Author: Dan Kennedy

Microsoft’s Yahoo bet

The headline at Wired.com says it all: “Microsoft Bids for Yahoo: Do Two Losers Make a Winner?” And if you read Betsy Schiffman’s article, the answer would appear to be “no.”

Microsoft’s proposed $44.6 billion acquisition of Yahoo is the biggest media story of the still-new year. Yet news organizations seem to be straining to imbue this with the excitement they think it deserves. When it comes to the “what does it mean?” graf, everyone is coming up short. In fact, it may not mean all that much.

Carolyn Johnson writes in the Boston Globe today that this may be all about the coming cell-phone wars, where Google doesn’t have anywhere near the head start that it does on the desktop. Even here, though, Google’s efforts to develop cell-phone software — the so-called Google phone, a.k.a. the “Android” — is the subject of much excitement. Everyone wants to know if Android-enabled phones will be cooler/ cheaper/ faster than the Apple iPhone. So even if Google’s cell-phone efforts are not that far along, they’re still considerably ahead of where Microsoft and Yahoo are.

I’m hard-pressed to say how this could affect the financially struggling news business except to note that this is all about online advertising. If competition between Google and Microsoft/Yahoo somehow helps the pie grow, then that can only be good. At the Online Journalism Review, Robert Niles is asking whether Microsoft should buy Yahoo. Only 19 people had responded by this morning, and they were evenly split.

Microsoft has not been an interesting company for many years. Its success is built almost entirely on two monopoly products, Windows and Office, which have their roots in the 1980s and which came to full fruition in the mid-’90s. The company has done a nice job in recent years with its Xbox video-game systems, but that’s essentially a side project. Contrast that with the iPod, which Apple used to rekindle interest in its Macintosh computers.

Yahoo? Enormous numbers of people go there, so I guess the company is doing something worth saving. But it’s fallen way, way behind Google in online advertising, and I don’t find what it offers to be particularly innovative or compelling. (I do like Flickr, the social network for photography that Yahoo bought a couple of years ago. But Flickr users are already protesting the Microsoft takeover, which could provide a shot in the arm to Picasa, Google’s own underdeveloped photo service.) I don’t use Yahoo Mail for anything more than diverting stuff I don’t want to a mailbox I never check. By contrast, I like Google’s Gmail so much that I now use it for everything. I also use Google Calendar, Google Documents, Blogger (of course), Google Earth and several other Google services. The company’s “cloud computing” concept is taking over my life.

As Robert Guth emphasizes (sub. req.) in the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft has not been Bill Gates’ company for some time. Steve Ballmer is firmly in charge, and that will become clearer later this year, when Gates retires. Ballmer is fiercely competitive, but if he shares Gates’ vision for how to shape technology markets, he’s never really demonstrated it. (Even Gates never had much vision regarding how good software should work, a shortcoming with which tens of millions of us must contend every day.)

Let’s not forget, too, that though Yahoo and Google have both been criticized for helping the Chinese government with its efforts to censor the Internet, Yahoo went quite a bit farther — actually providing information that helped the government arrest dissidents. Its fierce competitive culture aside, Microsoft has a reputation for being socially conscious. So maybe Microsoft will curb Yahoo’s excesses. But that has nothing to do with catching up to Google, either.

This John Markoff piece in the New York Times seems to get it directionally right. Google isn’t perfect by any means. Someday, someone will come along and knock it off its pedestal. But that challenge is not likely to come from two of yesterday’s giants. Microsoft still makes a ton of money, and will for years to come. That should keep Yahoo afloat.

Still, when Google one day feels the heat, in all likelihood it’s going to come from people who today are still in college or even high school. At the Guardian, Jack Schofield offers some sound advice to Microsoft, arguing that the deal might make sense if Ballmer and company transform Yahoo into their consumer division. His conclusion: “But is Microsoft ready to take that step? I think not.”

Photo (cc) by Erwin Boogert. Some rights reserved.

McCain’s conservative record

Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, as conservative as they come, states the obvious: “McCain was never an agenda-driven movement conservative, but he ‘entered public life as a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution,’ as he puts it, and on the whole his record has been that of a robust and committed conservative.” It’s interesting that the talk-show wing of the Republican Party can’t seem to acknowledge that.

WSJ whacks out Romney

Wow. Check out this editorial about Mitt Romney on the Wall Street Journal’s ultraconservative editorial page, which is no fan of John McCain. Here’s just a tiny taste:

Plenty of politicians attune their positions to new constituencies. The larger danger is that Mr. Romney’s conversions are not motivated by expediency or mere pandering but may represent his real governing philosophy….

John McCain’s difficulties in selling himself to GOP voters reflect his many liberal lurches over the years — from taxes to free speech, prescription drugs and global warming cap and trade. Republicans have a pretty good sense of where he might betray them. Yet few doubt that on other issues — national security, spending — Mr. McCain will stick to his principles no matter the opinion polls. If Mr. Romney loses to Senator McCain, the cause will be his failure to persuade voters that he has any convictions at all.

Very tough stuff. (Via Blue Mass Group.)

Mashpee ices casino fever

The town of Mashpee has dealt a significant blow to plans to build the world’s largest casino in Middleborough. Stephanie Vosk and George Brennan report in the Cape Cod Times that Mashpee officials have asked the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs to deny the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe’s application to place land in Mashpee and Middleborough into a trust.

