Lex Friedman, of Macworld.com, wrote a humorous piece about how his baby woke him up in time to place his iPad 2 order, “After the 4 a.m. (Eastern) diaper change that he demanded early Friday morning, I fired up my laptop to place my online order—mere minutes after Apple began accepting such online requests.” he concludes the story, “As my bleary, sleep-deprived eyes studied the online Apple Store’s iPad selection screen, I saw that it was indicating iPads would begin shipping in 3 to 5 business days.”

There’s bound to be all sorts of crazy yarns to pile up as the iPad 2 goes on sale later today. WebProNews has already reported of a gentleman who was willing to pay $900 for a place in line, along with the added cost of actually buying the device.

At least with the online purchase, you know what you’re getting into. It might not be pleasing to wait 2-3 weeks, or have to wake up at 4 a.m. but it sure beats the onslaught of what is bound to happen at 5 p.m.

In May 2007, eBay purchased StumbleUpon at $75 million, to much confusion in the blogosphere. At the time, eBay was taking a “wait and see” approach before integrating any of its holdings with the sharing and discovery toolbar. Just under two years later, with the help of well-known VCs, the service is returning to its roots as an independent start up, including bringing the founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith, back.

Camp, who will take the CEO role, said in the release:

We are grateful to eBay for its guidance. However, we realized there were few long-term synergies between the two businesses. It is best for us to part ways and focus on our respective strengths

*forehead smack*

It took them two years to see that there were “few long-term synergies” between a way to navigate to web pages people like and an online auction service? What were the short-term synergies?

Wait, wait—don’t tell me. There were 75 million short-term synergies, huh?

If I had to bet, I’d say that the price was right at the time for a popular and well-hyped web service. But since then, the value has tumbled with the rest of the economy—and since their then-parent couldn’t figure out what to do with them anyway. Buying themselves out of the eBay stable still probably left StumbleUpon with a net gain.

Meanwhile, eBay continues to struggle with its direction with its VoIP service, Skype, and finding the long-term synergies there. Is the popular telephony service the next to leave eBay’s fold?

What do you think? Is StumbleUpon better off on its own? Why did eBay acquire them in the first place?

Comments

Send $2,000 to Dell, which both manufactures and sells the Google Search Appliance, and you’ll get a yellow piece of hardware in return.  You’ll also likely be listed on a page of “Mini Customer Success Stories.”  Some of the companies named there obviously aren’t in it for the link – what does the Arizona Federal Credit Union care about search engine rankings? – but others probably are.

Barry Schwartz points to Neutralize, which is in the business of search engine marketing.  And more than one company’s name ends in “.com” – it’s hard to believe they didn’t notice what they were getting into.

That’s not to condemn this practice – I find it more odd than objectionable, and Schwartz doesn’t believe any nofollow tags are necessary.  He points out, though, “I think Matt would think otherwise.”

Whatever anyone thinks, a change in the near future is unlikely – Schwartz also points out that Scott Woodard documented this practice about six months ago.

Google Will Bid On Spectrum

The biggest players in the industry are expected to bid aggressively for spectrum, which because of the federal requirement that television broadcasters switch to digital transmissions is becoming available. The spectrum is said to be ideal for high-speed wireless broadband, especially because of its ability to penetrate walls.

Google has promised a minimum of $4.6 billion for "the C block" of spectrum, the auction reserve price, the winner of which will be required by the FCC to allow users to download any device to their wireless devices and attach any compatible device to the network.

Verizon originally sued to stop the requirement, but eventually withdrew their suit. Earlier this week, the company enacted a similar policy on its own in advance of an announcement to use fourth generation LTE technology for its next evolution of wireless services, which will come available approximately the same time as the 700MHz spectrum.

The LTE technology will also be used by rival AT&T, meaning that future Verizon and AT&T devices will be able transferable (at least one way, unless AT&T opens up, too.) AT&T may have bailed on the 700 MHz auction with its purchase of Aloha Partners’ chunk of spectrum $2.5 billion, effectively setting the price for available spectrum in the federal auction.

Significant pressure from Google is thought to be a key reason both telecommunications companies made such aggressive moves forward. Google’s presence in the auction ensures more competition and more open networks.

