OT: freephotoads, what would we do w/out you? EOM

OT: SOG, THE MARKETING MACHINE! EOM

DD: AOL-MSN Partnership Could Top Yahoo! Page Views

AOL-MSN Partnership Could Top Yahoo! Page Views
Maya Roney
Forbes.com

Merrill Lynch maintained a "neutral" rating on Time Warner following reports of a possible partnership between the company's AOL unit and Microsoft.

A media report earlier this week said that the companies have discussed a full joint-venture with some cash going to AOL to make the ownership 50/50. Merrill Lynch believes that a cash payment from MSN would be required to make up for the significantly higher profitability of the AOL business.

"We believe that partnering with MSN could take AOL to another level, significantly increasing its scale relative to its key competitors," said Merrill. "The combination of AOL and MSN would create a clear leader in Web traffic among all sites, pushing AOL well past Yahoo! in terms of unique monthly users and page views."

The firm said AOL restructuring would be positive for Time Warner's share price, potentially proving to investors the company is focused on increasing share value and alleviating pressure from financier Carl Icahn to spin off the cable business and to buy back $20 billion in stock.

However, after Time Warner's disappointing second-quarter earnings and a "surprisingly weak" third-quarter outlook, Merrill Lynch says upside from the partnership is "almost entirely dependent" on earnings momentum in fourth-quarter 2005. It anticipates 2005 EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) guidance of high single digit growth will be met on the low end (7%) rather than the high end (9%).

http://biz.yahoo.com/special/msft05_article3.html

DD: Should MSN and AOL Merge?...

Should MSN and AOL Merge?
By Will Swarts
SmartMoney.com

Investors cheered reports this week that Microsoft and Time Warner were in talks for an Internet joint venture that would combine their MSN and AOL properties. The rumor, seen as a countermeasure against the dominance of Google and Yahoo, sent shares of Time Warner up 3.2% on Thursday.

The negotiations haven't settled on a final form — or price — but analysts agree that Microsoft clearly needs to do something to pick up ground on Google, which dominates paid web searching, now seen as the surest path to advertising riches. The fact that Google has taken aim at Microsoft's desktop software applications surely hasn't escaped Bill Gates & Co. — or shareholders.

The potential outcome generating the most buzz would combine America Online with MSN, Microsoft's portal site, which lags Yahoo and Google by a large margin. The end result would be the world's largest Internet service provider and web portal. It would have more than 80 million monthly users of its instant messaging services alone, and would combine a 22-million-strong subscriber base from AOL with the estimated 94 million visitors Microsoft sites draw each month, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings.

Cash-rich Microsoft has de-emphasized its portal and Internet-access businesses in recent years to concentrate on web search. It plans to roll out a service competitive with Google's improving its existing search engine and sticking improved desktop search capabilities into its new Vista operating system, in the second half of 2006. A combined AOL-MSN could provide a perfect platform for the push. AOL uses Google for its searching. If a deal came to pass, AOL's subscribers would immediately be switched to Microsoft's new search engine. AOL has accounted for 11% of Google's revenues year to date.

The appeal for Time Warner: a graceful exit to one of the biggest merger flops in history. AOL merged with Time Warner in 2001, and rumors of a split-up have plagued the combined entity ever since. The deal would put AOL under the joint control of Time Warner and Microsoft initially, but could be spun off later into a separate entity.

Another potential impetus for the talks might be swashbuckling financier Carl Ichan, who, along with a group of large hedge funds, has bid for a 10% stake in Time Warner, and has indicated that he wants to shake up management and change the company's operating strategy.

But is rolling up the AOL and MSN portals the best way to restore luster to these Internet businesses?

According to Christopher Hickey, an AOL-boosted MSN could spur real growth, provide cross-selling opportunities and deal a solid blow to Google. The analyst with London-based independent equity research firm Atlantic Equities says the plan makes fundamental sense.

Martin Pykkonen begs to differ. The Internet analyst at Hoefer & Arnett, a San Francisco-based investment bank, says Microsoft would be better served laying out some of its ample cash on hand to take advertising market share from Google by cutting prices.

