having a booth at a holiday boutique and passing out brochures, all are fine. Lots of group support!

It’s not a fad and everyone is going green including corporations and schools. One consultant signed on a university to use the organic lawn products and that is a $3,000 commission. You are able to have a web site for $199 and consumers can buy retail, club members get discounts and people can sign on and join to become members or consultants on your site as well.

I have to say that this is a highly organized opportunity to earn money from home. Annette Pelliccio, the entrepreneur who started this business is very charming, warm and professional. She holds meetings over the phone and has group support online. If there is anything she can do to help you, she will!

Contact me if you would like to become a club member or consultant! You won’t be sorry! It’s a fantastic “green” gardening thing!

VEOH, Pickle or On-Site Windows Video Player for Your Site?

spiritedmaverickmedia — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:37:15 EST

My favorite saying is “why choose when you can have them all!” This is usually applied to food choice selections, clothing purchases, or when one is dating. Here I am applying it to online video players. The choices are VEOH, Pickle or the Windows Player that one can load up right on to the web site.

I wrote earlier on about how at WomensAutomotiveNetwork.TV I was trying out The Pickle Player which is owned by The Scripps Network (home of HGTV, HSN and The Food Network.) The player has a lot of functions that are different than VEOH, so we tried them out and put VEOH on the sidelines. With Pickle we could load several videos at once as long as the total was under 100MB and the video frames flipped passed the viewer so they could see what is on that channel. So far so good. Then the cons out weighed the pro’s…

We missed the clarity of our video quality on VEOH after putting up with the choppy or frame-skippy quality of our videos on Pickle. Kind of gives you the feel of a “stop motion clay-mation” effect. We’re not saying we’re totally giving up on Pickle and it has some very useful features, but VEOH is definately our 1st choice for our web site.

The more videos we put on Pickle, the more storage space we needed and Pickle charges a tiny fee to “up that space” to just under 2 GB. In order to get the utmost in video quality, we sent over larger files to Pickle so we wouldn’t suffer over that choppy frame-skippy quality too much. Couldn’t avoid it. Still love them.

When you go to WomensAutomotiveNetwork.TV you will find VEOH’s player back in place on the front page and on a few other pages as well. We are using Pickle on the New Car Models Page for the time being and have plans to put it to other uses in the near future!

The third mode of video player we are utilizing is the Windows Media Player that we load right up from our own web site server. It is by far the best in professional video quality. In pro’s and con’s we’d rather use this feature for video quality, however we cannot stream video after video and the storage with the server is very limited. Our own player can be viewed under TV Shows, listed in the side bar menu.

It has been a great experience in testing out all of the players and learning their ease of use, amount of storage, quality of video and most important whether our viewers are able to watch the videos.

Keep in mind that depending on site traffic, your computer set up, your Internet connection being dial up or DSL or cable, and your firewall settings…all of these factor into your being able to view the videos fluently or at all. We find that 90% of our viewers do not have any problems and the 10% that do either are using “loaded up lap tops” that are hooked into a “high firewall protection” system or are still on dial up.

Back to the phrase “why choose when you can have them all,” and the association with dating, if you were seeing three different people and each one has a different quality you love and if one was able to put all three together as one entitiy, would have the perfect person…we can liken this to the technology of the video players as well, in this instance. I’ll take the clarity and quality of the Windows Player, the ease of loading and storage and being able to choose a thumbnail for each video as well as play several in a row with VEOH and the scrolling of each video thumbnail on the screen of Pickle to make the perfect player.

I am aware of other video player companies out there that we use and they serve a grand purpose in their own right, one video at a time…Motion Box, MSN, Google, Yahoo, Metacafe, YouTube, AOL, Video Egg, True, Brightcove and I’m sure I missed another…but yes, we use these companies for different purposes, and they too, have their pro’s and cons as well.

You can check out the LA Auto Show, Tokyo Auto Show, SEMA Show and Orange County Auto Show if you want to see the latest and greatest in new car models and futures. We also showcase CARNUZ with auto related news on Volvo creating safer cars by observing actual car accidents, how to properly install an infant and their seat - a baby and their seat - a child and their booster seat, a new computer game for teens to learn about safe driving, and more. We even have Ellen, Barbara Walters, Oh!, Martha Stewart and many more fun and exciting, educational and entertaining videos! While your testing out the videos players on our site, enjoy the shows!

Meet Yahoo!’s Friend Flickr, Not Mine

spiritedmaverickmedia — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 08:08:04 EST

Any of you who use Yahoo may or may not be aware of the fact that I am about to expose to you.

Those of us who kept our photos on Yahoo were told that Yahoo would no longer be carrying this photo service and that we, their loyal users, had to make a choice as to where we wanted our photos transferred to or our precious digital memories would vansih forever.

So Yahoo gave us choices of Flickr, Kodak, Photobucket, Shutterfly, Snapfish and perhaps another one…but anyway, Yahoo suggested we go with Flickr (but of course we didn’t have to) and they would transfer our photos without flaw to their new destination, but still, Yahoo suggested Flickr…uhmmmmm, okay, been happy with Yahoo’s photo service so I’ll opt to go with Yahoo’s suggestion of their friend Flickr.

After everything was transferred, I kind of played around with it…mmmmmmm, not quite as easy to use as Yahoo’s format was…not as much fun as Slide.com…but, okay, my photos all made it safe through the transfer.

So I revisit Flickr today and have a new “message” across the screen that read “Your free trial is over and you have to pay $24.95 for the year if you want more than 200 photos…you have 395 and we’re only going to show you 200…if you want to see the rest, delete some of the 200 that are showing and you can see some of the rest that are not showing…and you may want to download them first before you delete them…but you can continue to use this service if you pay the upgrade of $24.95 really cheap, don’tcha think!

