A painful purchase and a potential pothole colored in the week that was. Let's take a closer look.
A Massive regret
You really ticked me off, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). You went ahead and acquired Massive. Over the holidays, I dreamed about owning a piece of the cutting-edge video game advertiser. I was hoping for an IPO. With Microsoft supposedly paying $200 million to $400 million for Massive, I'm jealous. It beat me to it. I guess I was too late, too poor, and too naive to think that Massive would issue an understated standalone stock offering and I would be able to quietly nibble away at one of the coolest companies on the planet.
Yes, Massive is that cool. What does the company do? It inserts actual ads into Internet-enabled games. Let's say you're driving past a billboard or a movie marquee in a video game. Massive will insert current ads. It gives the game some fresh relevancy, and it provides advertisers with a way to reach an audience that just isn't tuning in to the television set anymore.
Massive shares the sponsored bounty with the video game developer, and that's why it's a win-win-win scenario, as software companies like Activision (NASDAQ:ATVI) can now find a new revenue stream on the back of Massive's massive platform.
So, am I angry? You're darn right I am. Of all the companies on the planet, Massive winds up owned by a company with 10.3 billion shares outstanding. In other words, even if Massive proves to be as huge as I think it will be, it won't matter diddly to Microsoft's bottom line.
Does this deal make Microsoft a better company? You bet. It's on the forefront of a bold form of advertising that will grow substantially in the coming years. It also creates a line of communication between the world's largest software company and a growing fleet of advertisers. They will come in handy as the company's AdCenter at MSN.com rolls out of beta and attempts to take on Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) in paid search.
Thanks for nothing, Microsoft! Please take good care of my Massive baby.
Abraham Lincoln built the first blog cabin
In a move that makes sense on the surface, Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX) recent Weblogs acquisition is hopping on the financial news blogging bandwagon by launching BloggingStocks.com.
I'm all for that. The more online financial education available, the better. The problem here is that the site will only showcase a few high-traffic stocks at first. It's going for the jugular on a few, as companies like Google, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Microsoft always tend to draw a wide range of opinions. That's the problem here, though. Blogs will feature what are hopefully going to be some pretty opinionated perspectives, and some folks are going to take it the wrong way and either clutter up the virtual space with venomous noise, or the blogs are going to censor responses and be seen as presenting one-sided opinions.
So far, it's been pretty much a non-event. The blog entries have been pretty vanilla bean, and the reader comments have been sparse. Give it time, though. Once the bloggers start flexing a little personality and going out on a limb, they'd better keep the fire extinguishers near as the locals get unruly.
Until next week, I remain,
Microsoft is an Inside Value recommendation. Activision and Time Warner are both Motley Fool Stock Advisor selections. Take the newsletter of your choice for a 30-day free spin.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz loves to look back, even if it means he falls on his face going forward. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. The Foo l has a disclosure policy. Rick is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.