See more below.

The Bullish Case:
Christopher Hickey
Atlantic Equities

From Microsoft's point of view, it makes a lot of sense. There are a number of benefits that could come out of this. If they combine the MSN and AOL franchises, the new entity would grow its end of the online advertising market.

Long-term, AOL would give Microsoft more than 25 million consumer billing relationships, and that subscriber base would very much aid Microsoft in its goal of moving its software over to a consumer service model. They could bill customers monthly and keep it an ongoing source of revenue.

At the moment, MSN is quite clearly the No. 4 player in the Internet advertising market [behind Yahoo, Google and AOL], and there are a number of questions about MSN's strategy over the long term. This would be a good resource for Microsoft to address some of those concerns. It would have a double advantage: Not only would there be a positive impact to Microsoft, but it would have a direct negative impact on Google.

The company wasn't being rewarded for returning cash to shareholders with its dividends, and the stock hasn't done much for a long time. Microsoft can say, "Look, we weren't rewarded for that, so we're going to look for growth opportunities externally." I don't think it would be too hard to make the deal accretive to earnings, which is generally a concern for investors.

The Bearish Case:
Martin Pykkonen
Hoefer & Arnett

What I think Microsoft should do is strike the deal Yahoo pretty much struck — where you work with advertisers case by case. If an advertisement is doing a certain volume of keyword search, Yahoo will give them a break on branded image rates. Google can't really do that, because it's only paid search.

It doesn't strike me that Google is really shaking in its headquarters about AOL, but as far as Microsoft goes, the fear of the unknown is certainly on its side. AOL has accepted that you can't really charge for content. You have to effectively monetize the Internet business when you're a portal kind of company, and the way you do that is through advertising.

In general, Microsoft's greatest potential threat is to be able to go out there and undercut [Google and Yahoo] on pricing for advertising. I think investors would see it pretty favorably if they had a loss-leader mentality and went in to undercut Yahoo. Microsoft has the resources. The AOL deal doesn't in and of itself push you in that direction.

Where do you go for mass reach? Advertisers would say Google and Yahoo. This doesn't really change anything in a competitive shift — it's not the way to build a core advertising business. The more time goes by, and the more distant Microsoft becomes in terms of its reach or importance, the harder that becomes.

http://biz.yahoo.com/special/msft05_article2.html

DD: Can Microsoft Land AOL?...

Can Microsoft Land AOL?
By Catherine Yang
BusinessWeek Online

An MSN-AOL linkup could benefit both sides. But Gates & Co., eager to catch Net giant Google, may have the most to gain from teaming up.

It's long been part of AOL lore that in 1993, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates made a threat to AOL's then-CEO Steve Case. At one of their first meetings, the software billionaire cavalierly said to Case, struggling then to build the online service: "I can buy 20% of you or I can buy all of you."

Now, more than a decade later, that scenario may finally come about. Since January of this year, AOL, now part of Time Warner, and Microsoft's MSN online service have been in talks about combining operations, according to sources close to the companies.

Microsoft has used the overtures to push AOL to use MSN Search instead of Google, while AOL wants to combine the companies' ad-sales staffs to crank up pressure on arch-rival Yahoo!.

"RISKY FOR AOL." If the two team up, the resulting behemoth -- with more than 200 million unique Web visitors a month -- would realign the top players in a market now dominated by Yahoo and Google. "AOL and MSN have felt left behind," says Jeff Lanctot, a vice-president at interactive agency Razorfish/Avenue A, a division of Seattle-based aQuantive. "The combination of AOL and MSN would turn the industry on its ear and make us reassess the assumptions of the power players."

But there's no guarantee that the talks, momentarily suspended, will end in an agreement. For one, a hookup "is risky for AOL unless there's a big payoff," says David Card, Internet analyst at Jupiter Research.

Microsoft, which made the first approach, seems to have more to gain. By wresting AOL's large audience in one fell swoop, Microsoft has a chance to unseat Google as top dog in the lucrative paid-search business.

