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Online advertising revenue and online retail spending will both grow by 10% in 2011, according to the latest forecast from S&P Equity Research, which also issued predictions about major players and the industry as a whole -- not all of them rosy.
Continue reading "Online Ad Revenue to Grow 10% in 2011, S&P Predicts " »
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The company amended its certificate of incorporation, allowing it to issue about 30.1 million shares of Series G preferred stock at a price of $31.59 a share, according to a Dec. 17 filing with the state of Delaware. The financing would value Groupon at as much as $7.8 billion, exceeding Google’s offer, according to VCExperts, a website that offers data and analysis for venture capitalists and private equity investors.
Groupon Chief Executive Officer Andrew Mason is raising money as he considers an initial public offering in the new year. Last week, Groupon hired Jason Child, Amazon.com Inc.’s former vice president of finance, to be its chief financial officer. The company, which offers deals in more than 300 cities, will have sales that top $500 million this year, people familiar with the matter said this month.
“They’ll move into more new markets, and that either means buying an existing company, which they’ve done in Europe, or establishing the infrastructure they need on the ground, which would mean hiring people,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst at Internet2Go, an advisory service that’s part of Opus Research in San Francisco.
New Round
Mason said in a Twitter message yesterday that Groupon was in the process of completing a new round of financing. Julie Mossler, a spokeswoman for the company, declined to comment when reached by telephone today.
The last time that Groupon amended its certificate was on April 16, when the company gave itself the right to issue $135 million in Series F preferred stock. Three days later, Groupon announced that it raised the same amount from an investment group led by Digital Sky Technologies.
Sterling, who said last week he expected the company to file for an IPO next year, now says the funds raised could push that back until 2012.
“Ultimately, they need to go public unless somebody’s going to come forward with a super massive offer,” he said.
Founded in 2008, Groupon offers daily group discounts on restaurants, theme parks, clothes, manicures and other consumer items. The company has amassed more than 35 million registered users and a staff of 3,000 people, most of them in sales.
Google Deal
Mason turned down the sale to Google because he was concerned it would sap employee morale and alienate business clients, said the people with knowledge of the matter. They asked not to be identified because the talks, which involved Google CEO Eric Schmidt, were private.
Groupon will make a decision next year on whether and how soon to proceed with an IPO, a person familiar with the company said earlier this month. Groupon is trying to get a bigger piece of the U.S. local-advertising market, which may reach $133 billion this year, according to consulting firm BIA/Kelsey in Chantilly, Virginia.
The Digital Sky investment in April gave Groupon a valuation of about $1.3 billion. LivingSocial, Groupon’s biggest rival, announced a $175 million investment from Seattle-based Amazon this month.
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The traditional pledge where employees expect a stable or lifelong employment will no longer apply. New ideas or intellectual capital, more than savings or investments, are the new keys to prosperity and to the wealth of nations. The importance of knowledge as a tool that could be used to achieve developmental goals of nations cannot be over emphasized. Knowledge is of a decisive importance in economic development of countries.
The knowledge-based economy analyses economic organization and development when the creation, distribution and use of knowledge become decisive factors. The competitive edge of companies, whatever their size or sector of activity, basically lies in their ability to mobilize and combine knowledge and skills in order to come up with integrated solutions that meet increasingly complex and differentiated needs.
http://www.academicjournals.org/INGOJ/PDF/pdf2010/Aug/Kefela.pdf
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http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=35673&email=text
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The Global Internet Freedom Act (GIFA) has been to deal with the Internet jamming and censorship that is occurring on an international level. The GIFA would require that a global strategy is developed and implemented to guarantee that Internet freedoms are respected internationally despite repressive governments. The Office of Global Internet Freedom would be able to assist in this availability.
Due to international government’s efforts to block access to websites as well as censoring websites and emails, there has been growing concerns over the freedom of the Internet. Foreign governments have also interrupted Internet search engines when their citizens are attempted to access topics that they don’t want accessed. These governments have closely monitored citizens' Internet usage and informed their citizens that those individuals who visit the ``wrong´´ websites will be punished and they have also prevented Internet access by prohibiting ownership of personal computers. These practices have involved the use of Internet jamming and censorship.
Under the Global Internet Freedom Act (GIFA), H. R. 5524, the United States will develop and implement a comprehensive global strategy to combat state-sponsored and state-directed Internet jamming. Additionally, the Office of Global Internet Freedom, established within the International Broadcasting Bureau, will tap both private sector and government resources to help Internet users to avoid government censors and state persecution.
The purposes of the GIFA is to:
(1) to adopt an effective and robust global Internet freedom policy;
(2) to establish an office within the International Broadcasting Bureau with the sole mission of countering Internet jamming and blocking by repressive regimes;
(3) to expedite the development and deployment of technology to protect Internet freedom around the world;
(4) to authorize the commitment of a substantial portion of United States international broadcasting resources to the continued development and implementation of technologies to counter the jamming of the Internet ;
(5) to utilize the expertise of the private sector in the development and implementation of such technologies, so that the many current technologies used commercially for securing business transactions and providing virtual meeting space can be used to promote democracy and freedom; and
(6) to bring to bear the pressure of the free world on repressive governments guilty of Internet censorship and the intimidation and persecution of their citizens who use the Internet . (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c107:3:./temp/~c107PCJHfs::)
The basis for this legislation was due to congressional findings regarding the censorship and Internet jamming occurring. Congressional findings have determined that because of the nature of fundamental rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association, these rights should be guaranteed and protected. These rights should also exist on the Internet on a global basis. Article 19 of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly guarantees the freedom to `receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers'.
Congressional findings determined that:
(1) all people
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