Bull-puckey! Cheap? They hijacked my digital memories and are holding my photos for ransome? Well, when did they decide to do all of this? It never said anything like this when Yahoo told us that we had to switch and suggested Flickr…ahhhh, but wait a minute, did I get an email that maybe was put in spam? No…Flickr sent the message about a three month free trial to an old email address I had back with AOL (AOL by the way, has FREE unlimited photo storage) and Flickr or Yahoo didn’t send this note to my Yahoo email account, that of which transferees use to log into their new Flickr account. What a bunch of bologna!

I immediately began checking out the many other sources for FREE photo storage…none have a cost, some have a limit of 10,000 photos…mmmmm, okay! Here’s Shutterfly! It’s simple to use! It’s free and has unlimited photo storage! Okay, now how do I get massive photo transfer over to Shutterfly or some other vendor? You don’t. Not available to the public.

Oh, believe you me, when I found out I had to download every single one of my photos back to my computer one by one, in order to transfer many to Shutterfly (easy by the way, to transfer from your computer) I wrote Flickr emailed messages as I learned more and more about the rip off game they played on us. Three email “service messages” and here is one reply I received:

Just a quick email from Team Flickr to let you know that we’ve successfully received your recent Help by Email query and we hope to respond shortly.

We’d also like to take an opportunity to remind you that one query is sufficient and multiple queries regarding the same issue make the Magic Donkey cry.

Lastly, you may not be aware that our FAQs and forums are full of help goodness.

The Flickreenos

No humans were involved in the creation of this email.
It is an auto-generated, so please don’t reply.

So, they found another way to call one of their users “an ass” for sending more than one email service message (donkey cry)…and they call themselves Flickreenos

Oh and by the way, after I wrote and emailed them the three service messages, I went back to my home page to find vulgar photos of exposed private body parts. Like I want my family using this kind of photo service. What if a little girl or boy in our family were helping me on the computer with the family photos online and we go to our home page only to find unwanted photos of other people’s xxx-rated shots…I truly believe that Flickr did this to me on purpose in retaliation for my emails in their “suggestion box.” Sure, I flagged them of the incident. I want to make sure that you all know that even with your filter up on Flickr, the unwanted nasty stuff does come through clear. I’m not a prude, but if an innocent under-aged bystander were present at that moment, it would not have been very nice. So, just watch out.

All’s I could think about was the time involved for me to remove my photos and place them back onto my computer in order to transfer them to a FREE unlimited photo storage site, as if I have nothing better to do…they all are FREE UNLIMITED photo storage sites except for the Flying Flickreenos…the name alone makes me think of different scenario associations of things that can be “flicked.”

Yeah, I’m upset. There is no way in hell I am going to fall victim and be played into paying $24.95 for the year (once again, what they call CHEAP) when I can go anywhere else for FREE…FREE is CHEAP. Flickr is a Yahoo owned company…WTF? $24.95 for the year when no one else is charging one thin dime for free unlimited service that is even better and easier to use!

Flickr and Yahoo are counting on scamming off the lazy people who don’t want to go through the hassle of transferring their own stuff to a better place…or picking on the people who don’t know any better because they are not computer savvy.

I smell a new business opportunity.

WomensAutomotiveNetwork.TV in a Pickle?

spiritedmaverickmedia — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 22:20:12 EST

Yes, but not the kind you’re thinking of!

I’m the creator and founder of WomensAutomotiveNetwork.TV.

Pickle is a video sharing web site which is owned by The Scripps Networks. Scripps owns and operates several avenues of media in print, on television and online. Their stations include HGTV, DIY, Food Networks and others.

Pickle is a winner! We are very impressed by the video player and how it works!

We have been testing several video embedding technologies such as VEOH, Google, MSN, AOL or Video Egg, Yahoo, Motionbox and now “Pickle.”

We have decided to use a mix of our own Windows Media Video Player installed directly on our site, VEOH’s channel variety and now we welcome the use of Pickle as a multi-video player so that our viewers can watch our videos as if it were an actual television channel.

The problem the Internet world is experiencing contains several elements:
1. Clear quality viewing with quick page loading.
2. What kind of Internet connection, computer hardware and firewall protection the viewers are using.
3. How many viewers can be on a site and watch the video.

In our testing, we found that businesses operating on T1 systems and using high filters to prevent employees from watching videos while at work poses a large problem, especially if we are to make any training videos or video presentations work for the managers to watch. Most of the managers now use notebooks and laptops and while connected to the T1 with stealth filters, they cannot view our video player that is installed directly on our web site…but they can watch our videos on VEOH. Other companies complained they couldn’t see VEOH but instead could see our videos on Yahoo, MSN and Google formats…

Our other problem is that many of our viewers have not yet upgraded their computer technology hardware and are still on dial up…cable Internet connections are still under construction in many communities across the states and are more available in larger cities such as Southern California and parts of Northern California. Guess we will utilize our good ol’ fashioned “radio program” technique so they can listen to our inspiring and motivating messages.

Right now, we are pleased with the ease of using Pickle and are betting more of our viewers are able to watch the videos with the Pickle player and have their video pages load faster and can view the videos as long as they have the proper Internet connection and equipment.

With Pickle, we are able to upload several videos at one time and play several videos in a row on our site pages. Web masters and bloggers are able to embed our Pickle player with our video station selection right onto their sites, just as they can with the others.

The only three items we critique as very slight little bugs to be worked out with Pickle are that(1) videos seem to be slightly frame choppy and not as smooth as our own player and the pixels are not as clear as our own player; (2) We cannot choose our own thumbnail photo as we can with VEOH; (3) On VEOH, viewers can download the videos to their ipods, where with Pickle cannot.

For now, to reach everyone we can, we will be using several formats and welcome feed back from our viewers as to which video players on our site work best for them by telling us which player, what type of Internet connection they use and what computer hardware and browser and firewall protection they have.

Visit our dot TV Shows page to view our videos in a row, just as if watching a TV channel. Don’t forget to place your order for yummy cookies and other desserts from David’s Cookies online at the bottom of the page! You’ll get 15% off and free shipping!