Today, AOL uses Google as its search engine, keeping some 80% of the revenue that those searches yield. In the second quarter, about one-tenth of AOL's $320 million in ad sales came from paid search. It could lose a key revenue source if the relatively untested MSN Search is unable to match Google's proven track record in generating sales and attracting loyal users.

WHICH GAME PLAN? Meanwhile, AOL is at a pivotal juncture in a turnaround. As paying subscribers to its online service continue to defect, the Time Warner unit is now betting its future on growth in online-ad revenue. This summer, it relaunched a beefed-up aol.com Web site. With the new aol.com as an anchor, AOL hopes to attract an ever-bigger audience -- and more advertisers -- to all of its Web sites, including AIM, MapQuest, ICQ, AOL Music, and the like. Today, those sites boast 112 million unique monthly visitors, according to comScore Media Metrix.

AOL hopes that by combining ad sales over AOL Web properties and MSN, which attracts about 114 million unique monthly visitors, it would top Yahoo, with 121 million unique monthly visitors. But even without such a move, AOL is expected to increase ad revenues to $1.35 billion this year, vs. $1 billion last year, according to Internet analyst Richard Greenfield of Fulcrum Global Partners.

If Microsoft needs AOL more than the reverse, it's up to Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons to command a princely sum for his division or take a pass. Indeed, Parsons is the wild card. While he has professed confidence in AOL's new Web strategy, he may ultimately decide that spinning out a part of the troublesome online unit may help jack up a stock price that has been languishing ever since AOL merged with Time Warner in 2001. If that's the case, Gates' prophecy may come true.

http://biz.yahoo.com/special/msft05_article1.html

martyMAC/movieguy: I sure am. Many Thanx! EOM

OT: lol! Norske_Badger, just make sure you stop at your nails. I don't want to have to roll your dice for you in Vegas! lol!! :)

OT: pvc, missed this earlier...Yes, yes we are in good company here. lns

OT: sniff sniff, is that Badger poo I smell? EOM

freephotoads: It might do you good to review chartist1's latest post. hmmmm, might expect that if this is shaping up for a repeat. ;)

http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=7822580

OT: Excellent point, clawmann! lol! eom

Let's not forget who Charles Fritz used to work for...IBM.

http://www.neom.com/people/cfritz.jsp

OT: Awesome DD as always, SOG! YEAH!! EOM

OT: mo-money, got the truck just ain't got no gas. lol! EOM

Boldini/martyMAC, "Spot ON!" THNX! EOM

AmericanBulls: Gettin' close w/ a BUY-IF...

http://www.americanbulls.com/StockPage.asp?CompanyTicker=NEOM%20%20%20%20%20%20%20&MarketTicker=...

clawmann: Nice detailed find there. Interesting too given on there appears to me to have been decent accumulation going on today. hmmmmmm

After hours S4/A again?

OT: chartist1: lol! That's exactly why I always preempt mine w/ "SWAGTA", cause I know I ain't there yet! :) lns

OT: Nice layout, JP. Much appreciated. lns EOM

OT: DrMyke: Were you ever able to convince your friends of what NeoMedia really has or do they still scoff at the notion? Just curious.

Well, my one friend who I described as sounding similar to yours in that regard just last week said to me over the phone, "Dude, I ain't ever investing one damn penny in that company!" And, before he said to me, matter of factly, "Their patents are questionable at best."

Well, I just laughed and laughed and laughed.

To each his own, "eh"? All we can do is lay it out there.

Oh, well.

OT: My pleasure, Friend. Glad to be in this together. Almost feels meant to be, huh? Faith, baby, Faith! Vegas after all? Lol! :)

pvc: Me. Thankful for what I have. EOM

movieguy: I stand corrected. Thanx. EOM

kokonutguy: That one's great. I love the last paragraph about ScanLife by (guess who?)...ScanBuy.

