Jot marks the spot
"There's a lot that remains to be seen when it comes to Google's wish to excel in non-search-related Internet areas," Alyce Lomax wrote in covering this week's JotSpot buyout announcement.
These are clearly acquisitive times for Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), but if we look beyond last month's $1.65 billion deal for YouTube and its $1 billion investment to land a 5% stake in Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX) AOL, most of the company's deals have been for tiny privately held companies. Prices aren't disclosed. Deal terms aren't even up for debate as -- like in this week's JotSpot case -- many of these buyouts are announced after the deal itself is already closed.
A major player in providing wiki functionality, JotSpot has been able to ride the wave of popularity in shared documents. As Wikipedia has gone mainstream, folks grasp the concept of a living document that can be updated by the community. Over at JotSpot, that has meant more private applications being shared, like class reunion planning sheets and family sites.
Think about it and you will begin to realize that, to paraphrase Limp Bizkit, Google wasn't doing it all for the wiki. It's actually the nature of server-stored applications that appeals to Google here. That drew it toward acquiring the company behind the Writely Web-based word processor, as well as rolling out its own calendars and spreadsheet features that folks rely on.
Just as Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) has moved customer relationship management software toward Internet-housed solutions, Google keeps moving in this direction. Google teaming up with Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:SUNW) to help promote Sun's suite of Web-based productivity? That's right. You get it, now.
Avast
ye scurvy mates
The wild worlds of MySpace and YouTube became a little tamer as both traffic hubs got more restrictive about the content on their site. News Corp.'s (NYSE:NWS) MySpace agreed to police piracy on its site just as YouTube began to clean up some of the rampant copyright infringement on its site.
Maybe it's just me, but I think MySpace would be better off cleaning up some of the dreadfully gaudy templates that make some of the user pages unreadable.
Until next week, I remain,
Rick Munarriz
Time Warner is a Stock Advisor selection. Want to see what our community thinks of Time Warner's prospects? Come check out Motley Fool CAPS to find out if more Fools think Time Warner's worthy of an outperform rating ... or an underperform.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz recommends windshield wiper fluid when trying to look back. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. The Fool has a disclosure policy.