12th Annual Webby Awards Honoring the Best of the Web

spiritedmaverickmedia — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 17:22:40 EST

We just received information that the deadline for early entry for the Webby Awards is November 2nd. You can enter at webbyawards.com. The actual awards are presented June 3rd, 4th and 5th and the event takes place in New York City.

What’s it all about? Here’s what the Webby Awards web site has to say:

The Webby Awards
The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web’s infancy, the Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities.

The Academy is an intellectually diverse organization that includes members such as musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, R/GA Founder and Chairman Robert Greenberg, Virgin Atlantic Chairman and Founder Richard Branson, and The Weinstein Company Co-Founder Harvey Weinstein. Members also include writers and editors from publications such as The New York Times, Wired, Details, Fast Company, Elle, The Los Angeles Times, Vibe, and WallPaper. The 11th Annual Webby Awards received over 8,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states and generated over 750 million media impressions worldwide.

Reflecting the tremendous growth of the Internet as a tool for business and everyday lives, the 11th Annual Webby Awards expands the mission of the Webby by honoring excellence in over 100+ Website, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video, and Mobile categories.

The Webby Awards presents two honors in every category — The Webby Award and The People’s Voice Award — in each of its four entry types: Websites, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video and Mobile. Members of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences select the nominees for both awards in each category, as well as the winners of the Webby Awards. However, you, the online community, determine the winners of The People’s Voice by voting for the nominated work that you believe to be the best in each category. Each year, the People’s Voice Awards garners hundreds of thousands of votes from the Web community all over the world.

Judges:

Judges and IADAS
The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences was founded in 1998 to help drive the creative, technical, and professional progress of the Internet and evolving forms of interactive media. In the model of the film, television, and the recording industries, the purposes of The Academy are:

To recognize and acknowledge excellence in interactive content across emerging technologies.
To connect a diverse group of luminaries to facilitate growth and development in the digital arts and sciences.
To educate industry professionals and the public-at-large about what is relevant, making technology accessible and integrating it into the general culture.
The Academy is an intellectually diverse organization that includes members such as musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, R/GA Founder and Chairman Robert Greenberg, Virgin Atlantic Chairman and Founder Richard Branson, Crispin Porter + Bogusky Partner and Chief Creative Officer Alex Bogusky, and The Weinstein Company Co-Founder Harvey Weinstein. Members also include writers and editors from publications such as The New York Times, Wired, Details, Fast Company, Elle, The Los Angeles Times, Vibe, and WallPaper. The 11th Annual Webby Awards received over 8,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states and generated over 750 million media impressions worldwide.

Entry Fees and Schedules:

Web site/Mobile: $225.00 / Discounted $125.00*
Interactive Advertising: $225.00 / $345.00 - $425.00
Online Film and Video: $150.00 / Discounted $125.00

When you get into categories, you are charged per that also…ie: web site, automotive, educational, retail would equate to $900.00 entry fee.

Visit WebbyAwards.com for more info, to enter or to get tickets for the three day event!

The Big Deal with Microsoft and Facebook

spiritedmaverickmedia — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 18:14:09 EST

It’s so funny how opinionated everyone is on the business topic of Facebook and how they were to join in with Microsoft or Google…by now you may know that Microsoft invested $240 million with Facebook.

I’m giving you the press conference that took place with Microsoft and Facebook, along with all the reporters who were there to ask their questions and get the answers…I’m giving you the whole enchilada, word for word…you can’t get the news any straighter than what I am presenting to you right here. No opinions, other than the ones you make on your own.

Here it goes:

Kevin Johnson: Facebook and Microsoft Expand Strategic Alliance Conference
Remarks by Kevin Johnson, President, Platforms & Services Division, Microsoft Corporation
and Owen Van Natta, Vice President, Operations and Chief Revenue Officer, Facebook
Facebook and Microsoft Expand Strategic Alliance Conference
Palo Alto, Calif., and Redmond, Wash.
Oct. 24, 2007

(Operator Direction.)

VIVEK VARMA: Thank you. Thank you for joining us. I’m Vivek Varma with Microsoft. I’m joined for the announcement today by Owen Van Natta, Chief Revenue Officer for Facebook; Brandee Barker, director of corporate communications for Facebook; and Kevin Johnson, President of the Platforms and Services division at Microsoft.

First a couple of housekeeping notes. There will be a replay of this call available for one week. The toll free number is 866.435.1324, and the international number is 203.369.1020.

Also, you’ll note from Microsoft on today’s call we will not be discussing results or guidance for our quarter just ended for the fiscal year or other topics normally handled in our earnings call to take place tomorrow.

I wanted to take a quick moment to run through the press release. We had a couple of errors on the press release that went over the wire. There will be a reissue. I am going to now read the press release, the final press release between Facebook and Microsoft. Sorry for the confusion on that.

So, Facebook and Microsoft expand strategic alliance, the two companies expand advertising deal to cover international markets; Microsoft to take equity stake in Facebook.

Facebook and Microsoft Corp today announced that the two companies would expand their advertising partnership, and that Microsoft will take a $240 million equity stake in Facebook’s next round of financing at a $15 billion valuation. Under the expanded strategic alliance, Microsoft will be the exclusive third-party advertising platform partner for Facebook, and will begin to sell advertising for Facebook internationally, in addition to the United States.

“We are pleased to take our Microsoft partnership to the next level,” said Owen Van Natta, chief revenue officer, Facebook. “We think this expanded relationship will allow Facebook to continue to innovate and grow as a technology leader and major player in social computing, as well as bring relevant advertising to nearly 50 million active users of Facebook.”

“Making this investment and expanding this partnership will position Microsoft and Facebook to better take advantage of advertising opportunities around the world, and is a great win for not only for our two companies, but also our collective users and advertisers,” said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms and Services Division at Microsoft. “We have partnered well over the past year and look forward to doing some exciting things together in the future. The opportunity to further collaborate as advertising partners is a big reason we have decided to take an equity stake, and is a strong statement of our confidence in the long-term economics of this partnership.”