Read his opinion: "Scanlife - i can’t say much about them because their website not only lacks technical information, but any kind of useful information. They’re affiliated with scanbuy and their so-called “eZcodes” look suspiciously like the visual codes developed by Beat Gfeller and Michael Rohs (11×11 modules, same guidebar pattern). Seems like a shady operation to me… "

LOL!!!

http://www.scanbuy.com (see blue square, mid-right of page)
http://www.scanlife.net

menamiketrx: The key is "mobile" EOM

nutsoc: Even better right now, IMO, since it takes folks right to "the source". No guessing, just finding. :)

PClick: Thanx for reposting chartist1's weekly. If anybody has good knowledge on the Chaiken Money Flow can you please confirm/deny this SWAG that the drop off we saw over the past couple weeks w/ that was most likely due to the Shorts covering?

I see it turned up nice again today. :)

On that www.askresearch site link I tried to post the other day, if you go to it and check out the 3 year MACD daily chart (Frequency: Daily), you'll see that we FINALLY went positive again today after it fell to it's LOWEST POINT in over 3 years back in mid-June.

Can we say, "BOINGOINGOINGOINGOING!"

beacon: You good at throwing the boomarang there, Down Under?

:)

OT: YJ, in this case it's "The Fritz" lol! EOM

beacon: On your previous suggestion that NeoMedia change their stock to PaperClick (PPCK or whatever), two things:

1) I don't think that's possible unless they were to spin "PaperClick" off as a separate company
2) If anybody were to see "Powered by PaperClick" or something like what Steelers_Fan reported, "Please visit www.paperclick.com" (Thanx Steelers_Fan), as soon as they go there and even half-as* look around, right at the bottom of the PaperClick home page is "NeoMedia" shown three times, and 4/5 of the available links there are to neom.com .

To me, it would be rather obvious to anybody half interested in possibly investing in "PaperClick" that they would easily find out that NeoMedia is the entity behind PaperClick and that they are publicly traded.

SWAGTA: Nice. I see three things here that haven't occured since, yup, April. ;)

http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/SC.web?c=NEOM,uu[m,a]daclyyay[pd20,2][vc60][iut!Lv25!Ll14]&pr...

http://library.thinkquest.org/12659/media/space_exploration/shuttle/launch.jpg

We're shovin' off, Mates! :) EOM

OT: Thanx, JP. I'll take that as a compliment! :)

(m. jagger/k. richards)

I’m a fleabit peanut monkey
All my friends are junkies
That’s not really true

I’m a cold italian pizza
I could use a lemon squeezer
What you do?

But I’ve been bit and I’ve been tossed around
By every she-rat in this town
Have you, babe?

Well, I am just a monkey man
I’m glad you are a monkey woman too

I was bitten by a boar
I was gouged and I was gored
But I pulled on through

Yes, I’m a sack of broken eggs
I always have an unmade bed
Don’t you?

Well, I hope we’re not too messianic
Or a trifle too satanic
We love to play the blues

Well I am just a monkey man
I’m glad you are a monkey, monkey woman too, babe

I’m a monkey
I’m a monkey
I’m a monkey man
I’m a monkey man
I’m a monkey...

Nice vines/success: Click on Sept. 23rd...Virgin Mobile! Click on that day. Interesting timing too, the last Friday before the CTIA the following week. :)

http://www.ellegirl.com/win/mobot/

APD: What do you think of the unnoficial, quiet opening of the WordRegistry storefront on Friday? New web site to boot. Looks like they must be pretty confident of Mobot coming in to the fold too (not that I doubted it would happen) given they're advertising taking a picture of anything and having it linked just like a barcode, right on the Home Page of www.paperclick.com

I know, we'll have to wait for the upcoming quarterly releases to see if they actually turn a profit someday. Looking better and better everyday though.

Pump and Dump? I don't think so in this case.

lns

OT: Zacked, you're right. You've been very patient. You've done well. You've passed the test. You can now sell.

