Saturday, May 19, 2007

PatentMonkey.com - Searchable Patent Database

Looking for a patent? Patentmonkey.com is a fully searchable US patent text database, with images and PDF documents as well. Whether the patent is active, expired, abandoned or pending, you can find it on this site. Of course there is a fee for this...$10 for a basic monthly membership or you can buy credits for a certain number of downloads. You can also bulk download patents on zip files, or email, post, or blog patents. They have a particularly informative blog on all the latest and greatest with patent disputes and issues, which would undoubtedly be of great interest to those dependent on patents for their business ventures. In their own words: PatentMonkey.com is a patent search and document downloading site built with smart user focused features and tools for the average user and the most experienced patent searchers. Users can quickly scan front pages, build a list of patents to save and download and then choose free single patent downloads or bulk downloads for a fee. PatentMonkey.com has a fully searchable data base of US issued patents with timely data updates. Why it might be a killer: This site is meeting a key niche of finding patents for entrepreneurs and those in other business ventures. The site is comprehensive, thorough and constantly in motion to make sure they are up-to-date and meeting their member's needs. Some questions: Can they make a profit charging only $10 a month membership? How many employees do they have to manage this ever-changing site? Are they open to redesigning the layout of the site, as it has a bland 2-color scheme and doesn't appear as professional looking as it should for a serious business. » original news

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10X Revenue (continued)

I wrote a post about the recent ad network/ad infrastructure deals called 10x revenues several weeks ago.

Since then we've seen AQNT trade to MSFT (this morning) for $6bn which is 10x revenues.

But TFSM only got 3x revenues from WPP.

It's interesting that market leaders like DLCK, Right Media, and AQNT get 10x revenues but second fiddles like TFSM get 3x. That shows the power of market leadership for sure.

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Friday, May 18, 2007

Compete.com Rank and Visitors - stock photo peers

PictureSandbox is the BLUE line

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Microsoft Pays $6 billion for aQuantive: Massive Ad Network Consolidation Is Occuring

Breaking: Microsoft is acquiring advertising network aQuantive, the parent company to Avenue A | Razorfish, Atlas and DRIVEpm, for roughly $6 billion in an all-cash transaction, the company said this morning.

aQuantive is a public company (AQNT) and had a market cap of just $2.8 billion as of yesterday. The acquisition price of $6 billion is a roughly 2x premium on yesterday’s closing price, which is a reflection of the fact that this were competing bidders (see notes below). The acquisition comes after recent big acquisitions by Google and Yahoo in this space. Google bought Doubleclick for $3.1 billion in April. Later that same month, Yahoo acquired competitor RightMedia for $680 million. Just yesterday, WPP Group acquired yet another company in this space, 24/7 Real Media, for $649 million.

2006 revenues for aQuantive were $442 million. Net income as about $54 million.

aQuantive’s operating companies include both tools and ad agencies. The company is located in Seattle.

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Thursday, May 17, 2007

Madlix.com - Got 3-D? Madlix Does

3D artwork is cool and this new product from Agency9, a leading provider of 3D applications and games, allows anyone to include 3D-content in their web page, blog, Google page, a communication presentation, or wherever. While a bit slow to download, the site offers plenty of 3D examples and it was fun to explore the different options. The downloads are free and easy to integrate into your own applications. Agency9 believes that 3D content is just beginning to grow in popularity and use. Currently, most 3D content is used for defense system applications (i guess to show off all 3 sides of the bomb or tank to see to Congress). Madlix allows anyone to submit 3D artwork to them for review and possible publication as well. In their own words: MADLIX lets you insert true 3D-content into your web page, blog, Google page, community presentation and more. Choose your favourite 3D scene to insert into your space from the 3D gallery at www.madlix.com , or create your own 3D scene. MADLIX is accompanied by the MADLIX exporter tool enabling 3D artists to directly export their 3D artwork from Autodesk Maya to the MADLIX gallery. The exporter features pre-view functionality as well as a standalone viewer, supporting the MADLIX file format and the open standard file format COLLADA. MADLIX runs smoothly inside all Java-enabled web browsers such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera and more. MADLIX also supports a large number of Operating Systems including Microsoft Windows XP, 2000 and Vista, Apple OSX, Linux, Solaris and UNIX systems. Why it might be a killer: As websites get more and more sophisticated, 3D artwork will become more standard for displays and demonstrations. By making artwork free and easily integrated at this stage, they are helping to grow the market and interest in these products. Some questions: How are they going to market this page to the average blogger or website designer? Will the artwork become quicker to download? How are they planning on making a profit?

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