Facebook continues to experience strong growth both in the U.S. and international markets. Almost 60 percent of Facebook’s users are outside the U.S. With an average of 250,000 new users registering each day, Facebook continues to be one of the most trafficked sites on the Internet.

On Aug. 22, 2006, the companies announced a U.S.-only strategic alliance that named Microsoft the exclusive provider of standard banner advertising on Facebook using Microsoft’s digital advertising solutions, and the Microsoft adCenter platform. In early 2007, the terms were extended to 2011.

With that scintillating reading of the press release, I’m going to turn it over to Owen and Kevin, if there are any additional comments from the two of them, and then we’ll go to questions, operator.

So, with that, Owen?

OWEN VAN NATTA: Thanks very much. Hey, everybody. We’re really excited to announce this partnership today, the deepening of this partnership. It’s consistent with our focus as a company on innovation, and our continued focus on growth. As a technology company, these two dimensions are areas that we focus on as a company. With nearly 50 million active users, we’re really focused on creating the best user experience that we possibly can, and we think that this strategic alliance even better positions us to deliver on that.

KEVIN JOHNSON: And I’ll just add to Owen’s comments. This is Kevin Johnson.

I think this deal represents a major advertising syndication win for Microsoft and I think this signals an enormous vote of confidence from our largest advertising partner, the fact that this is a global relationship and a deep partnership.

From my perspective I think this is really a win-win-win. I think certainly from a Microsoft advertising platform standpoint this is a win because it increases the amount of inventory that we have on our advertising platform. Certainly working with Facebook it’s a strategic win, and as Facebook innovates around new ad types that are unique to the social experience, that’s going to enable us together to deliver a win to users and advertisers, the ability to continue to drive and improve not only on the user experience of the social networking experience, but also on the value proposition to advertisers globally.

So, we’re very pleased with the scope and the depth of this partnership, and it just continues to build on the great work that we’ve had the opportunity to do with Facebook over the last year.

VIVEK VARMA: Thank you, both.

With that, operator, we’ll take the first question.

(Operator Direction.)

BRAD REBACK (CIBC World Markets): CIBC World Markets.

Kevin, could you just help us out here for a minute? Obviously 15 billion is a pretty big number for Facebook. In light of Steve’s comments a couple of weeks ago around the potential faddishness of the platform, maybe you could put in some of your thoughts around that.

KEVIN JOHNSON: Yeah, I’ll start by putting this in context of the overall online advertising marketplace, which today is projected at about 40 billion, and it’s going to grow significantly over the next two to three years to over an $80 billion marketplace. So, that’s point number one, this online advertising industry is a big industry.

Number two, the equity stake that we’re taking in Facebook is a strong statement of confidence in this partnership. It’s a statement of confidence in the fact that our ad platform is going to get stronger and stronger and help monetizing Facebook. It’s a strong vote of confidence in the innovation that Facebook is doing to deliver on the social networking experience. And so it really reflects that strong vote of confidence.

Now, if you peel back, if you look at this round of financing they’re doing that we’re in for 240 million, the fact that you look at just the run rate of users, and if you believe that they have the opportunity to get to 200 million users, 300 million users, which we believe is certainly in the realm of possibility and on the path that they’re on, you can figure out when you think that might occur; you combine that number of users with the monetization opportunities, and you can figure out a fairly modest average revenue per user per year, and you can very quickly get to this level of valuation.

So, I think at the end of the day we see this growing marketplace, we believe in our partnership with Facebook, and this is a strong statement of confidence in this partnership and in Facebook.

BRAD REBACK: Excellent. Thank you very much.

(Operator Direction.)

CHARLES DIBONA (Sanford Bernstein): Yeah, Charlie DiBona with Sanford Bernstein.

Kevin, can you comment on any other — does this go beyond the advertising platform? Does this sort of tell-tale any sort of deeper technological relationship around the mash-ups and development platforms that both of you guys are working on?

KEVIN JOHNSON: Charlie, I think certainly a couple things. Both parties have decided that there are certain elements of this that we’re not going to disclose specific terms of the agreement, but you can certainly look at what we’re doing together, and the work, whether it’s things that we’ve done around some of the live platform APIs that we’ve exposed, and the way that those are being used in Facebook, this advertising relationship expanding globally, and the fact that I think both our companies have a strong alignment around innovation and technology in a way that has a positive impact on users; and I would say you can sit back and watch how this partnership is going to develop. There’s a lot more we’re going to be doing together.

CHARLES DIBONA: Thank you.

(Operator Direction.)

BRIER DUDLEY (Seattle Times): Hi. Seattle Times.

Say, Owen, can you tell us a little bit about what happened with Google, and why you chose Microsoft over Google?

OWEN VAN NATTA: We were very fortunate to have a lot of folks that were interested in partnering with us around advertising. We’ve been working with Microsoft for over a year now in the U.S., and it’s a relationship that I think has been really great for both of us. We’ve had a lot of success. It’s a partnership that six months into the partnership we decided to expand substantially in terms of the term of the relationship. Expanding that relationship beyond the U.S. borders to make it a global relationship was directly in line with all of those results and all the experience that we’ve had together.

So, being a technology company, which is the way that we certainly view ourselves, being able to deepen the partnership with one of the greatest technology companies on the planet was absolutely something that made sense for us.

BRIER DUDLEY: Great. Will this also affect the way companies can advertise — other companies can place like small ads or — you know, we’ve got startups in Seattle that are working on things that will kind of bring advertising type stuff onto Facebook. Are there going to be new restrictions or changes in the way third parties can display ad-type content on Facebook as a result of this agreement?

OWEN VAN NATTA: There won’t be any new restrictions for the third party platform developers that have come to Facebook and built platform applications. We now have literally tens of thousands of developers who are building applications on Facebook today, and they continue to have all the flexibility and freedom to evolve their business and create a user experience that’s consistent with what they’re trying to accomplish.