"We believe it’s important to put our money where our principles are," said Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO, Google. "Consumers deserve more competition and innovation than they have in today’s wireless world. No matter which bidder ultimately prevails, the real winners of this auction are American consumers who likely will see more choices than ever before in how they access the Internet."

Google made the announcement this morning in advance of Monday’s application deadline, after which Google is forbidden to talk about the auction due to the FCC’s anti-collusion rules.

Reuters cited the FTC list of approvals in noting the agency’s approval. The deal had been announced in early September, and managed to get through the review process in barely a month.

Yahoo’s purchase of BlueLithium gives them more tools to offer advertisers for performance marketing efforts. Performance marketing looks for conversions, which can be a straightforward sale, or another action completed by a customer.

Yahoo previously disclosed the appeal of performance marketing being related to the rapid growth of social media content. Performance marketing efforts may perform better than the typical cost per click or CPM models regularly used in many campaigns, due to the requirement of an action to complete the conversion.

Those actions provide a tangible benefit to the advertiser, even if it is a simple as adding a name to a mailing list and opting-in for further marketing messages. As such, they can be measured more easily, and beyond the original campaign that brought the visitor to the marketer.

Both Anmuth and J.P. Morgan Securities analyst Imran Khan rate Yahoo’s stock as “Overweight,” according to a Forbes report.

Anmuth also liked Yahoo’s purchase of BlueLithium for $300 million.

“We believe the acquisition of BlueLithium is a solid strategic fit within Yahoo’s recent shift toward performance-based advertising, including the acquisition of RightMedia and the recent launch of SmartAds,” Anmuth wrote in a client note.

Just as the Bear Stearns news did yesterday, the Lehman Brothers news has done today for Yahoo, pushing its stock price to $24.10 near midday. The stock still has room to move up to approach its 52-week high of $33.61 from earlier this year.

Microsoft plans to add Parlano’s group chat application as a new feature of Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator, Microsoft’s server and client software for presence, instant messaging, conferencing and VoIP.

"Parlano has been successful in meeting the rigorous communications needs of companies in financial services and other vertical markets," said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of the Unified Communications Group at Microsoft.

"Parlano’s expertise and technology, added to Microsoft’s unified communications offering, will deliver customers the most complete presence, instant messaging and group chat solution on the market."

Parlano’s MindAlign corporate chat application began as a tool to allow traders in separate locations communicate market information. The chat application is used by companies in a number of industries, including financial services, call centers and technology.

"Parlano has helped many organizations enhance operations, improve service delivery and increase sales through more effective ongoing group communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing," said Nick Fera, chairman and chief executive officer of Parlano.

Financial terms of the purchase were not released. The deal is scheduled to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2007. Following the closing of the acquisition, members of the Parlano team will join the Unified Communications Group at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington campus.

Scripps says the acquisition is part of  its strategy to move its online business beyond extensions of its TV networks to become multi-branded.

"We’ve been the dominant interactive player in the ‘home’ and ‘food’ categories for some time now. By focusing even more on the consumer and the online user experience – much in the way Recipezaar does – we believe we can broaden our reach and deepen our relationship with the consumer in these categories as well as other aspects of lifestyle," said John Lansing, president of Scripps Networks.

"This is a great first step toward our plan to rapidly expand our revenue base from interactive media."

Recipezaar offers food fans an intuitive browsing tool, search capabilities, and personalized features including "My Cookbook", "My Grocery List" and recipe ratings and suggestions. The site was founded in 1999 by former Microsoft employees Gay Gilmore and Troy Hakala. Recipezaar had 2.3 million unique visitors in June.

Recipezaar will run as a stand-alone brand within Scripps Networks online properties and function separately from FoodNetwork.com.

"We started Recipezaar as a couple of geeks in Seattle who love to cook, and more importantly, love to eat. Because we are technologists, our goal was to make it a lot easier to search for and to share recipes, taking the hassle out of cooking," said Hakala.

"It will be exciting to see how our technology platform can enhance the user experience not only for FoodNetwork.com, but for visitors to all of the online sites at Scripps Networks. Likewise, we know that the programming and content that will be available to Recipezaar users will be greatly enhanced."