Thanx for the heads-up, nut. They must've gotten cut off since they're so ridiculously long. They're from http://www.askresearch.com/ . I broke up the link below so you can try to copy-n-paste the parts together in your brower address bar. (pain in as*, I know) I put the "close up" view below it.

Or, just go to http://www.askresearch.com/ , click on 'Daily Chart' near the top left of page. Type in 'neom' for the Ticker Symbol, change the Time Frame to 5 years, change the Frequency to Monthly, change the Type of chart to whatever (I like Candle). Then, on the technical portion to the right of all that, click on each of them (if you want to see them all). In this case ESPECIALLY check the MACD technical indicator box. Then click "Create Chart" below that.

For the "close up" view, change the Time Frame to 3 Months. There you will see how last month it sat on the "launch pad" (zero line), and this month it's crept above it.

Doing it the above way is probably easier than copy-n-pasting the link sections. Sorry about that.

They are worth the effort, IMO. :)

http://139.142.147.218/StockChart_ImageOnly.dll?cus=0&co=ask&
i_chart=0&inm=5&ind=2&idx_sym=&sb=neom&cn=us&size=1&ind2=-60&
inm2=-3&ty=2&sca=1&mov1=0&mov2=0&mov3=0&boll=0&lin=0&chk_vol=
on&chk_obv=on&chk_rsi=on&rsi=8&chk_sto=on&sto1=15&sto2=5&sto3=
5&chk_wil=on&wil=12&chk_macd=on&macd1=12&macd2=25&macd3=
9&chk_roc=on&roc1=16&roc2=8&chk_mfi=on&mfi=14&chk_rsc=
on&rsc_sym=INX&ref_rate=180

http://139.142.147.218/StockChart_ImageOnly.dll?cus=0&co=ask&
i_chart=0&inm=5&ind=2&idx_sym=&sb=neom&cn=us&size=1&ind2=-3&
inm2=-3&ty=2&sca=1&mov1=0&mov2=0&mov3=0&boll=0&lin=0&chk_vol=
on&chk_obv=on&chk_rsi=on&rsi=8&chk_sto=on&sto1=15&sto2=5&sto3=
5&chk_wil=on&wil=12&chk_macd=on&macd1=12&macd2=25&macd3=
9&chk_roc=on&roc1=16&roc2=8&chk_mfi=on&mfi=14&chk_rsc=
on&rsc_sym=INX&ref_rate=180

SWAGTA: To back up chartist1's monthly 5+ year chart of NEOM showing how the Chaiken Money Flow is going positive for the first time in 5 years, here's another similar monthly chart showing a different VERY MAJOR indicator just crossing positive, again, for the first time in MORE THAN 5 years...the MACD. :)

I don't know how to post it so here's the link:

http://139.142.147.218/StockChart_ImageOnly.dll?cus=0&co=ask&i_chart=0&inm=5&ind=2&a....

and a closer view to more clearly see it:

http://139.142.147.218/StockChart_ImageOnly.dll?cus=0&co=ask&i_chart=0&inm=5&ind=2&a....

aztreedoc: Clearing out a "register" from earlier today? Don't know but it was five minutes after close and we know that OTC:BB's don't trade after hours. No other .377 bids in site.

LAST 10 TRADES

Time Price Volume Exchange Info

16:05:22 0.377 250000 OTCBB
16:02:44 0.399 3900 OTCBB at Bid
16:00:08 0.399 10000 OTCBB at Bid
15:58:53 0.399 10000 OTCBB
15:58:52 0.399 10000 OTCBB
15:58:07 0.399 2500 OTCBB at Bid
15:57:13 0.398 4000 OTCBB at Ask
15:57:06 0.398 1000 OTCBB at Ask
15:56:56 0.399 2000 OTCBB at Bid
15:56:46 0.396 6000 OTCBB

OT: Since we're on the subject of beer, my personal favorite...Shiner Bock. Nothin' finer than a cold, crisp Shiner! (I always like to say).

But, another good sign is that it goes down just as easy (in my gut, anyway) at room temperature.

http://www.briansbelly.com/beerbelly/shinerbock.shtml