What we’re really excited about here is that this is going to create new opportunities for those folks to be able to tap into Microsoft’s technologies and also adCenter as we continue to go forward and find ways to make those things available to those platform developers should they choose to take advantage of them.

BRIER DUDLEY: Great. Thank you.

VIVEK VARMA: Thanks, Brier.

Next question, please, operator.

(Operator Direction.)

MICHAEL ARRINGTON (Tech Crunch): Yes, this is Michael Arrington from Tech Crunch.

Are you announcing any other investors in the round? The press release is a little bit vague on this.

OWEN VAN NATTA: Hey, Michael. We’re not announcing any other investors in this round. Microsoft is the investor that we’re announcing today.

MICHAEL ARRINGTON: So, you’re not saying if there are or are not any other investors?

OWEN VAN NATTA: Correct.

MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Thank you.

VIVEK VARMA: Next question, operator.

(Operator Direction.)

CAROLINE MCCARTHY (CNETnews.com): I’m with CNETNews.com.

My question is, are we going to see any reciprocity in this? Are we going to see Facebook integrated into any of Microsoft’s existing Web properties?

KEVIN JOHNSON: Well, Owen, do you want to — yeah, let me take a shot at this.

Look, we’ve got a broad strategic relationship and partnership. What we’re announcing today is the expansion of our advertising platform globally. So, the scope of this announcement really is the fact that Facebook has made a decision for Microsoft to be the exclusive third party advertising platform partner for Facebook, and we’re delighted to be that partner, and we’re delighted with the broad strategic partnership that we continue to develop and grow with Facebook.

CAROLINE MCCARTHY: Thank you.

VIVEK VARMA: Next question, operator.

(Operator Direction.)

JOSH QUITTNER (Fortune Magazine): Oh, hi, Owen. This is Josh Quittner from Fortune Magazine.

You said that you were fortunate to have a lot of folks who were interested in partnering on advertising with you guys. Can you tell us who else was interested?

OWEN VAN NATTA: Yeah, we’re not talking about the folks that we were talking to as part of this. We’re really focused on announcing our Microsoft partnership today. Needless to say, we’ve had a lot of folks that have interest in a partnership with Facebook, not just in the advertising space but other areas as well, and today we’re really focused on our announcement with Microsoft, which we’re excited about.

VIVEK VARMA: Operator, next question.

(Operator Direction.)

MIKE LIEDTKE (Associated Press): Yeah, (Mike Liedtke ) with the Associated Press.

Just a question: It sounded — a few weeks ago, it sounded like Microsoft was talking about getting a larger stake than what ultimately happened. Could you talk about how that evolved, and why you decided on this? I guess it’s a 1.6 percent stake now.

And also for Facebook, how raising all this money may affect your plans for doing an IPO?

OWEN VAN NATTA: Yeah, I think there’s been a lot of rumor and speculation about the financing and other things related to Facebook. You know, as we sat down and started working through this next phase of our relationship and evolution of that with Microsoft, we effectively came up with the set of terms that we’re announcing today as the ones that best fit for both companies. So, we think that that creates the type of incentive alignments and the type of deep strategic partnership, both in terms of how we view it internally as companies, as well as what types of messages it sends externally as well that again position us the way that both companies are looking to be positioned here. So, that’s really been the focus here.

MIKE LIEDTKE: And how about how does this affect Facebook’s plans for an IPO?

OWEN VAN NATTA: You know, we’re not talking about anything related to an IPO at this stage. Again, we’re really focused on and excited about the deepening of the ad partnership. We also have an equity investment that’s coming alongside of that, and that’s really where all our attention has been focused.

MIKE LIEDTKE: Okay, thanks.

VIVEK VARMA: Next question, operator.

(Operator Direction.)

THOROLD BARKER (Financial Times): Financial Times.

I just wanted to clarify; is this deal just for banner ads? And if so, if you decided to extend it into a search deal along the lines of the MySpace-Google deal, would that be a totally separate negotiation?

OWEN VAN NATTA: Yeah, we’re only announcing an advertising partnership today. It’s a partnership that extends across the adCenter platform for Microsoft. We’re not disclosing anything or announcing anything today as it relates to Web search.

THOROLD BARKER: Right, but this doesn’t include Web search.

OWEN VAN NATTA: No, it does not include Web search.

KEVIN JOHNSON: Yeah, I think as I mentioned, certainly both parties, we’ve decided not to disclose certain aspects of the terms of the agreement, but certainly I’ll reinforce Owen’s comments, that this is really about creating a win-win-win situation, one which looks at the unique assets that Microsoft brings to this table with our advertising platform, building on the aQuantive acquisition, and the set of things that we’ve done organically to have a global ad platform at scale, and this deal brings more inventory and more value to that ad platform.

At the same time, it enables both parties to collaborate as Facebook looks at developing new ad types that are unique to the social experience. And because we’re doing this together as partners, this really creates overall end-to-end value for users and advertisers.

So, you should think about this in the context of the broad value proposition of value delivered to the user experience, and value delivered to the advertisers in terms of the advertising capabilities that we’re building.

THOROLD BARKER: So, are you saying it would effectively include search, if that were to happen? I didn’t quite understand. Are you saying it does include or it doesn’t?

KEVIN JOHNSON: We’re not disclosing — there are certain terms of the agreement both parties have agreed that it’s — that we’re just not going to disclose at this time. Really what we’re focusing on here in this announcement is the overall ad platform and the work we’re doing together.

THOROLD BARKER: Okay.

VIVEK VARMA: Operator, next question.

(Operator Direction.)

JOE MENN (Los Angeles Times): Los Angeles Times.

Is there any minimum payment that’s guaranteed under this for the right to advertise internationally or coordinate the advertising internationally? And if so, is that a number that’s going to be disclosed today or tomorrow? Steve Ballmer alluded to the fact that the partnership to date in the U.S. hasn’t been immensely profitable, let’s say, for Microsoft.

