Wall Street

Quarterly results have never been so closely scrutinized as they are right now. Tony yesterday contrasted the varying fortunes of Interwoven and Vignette.

While online ad spending is projected to continue expanding - albeit at a much more modest rate of growth - the contraction of the general economy is expected to put even greater downward pressure on the price of both online display and search advertising, according to a new 2009 outlook for the Internet industry released Monday by a top Wall Street researcher.

November was a real turkey for The New York Times Co.

Total revenues from continuing operations at the company declined 13.9 percent year-over-year last month, the company just announced. Ad revenue fell 20.9 percent thanks to softness in the automotive, entertainment and financial services categories. (So much for the idea that battered Wall Street firms are actually spending more to reassure their customers).

I recently received an interesting survey from Steven
Ashley, senior research analyst at Robert
W Baird & Company, a financial services firm. The survey tried to figure
out the analytics tools employed by the 500 most heavily-trafficked websites
around the world as of early December, 2008.

If the credit crisis and Wall Street implosion haven't made it obvious, take it from the VCs themselves: expect fewer startups to get off the ground next year.

In the blow to the franchise, the upcoming Macworld Conference & Expo will be Apple's last. The tech giant is pulling out of the yearly event where Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) faithful convene to be wowed by new products, attend seminars and info sessions, and generally geek out.

Last week I heard about a research report filled with the sort of bad news I've come to expect about B2B media.As I read about the report, something inside me seemed to give way. I realized it was time for me to say something I have hesitated to say:The B2B industry as we know it is about to collapse.Allow me to explain:

-The Financial Times has joined the parade of newspapers freezing hiring and asking employees to take buyouts. [Reuters]

-Time Out's investors are putting the title's New York edition up for sale, hoping to fetch $40 million for it. And, really, what better time to unload a print magazine? [Times]

An overwhelming majority of mothers in America (90%) saw the economy getting weaker even before the collapse on Wall Street, and more of them now (40%) feel stressed about their current family life...

These aren't exactly the best of times for WCM/Portal/ECM vendor, Vignette Corporation.
Today we learn of the departure of Sarah A. Reed from Vignette. As Director of Global Analyst Relations, Sarah was our main point of contact with the company and she did a great job of making our job easier (which is saying a lot). We wish Sarah well in whatever life-after-Vignette holds in store for her.