Google Talking Out of Both Sides of Its Mouth on China?

When Google announced that it would no longer play nicely with China, some suggested that this was a just a ploy to pull out of a country that it was struggling to dominate.

Of course, Google’s official stance was that it was just too much of a compromise to operate any business in China:

We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

Except maybe, for one that’s already successful…

A consortium led by Walt Disney Co is in advanced talks to buy into China’s largest in-bus digital media and advertising company…Google was expected to take only a small stake in the Bus Online deal, while Disney aimed to take the greater part, said the sources, adding that no agreement had been signed yet.

Wow, Google! That stance against China lasted all of four weeks!

Here we were thinking that you were putting your foot down so that other US companies might be able to get behind your efforts to stop censorship in China, when all along you were looking for a back door into the country.

Buying a stake in a successful Chinese company kind of gives credibility to the suggestion that you only backed out of China, because you weren’t able to compete. After all, if you were on such moral high-ground, you wouldn’t be buying into a company that already plays nicely with the Chinese government.

Would you?

Bing & Facebook Expand Search Agreement

Two years ago, Microsoft purchased a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240M—and with the agreement that Bing would be providing web search on the world’s most popular social network. That deal is now expanding, according to the Bing blog—to not only take in an expanded, enhanced search but also more countries around the world. Most importantly, however, Bing is giving up its claim on selling Facebook advertising.

Their enhanced search is a joint effort between FB and Bing “to provide even more compelling experiences to Facebook users.” Right now, Bing provides the basic ten blue links through Facebook’s web search option, but that will expand to include “richer answers combined with tools that help customers make faster, smarter decisions,” in keeping with Bing’s “decision engine” branding. This partnership is also growing beyond the US to a worldwide agreement.

Before the last deal, Microsoft was selling advertising for Facebook in the US. The original deal expanded that relationship for Microsoft to sell display advertising on Facebook around the world. However, that’s all going away now:

[W]e made the mutual decision that Facebook would take over responsibility for selling display advertisements on its own site. We have been working together on advertising for a long time, creating the best experience for Facebook users and advertisers. Given the kinds of advertisements that make sense within a product as unique as Facebook, it just made more sense for them to take the lead on this part of their advertising strategy. MS will continue to provide search advertisements to Facebook.

At the time of the original deal, Facebook had more than 49M active users. Now, they’re up to well over 300M. While Bing is losing that display advertising market, they may be on their way out of selling advertising anyway with the pending Yahoo/MSFT deal.

What do you think? Is this a move up or down for Facebook and Bing individually?

Yahoo Board Member Icahn Trims Stake, Bartz Wants Wants To Stop “Navel Gazing”

Investor and Yahoo board member Carl Icahn has reportedly reduced his holdings in Yahoo by roughly 12 million shares, according to a recent regulatory filing with the US SEC. Icahn became a board member last year after a prolonged and very public episode that involved heavy criticism of then Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and an attempt [...]

….

Google on Short End of Current AOL Valuation

Just four years ago Google made a big splash in the Internet space by buying a 5% stake in AOL for $1 billion. Do the math and that placed the valuation of the company at around $20 billion. The fall of AOL from an Internet powerhouse to a “will they ever be influential again?” story is one that Google now knows all to well. Bloomberg reports today that on July 8th Time Warner bought that 5% share back from Google for $273 million. The valuation of AOL is now placed at $5.66 billion. What a difference a few years makes, huh?

Google wrote off $726 million of that investment last year so the pain of the misstep is mostly in the past. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t sting, however.

So how are things looking for AOL these days? With new CEO Tim Armstrong at the helm there seems to be some buzz about the potential but outside of the AOL PR storm it remains to be seen if there are any believers. An AOL spokesman went into no comment mode when asked about the valuation.

AOL has its work cut out for them and it appears that the worst is still not behind them.

Armstrong told employees last week that job cuts are possible as he undertakes a 60-day review of the Internet company’s cost structure.

Now that Armstrong has set the table, it’s highly unlikely that the ax won’t fall at AOL in the next 60 days. What’s it like at the company these days? Let us know if you are there to sweat out the ‘possible job cuts’. As for the rest of us what is the expectation of AOL moving forward? Will they ever have the position in the marketplace they once held? Will they ever really matter again?

Facebook’s New Incubator fbFund REV Announces Winners

You have to give Facebook credit. They get in the news more a lot. Maybe it’s investment. Maybe it’s a look at their numbers. Maybe it’s someone on the executive team has a hang nail. You name it they are there.

That’s why this news seemed more interesting than just the usual talk. TechCrunch reports that Facebook has announced the 20 winners of a competition to be included in a program to help them develop their platforms with a combination of money and other benefits.

Twenty companies, which include two nonprofits, will take part in a program headed by Founders Fund’s Dave McClure, and will have the chance to work with Facebook engineers and a range of Silicon Valley veterans. Facebook intends to keep us posted on the startups’ progress throughout the session, and will be holding a demo day at the end of the summer to help expose the companies to investors and press.

The list of companies are focused primarily in companies that are either social networking platforms like MyChurch.org or RunThere which is a social platform for runners and cyclists or other applications and services that facilitate online social interaction. McClure is interested in helping these folks get to business with this program.

it will emphasize getting the companies to release and iterate their products quickly, rather than spending a long time on the development cycle.

While there are two non-profits on the roster the fund is not operating as such. In other words they aren’t doing this for free. McClure says

The average amount of investment is $25,000, with over $500,000 being distributed in total (the non-profits are excluded from receiving funding, but are invited to the program for free). Investments are being made as a convertible note, with a discount for future priced rounds. fbFund is taking roughly a 1-5% stake in each company (around 2% for most of them), which is in line with what other incubators have been doing.

No word on any other Incubalooza events in the future but it might be a good time for aspiring social networking companies to set up camp in Facebook town. As we have noted recently, they do have the money.

Sync your files with Dropbox’s 2GB of free online storage. Marketing Pilgrim readers get 250MB of bonus storage space!