KEVIN JOHNSON: Yeah, I’ll comment first, and then, Owen, I’ll let you jump in.

Look, this global partnership that we’re announcing today, from a Microsoft perspective we’re very pleased with the economics on that commercial partnership alone, but the fact that we’ve got that commercial partnership as the exclusive third party advertising platform partner for Facebook is one aspect of it. It’s also the strategic relationship that we have in the way that we’re collaborating together. The equity position we’ve taken from my perspective not only provides the economic value we look for in terms of the advertising relationship, but also the broad strategic value that together we’re trying to accomplish in the marketplace.

We’re not going to disclose specific terms, but there certainly are responsibilities that Microsoft has in this agreement, there are responsibilities that Facebook has in this agreement, as we had in our past partnership, and we feel very good from a Microsoft perspective about both the shorter term economics and the longer term strategic value.

Owen?

OWEN VAN NATTA: You know, I don’t have a lot to add to it, except to just reinforce the point that what we’re really focused on is with 50 million active users, we want to try to create the best user experience we possibly can. Advertising is a big part of that, and we think this relationship allows us to continue to focus on innovation and continue to focus on how it is that we create an even richer experience for users.

VIVEK VARMA: Operator, next question.

(Operator Direction.)

OM MALIK (GigaOM): Hey, guys, Om Malik from GigaOM.

Kevin, can you give me a sense of what kind of performance you’ve seen on the Facebook network from your previous advertising efforts?

And, Owen, if you can explain to me what you would be using the money for; you raised 240 million. Is it for infrastructure spending or is it — if you can give some guidance around that.

KEVIN JOHNSON: Yeah, let me start with your first question, which had to do with sort of Microsoft’s view of what we’re seeing on this overall ad platform partnership with Facebook. The short answer is that we continue to see the monetization continue to improve, and we’ve got many initiatives and actions underway that we believe will enable us to even drive that monetization even higher.

The partnership that we have with Facebook is very important in that, and it involves work we do not only in that user experience but the work that we do in the different mix types, the work we do with our advertising sales force. But the trend is we see continued improvement and great progress with the overall monetization of the Facebook inventory.

OM MALIK: Can you give some more specifics as to like what you’ve seen so far, I mean in terms of like click-throughs, how many ads served, what kind of inventory sales you’re having? I mean, this sounds a little ambiguous, so I just was hoping maybe you can frame it with numbers a little better.

KEVIN JOHNSON: Yeah, I think unfortunately both parties have agreed that there are certain aspects to this that are part of the business arrangement and the way that we’re working together that are not things that we’ve decided to disclose at this time, but I certainly appreciate the question. At a high level though we both see the monetization on an ECPM basis and all that goes into that continues to improve.

Owen, you want to take the second question?

OWEN VAN NATTA: Sure, I’d be happy to. Hey, Om.

So, in terms of what it is that we’re going to be using the capital for, it’s really continued to fund all the innovation and growth that we’re seeing today. We’ve already talked a little bit probably about how we’re planning on expanding our user base — I’m sorry, expanding our employee base dramatically next year. We’re hiring a lot of developers at Facebook. We expect to end the year at over 700 employees next year.

And our user growth continues to be explosive as well. We’re doubling our user base every six months. International has become an incredibly rich area of growth for the company, and obviously there’s a lot of technical operations that come along with that that we want to be able to provide people with an incredibly rich experience, and having very fast response times and having the type of technical infrastructure that allows us to build what it is that we can — that allows us to build around all the innovation that it is that we want to continue to do, and provide people with response time and so on, that’s effectively what it is that we’re focused on, and what we’ll be using our capital for.

OM MALIK: Thank you.

VIVEK VARMA: Next question, operator.

(Operator Direction.)

ELLEN LEE (San Francisco Chronicle): Hi. It’s Ellen with the San Francisco Chronicle.

I guess I have two questions. One of them is just if you could provide some color on how this deal came about. It seems like talks have been going on for the last couple of weeks. I wasn’t sure what the turning point was. Also if you can maybe also add some color on how — what kind of collaboration we’re going to see between the two companies, how deep it’s going to be. Are we going to see people going back and forth between Redmond and Palo Alto, for instance?

OWEN VAN NATTA: Hey, Kevin, maybe I’ll start, and you can jump in here.

KEVIN JOHNSON: Great.

OWEN VAN NATTA: You know, we’ve been working with Microsoft for over a year now, and we already have a very deep partnership. So, as you can imagine, there are discussions that are going on at all different levels of the company on an ongoing basis. Evolving the partnership is something that we continually talk about as both companies are focused on innovation. Microsoft is doing a huge amount of building around adCenter; aQuantive has been a big strategic move for them.

You can see how those discussions would evolve into what it is that we’re able to announce today, which is a pretty substantial deepening of the partnership, as well as an equity investment that I think continues to advance both of our goals on those different dimensions.

KEVIN JOHNSON: Yeah, the only thing I would add is that I’m in the Valley a lot, and Owen and I have spent a lot of time together, especially over the last week or so, but we spend a lot of time together, and I think the time we’ve spent together really having some good candid open discussions about the future and strategic — things that strategically important to Facebook and strategically important to Microsoft I think are key to any good partnership, and I think that we certainly had a good ongoing dialogue over the last year, and certainly over the last several days we’ve been heavily, heavily involved in finalizing the details of this global partnership.

ELLEN LEE: But was there a turning point? Did it happen today?

KEVIN JOHNSON: This was signed today, but –

OWEN VAN NATTA: Partnership discussions end up having fits and starts, and areas where they accelerate and areas where both parties need to go in and kind of think about how it is that you solve different problems, and figure out how it is that you put these pieces together in a way that truly is accretive for everybody, users, advertisers, both companies. It’s a challenging and complex thing, and this is a deep strategic partnership that really requires a lot of that thinking to happen.

