"This was a very difficult decision to make. We have never sold a newspaper, from my father's time to my time."

--Donald Newhouse, president of Advance Publications and son of S.I.Newhouse, who founded the media empire, commenting on the Newhouse family decision to sell their two largest New Jersey newspapers unless the unions accept significant cuts and cost-reductions. (The Newark Star Ledger is expected to lose between $30 and $40 MM this year, according to todays WSJ article.)

(Via Peter Levitan)

Since we're in the deep middle of trying to get a product out the door, define our core purpose and value, and get the business partners, go to market plan and so on all ready to go, a post by a VC I admire about a company he's committed to has to catch my eye.

And of course when it's a company(meetup.com)that Brad says is using technology to solve real world problems, I look even harder (after all that is exactly what we're all about as well).

But this big wet kiss of VC love for Scott and his company! Wow, I am bowled over--I hope someday we have some investors who are so aligned with our business strategy and our vision, they send this kind of love our way (even if it is mostly a ploy to help Scott & co get some talent at such a talent-tight time).

Brad, way to go!

(Cross posted at PSCo)

I'm delighted for my old friends Rafat Ali and Staci Kramer and the sale of Content Next to the Guardian Media Group for a reported $30million plus, but it also underscores how Guardian has something many traditional media companies in the US don't seem to have--a focused, outcomes based strategy on where they want to end up in the next 3 years.

First of all, the Guardian is acquiring talent.  Not only do they have the wonderful Simon Waldman and others who have been there for a while, they recently acquired Matt MaAlister from Yahoo! to run the Guardian Developer Network. 

Second of all, they seem to have a plan, not only can they support a developer ecosystem, but now they're building a base with a digital media trade news and conference company that has a global focus and that can help them increase CPMs in their online advertising business, as well as diversify their revenue stream.

And Rafat, of course, gets what many entrepreneurs come to dream of--economic validation for hard word, consistent execution, an ongoing focus--and the chance to continue to grow his dream with others picking up some of the work  so that the 22 hour days, 7 days a week, can die down.

"It is clear to me that the board of directors of Yahoo has acted irrationally and lost the faith of shareholders and Microsoft. It is quite obvious that Microsoft's bid of $33 per share is a superior alternative to Yahoo's prospects on a standalone basis. I am perplexed by the board's actions. It is irresponsible to hide behind management's more than overly optimistic financial forecasts. It is unconscionable that you have not allowed your shareholders to choose to accept an offer that represented a 72% premium over Yahoo's closing price of $19.18 on the day before the initial Microsoft offer. I and many of your shareholders strongly believe that a combination between Yahoo and Microsoft would form a dynamic company and more importantly would be a force strong enough to compete with Google on the Internet."

So what is Yahoo! going to do after Microsoft (YAM)? I mean, besides endure fidicuary lawsuits and soldier on as before.

Well, Read Write Web says they should focus on the great services consumers love like flickr, which they call the new heart. Marshall K writes "...  Flickr is the new heart of Yahoo! and many early adopters (like our readers) are probably more likely to use Yahoo! services like Del.icio.us, Upcoming or even the new FireEagle than they are to be big Yahoo! Sports or Finance fans."

It's hard not to read this and choke, because my impression is that the senior executives at Yahoo think that the future--and the places investment should be focused--are --

a) APEX, the engineering intensive interactive advertising platform
b) Yahoo OS--Big purple's take on web services, platforms, and Web 3.0
c) Front doors and content personalization--ie How to make Yahoo's front page and the front pages of top content destinations like finance and sports more profitable and compelling (okay, "sticky)

If you asked folks at the company whether resources were flowing to the RWW list, or to the list above, you might get some interesting insights into where Y! is putting its bets.

In other words, management knows its ideas--and the great talent the company has-- are going to pull the rabbit out of the hat, and darn it, one day the rest of us will see that.

Or, Jerry and Sue have some secret, magical powers we just haven't seen yet (besides a golden parachute, I mean).

Susan sez: Maybe another way to say this is that there's both an audience and a generation gap...cause I don't think the RWW properties are what Y! sees topping their success list, but hey, I don't work there, I'm jest sayin.'

Mashable has a post tonight that Jajah has done a deal with Yahoo! to be the first client to use their Managed Services suite (based on a story by Alec Saunders, here). I've been a fan of this company since I first talked to them in late 2006, and it's good to see they finally have the Yahoo! deal they've been dancing around for a while. As Alex says : "JAJAH's network now spans over 200 points of presence all knit together by a global VoIP backbone. Using a combination of industry standard codecs, a proprietary codec of their own creation, and automated quality measurement tools, Mattes claims quality indistinguishable from the PSTN."

In other words, they've been building out considerable capacity and capabilty for a while and this deal gives them the large scale, name brand partner to take growth to the next level, and improve the revenue streams.

Nice.