So, not inconsistent with that, these discussions have definitely had points where they accelerate rapidly, and where both sides go in and really think about how it is that we’ve put those things together.

I would say that we definitely — as Kevin said, we’ve spent a lot of time together, and you start to get to know each other and you start to really figure out how it is that you fit those pieces together. Once you can see that path through, getting these partnerships completed and memorialized in a contract tends to happen pretty rapidly, and I think that’s consistent with what happened here.

ELLEN LEE: So, did it happen this morning?

VIVEK VARMA: Operator, we have time for two more questions.

(Operator Direction.)

SASA ZOROVIC Goldman Sachs: Hi. This is Sasa Zorovic here with Goldman Sachs.

Let me ask you this: In your partnership here that you’ve just established with Microsoft, does it really preclude you in any way, or how do you look at building your own sales force to kind of go to customers directly here?

OWEN VAN NATTA: Well, Microsoft is our exclusive advertising platform partner, and again we’re announcing today that that’s going from U.S. territories to expand globally. The way that the two companies work together today and the way that we plan on working together going forward is that there is a huge amount of different needs that advertisers have. We have incredibly explosive growth around users, and we think a lot of the movement that is occurring right now around the socialization of the Internet requires a lot of innovation in terms of figuring out how to best serve advertisers and users with the best possible user experience.

The Microsoft partnership allows us to take the unique assets that adCenter has, and combine them with a lot of the unique assets that we have ourselves to provide that overall experience.

Facebook has an advertising sales force. We work in coordination with Microsoft to make sure that we’re serving advertisers and not creating confusion for advertisers, and consistent with that, and I think what we’ve done in terms of serving advertisers well up to this point, we’re going to continue to work together to make sure that we just serve advertisers’ needs and we serve users’ needs, and at the end of the day everybody is going to win from that.

SASA ZOROVIC: Thank you.

VIVEK VARMA: Great. Last question, operator.

(Operator Direction.)

BRIAN MORRISSEY (AdWeek): Hi. I’m with AdWeek.

I’m interested; how are you going — does this change at all how you’re targeting the ads? Do you have access to Facebook’s profile data in order to tailor the ads to user interest, both on Facebook and perhaps on Microsoft sites?

KEVIN JOHNSON: Owen, you want to take a shot, and I’ll add to it?

OWEN VAN NATTA: Sure.

You know, user trust is core to what it is that we focus on every day at Facebook, and making sure that we are both able to provide a highly relevant and targeted advertising experience, not just in terms of what ads to what users but also in terms of the context that those users are seeing those ads and consuming that information, that’s what we focus on every single day. But we also at the same time want to make sure that users feel like we don’t violate their trust in any way, and we certainly think about that in terms of how it is that we use information that they provide to target advertisements, and we think even more deeply about how it is that that information might be available to third parties. So, again there are just certain details of the partnership that we’re not disclosing today in terms of how it is that we’re piecing this all together, but consistent with what it is that I just said, we’re going to be innovating around how it is that we find the best way to target ads.

The other thing that I’d just point out — and, Kevin, maybe you can expand on this — is adCenter is a big platform with massive scale. They do targeting on many, many sites across the Web. The ability to leverage that scale is core I think to that overall strategy.

So, I would imagine that a lot of the things that Microsoft is able to do with adCenter on other sites is going to be leveraged in terms of how it is that they’re able to do that on Facebook.

I don’t know if you want to expand on that, Kevin.

KEVIN JOHNSON: Yeah, I’ll just add to Owen’s comments. You know, I’d say, look, at the end of the day this partnership, one of the wins this partnership delivers is a win for users and for advertisers, and that win is delivered through highly relevant, targeted ads, things that are relevant to the user experience and that deliver a great ROI to advertisers. So, this partnership is all about delivering on that. And as Owen said, there are a lot of things we do together to deliver on that. The fact that with our adCenter and the continued growth of adCenter, with the Atlas toolset and the broad reach we have of Atlas in advertisers with DrivePM and our ad network, we’ve got a significant amount of opportunity to utilize those assets in a complementary way to what we’re doing with Facebook to deliver on that goal of highly relevant, targeted ads to the Facebook user base.

VIVEK VARMA: Thank you, both.

With that, we will conclude this call. As I mentioned earlier, there will be a replay of this call available for a week. The toll free number is 866.435.1324, and the international number is 203.369.1020.

Also, a press release would have crossed the wire during the early part of this call. That is the correct press release.

With that, we’ll conclude the call. Thanks, everyone, for joining.

END

Forbes MEET (Media Electronic Entertainment Technology)

spiritedmaverickmedia — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:48:11 EST

Forbes MEET Conference - October 24-25 2007 - Beverly Hills, California - This is going to be one of the greatest conferences before the year’s end. The overview states: Turmoil and Transitions: Building the Next Digital Revolution - The whole world is going digital—now how do we get there?

If you can afford to attend it (time and or money-wise) it will be well worth the knowledge to be gained from the vast number of confirmed speakers (listed conveniently below.) One quick side note, due to the low cost of modern digital and electronic technology, we should all be able to attend online at say “GoToMeeting.com” or buy the set of DVD’s that could be purchased by donation on a PBS weekend or evening broadcast. Just “my” opinion?

I make mention of this because the price to attend is as such:

All applications are subject to approval by Forbes.

Special Offer: Register by October 15, 2007 and pay only $2,495. That’s a savings of over $2,000 off the regular registration fee of $4,500. Participation fee includes all special events, meals, functions and conference documentation. For more information, please contact Jennifer Meeks, Executive Relations Coordinator, at 212-367-2504 or jmeeks@forbes.com.

CANCELLATION POLICY: All paid registrations are subject to a $195 administrative cancellation fee. Cancellations made within 30 days prior to each event are not eligible for refunds. Substitutions may be arranged at no additional charge, but require the prior notification and approval of Forbes.
$ 2495.00

Back to the topic, here is how the description reads word for word:

“In the next 20 years surviving and thriving in media, entertainment and technology will be determined by how well companies handle the transition from old to new. Print newspapers and magazines must transform themselves into always-on online outposts; filmed entertainment will yield to pixilated pictures rendered by computer; television networks must re-form into a fragmented cornucopia of stored on-demand content (or get obliterated by the same). DVDs, now an $11 billion-a-year business, will get supplanted by streaming bits over fiber-optics, and music on CDs, a dwindling business that has shrunk 23% worldwide since 2000, will disappear amidst billions of downloads. Wired and cellular telephone networks will give way to fourth-generation, all-digital, video-ready wireless webs wrapping the world.

But we always overestimate how rapidly new technologies will win mass adoption, and we underestimate how much life is left in the old stuff. The trick becomes how to build for the future without neglecting the old businesses that will finance it. Today more companies are turning to alliances for help: NBC Universal and News Corp.’s Fox have joined to compete in online video with YouTube, where people tap a hundred million viewings a day. Dow Jones has just partnered with Barry Diller’s IAC/Interactive to create a new personal finance Internet business targeting the broad Web-savvy audience. And a total of 264 newspapers have signed an online partnership with Yahoo.

These transitions and alliances will be examined in detail at the second annual Forbes MEET conference, set for October 24-25, 2007 at the storied Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. MEET brings together leaders and innovators from two sometimes feuding worlds—the oldline “content” world of media and entertainment; and the next-wave world of digital technologies that will deliver all forms of content in the future. Together they will devine the future, explore the opportunities and map out the obstacles that must be overcome to build riches and new businesses in the Digital Age.

The winners in this coming upheaval are likely to be those businesses that, rather than try to stop this tidal wave, instead seek to adapt and try to harness its force to their own benefit. At the Forbes MEET conference, some of the most creative minds in tech and entertainment will weigh in on what’s happening, who’s winning and who’s losing—and what will happen next.”

And now, your list of confirmed speakers: (Names highlighted have great ideas and companies to watch) I’m not seeing very many women’s names popping up. Perhaps I will join Lea in the near future.

Samir Arora, Cofounder, Chairman and CEO, Glam Media, Inc.
Luke Barats and Joe Bereta, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, “Barats & Bereta”
Seamus Blackley, Agent, Creative Artists Agency
Ron Burkle, Managing Partner, Yucaipa Companies
Jason McCabe Calacanis, CEO, Mahalo.com
Sanford Climan, President, Entertainment Media Ventures
Peter Daou, Internet Director, Hillary Clinton for President
Barry Diller, Chairman and CEO, IAC/InterActiveCorp, Chairman, Expedia, Inc.
John Edwards, President and CEO, Move Networks
Rick Farman, Cofounder, Superfly Productions
Steve Forbes, President and CEO, Forbes, Editor-in-Chief, Forbes magazine
Carl R. Geppert, Partner and U.S. Industry Sector Leader, Communications & Media Practice, KPMG LLP
Tom Gibbons, Corporate VP, Specialized Devices & Applications Group, Microsoft
Lea Goldman, Senior Editor, Forbes magazine
Quentin Hardy, Silicon Valley Bureau Chief, Forbes magazine
Greg Harper, Cofounder, Gadgetoff
Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-founder, YouTube
Robert A. Iger, President and CEO, The Walt Disney Company
Michael Jones, CTO, Google Earth
Rich Karlgaard, Publisher, Forbes magazine
Dennis Kneale, Managing Editor, Forbes magazine
Douglas Krone, CEO, Dynamism Inc.
Yair Landau, Vice Chairman, Sony Pictures Entertainment, President, Sony Pictures Digital
Jeff Levick, Director, Industry Development & Marketing, Google
Daniel Lyons, Senior Editor, Forbes magazine, a.k.a. Fake Steve Jobs
Vish Makhijani, SVP and GM, Yahoo! Search
Matthew Miller, Associate Editor, Forbes magazine
Joe Mohen, Chairman and Founder, SpiralFrog
James W. Montgomery, CEO, Montgomery & Co.
David J. Moore, Chairman and CEO, 24/7 Real Media, Inc.
Jason Nadler, Head of UTA Online, United Talent Agency
Ashwin Navin, President and Co-Founder, BitTorrent, Inc.
Torbjörn Nilsson, Senior Advisor to CEO, Ericsson
Tero Ojanperä, CTO, Nokia
Barney Pell, CEO, Powerset
Brett Pulley, CEO, NewYork.com
Daniel Read, SVP, Product Management & User Experience, Ask.com
Ben Relles, Creator and Founder, BarelyPolitical.com
Dan Scheinman, SVP and GM, Cisco
Douglas Schoen, Founding Partner, Penn, Schoen & Berland
David Siminoff, General Partner, Venrock
Harry Sloan, Chairman and CEO, MGM Studios, Inc.
John Smedley, President, Sony Online Entertainment
Randall Stephenson, Chairman and CEO, AT&T
Steve Stoute, Founder and CEO, Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging
Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO, Denuo
Brendan Traw, Intel Fellow, CTO, Digital Home Group, Intel Corporation
Thomas Tull, Founder, Chairman and CEO, Legendary Pictures, Legendary Pictures
Bruce Upbin, Assistant Managing Editor, Forbes magazine
Todd Wagner, CEO, 2929 Entertainment
Brent Weinstein, CEO, 60Frames Entertainment
Tom Westdyk, Managing Director, CIT Communications, Media and Entertainment
Jim Wiatt, CEO, William Morris Agency
Strauss Zelnick, Chairman, Take2 Interactive; Founder, ZelnickMedia

Here’s the location of where to attend, including the web site address:

The Beverly Hills Hotel
9641 Sunset Boulevard
Beverly Hills CA 90210
Tel: 310 276 2251

Website: The Beverly Hills Hotel

For more information on this upcoming event: Forbes MEET