Tribal leaders are not proposing to build a gambling casino in Mashpee, and, according to the Times, have repeatedly promised not to. But the application — involving 140 acres in Mashpee and 539 acres in Middleborough — leaves open the possibility that Mashpee could be targeted for gambling at some point in the future. Here’s an excerpt from the town’s letter (PDF) to the BIA:

[T]he Tribe has stated that it does not intend to offer gaming [that’s PR-speak for gambling] on the Mashpee lands. Nevertheless, this statement of intent does not guarantee that the Tribe would not, at some future date, convert use of the Mashpee lands to gaming. Without an enforceable agreement specifically defining permissable gaming activities and/or prohibiting gaming in perpetuity, the Town must assume the worst-case scenario, leaving it no choice but to oppose the Tribe’s request.

In a nice touch, the Mashpee selectmen append a letter from the Mashpee Wampanoags promising not to build a casino in their town — signed by Glenn Marshall, who stepped down as tribal chairman last summer after it was revealed he’d lied about his military record and had been convicted of sexual assault. Not too credible.

The Times story also makes a point that the media don’t bring up often enough — that the agreement signed by Middleborough selectmen with tribal leaders last summer legally prohibits the selectmen from acting in their town’s best interests. As Vosk and Brennan write: “The agreement specifies that not only can Middleboro not oppose the application, it must work on behalf of the tribe to help it pass.” That boilerplate sentence should appear in every story about the casino proposal. Incredibly, it would be illegal for the Middleborough selectmen to stand up for their town the way the Mashpee selectmen have done.

It seems odd that the tribal leaders would word their application in a way that allows the Mashpee tail to wag the Middleborough dog. Perhaps they will drop the Mashpee part of their application. But if they don’t, it sounds like this could delay the tribe’s casino plans for years.

This also undermines one of Gov. Deval Patrick’s arguments for his three-casino proposal — that a Native American-owned casino is inevitable, so the state might as well get in on the action. There’s nothing inevitable about it, and there never has been.

Grown-ups on the stage

Tonight’s debate is remarkably civil and substantive. CNN’s Bill Schneider, who’s live-blogging it, calls it a “grown-up debate,” especially compared to the Republicans last night. He’s right. But doesn’t Obama, who’s behind in the polls in many states, need to throw a haymaker?

My guess is that Obama, not having any particularly good choices (check out these poll numbers), has decided that he has to hope voters are looking for a reason to vote against Clinton — and that, by coming off as presidential, he’ll give it to them.

The one-on-one format gives this an entirely different feel — it’s actually approaching a conversation about policy rather than a mindless recitation of soundbites. So far, no sign of Borat.

It looks like they’re going to close with Iraq. Obama just criticized “the mindset that got us into Iraq in the first place,” so we could get some heat.

The Clintons’ Kazakhstan problem

The New York Times fronts an absolutely brutal story today about Bill Clinton’s dubious dealings on behalf of a Canadian mining mogul.

According to the article, by Jo Becker and Don Van Natta Jr., the mogul, Frank Giustra, unexpectedly won a lucrative uranium-mining deal in Kazakhstan after Clinton flew to that country with him in 2005 and schmoozed the human-rights-abusing dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Giustra then turned around and donated $31 million to Clinton’s charitable foundation, with a pledge to give $100 million more.

There’s also an account of Bill Clinton’s and Giustra’s somehow not able to remember meeting with the head of Kazakhstan’s state-controlled uranium agency, Kazatomprom, at the Clintons’ home, in Chappaqua, N.Y., until confronted with evidence. Here’s a lowlight:

“You are correct that I asked the president to meet with the head of Kazatomprom,” Mr. Giustra said. “Mr. Dzhakishev [the head of the uranium agency] asked me in February 2007 to set up a meeting with former President Clinton to discuss the future of the nuclear energy industry.” Mr. Giustra said the meeting “escaped my memory until you raised it.”

That’s perfectly understandable, of course. I mean, any of us could forget about meeting with a former U.S. president and the guy who was about to make us many millions of dollars richer, right? Admit it: You probably can’t remember what you had for breakfast this morning.

The story raises the question of how happy Hillary Clinton is with this, as she has been an outspoken critic of Nazarbayev. But she certainly can’t distance herself from her husband’s shenanigans given that she’s ultimately responsible for unleashing him to attack Barack Obama during the past few weeks. It is the Clintons who’ve created the impression that they’re running for co-president, so his baggage is now hers as well. (Not that it ever wasn’t.)

But there’s an additional point of interest here, and that involves timing. This is, of course, a perfectly legitimate story, and the Times deserves a lot of credit for ferreting it out. Tonight we’ll see the most crucial debate of the campaign, as Clinton and Obama go at it one-on-one on CNN at 8 p.m. I suspect that this story will be a big part of the debate. And from there, it could dominate coverage right through Super Tuesday.

As we know, the Times has already endorsed Hillary Clinton. Today’s story may have far more of an effect on the outcome. Whether by accident or design, the news side has sent a clear message that it’s more relevant and more important than the paper’s opinionmongers.

Not a great night for McCain

I wasn’t going to post during the debate. But I dozed off, and woke up to watch McCain and Romney going at it on the timetables McCain says Romney advocated to withdraw from the war in Iraq. McCain seems petulant and petty tonight, his contempt for Romney barely disguised. McCain’s not telling the truth about Romney, and he all but admitted it, justifying it by pointing to the millions of dollars Romney spent on negative ads aimed at McCain and Huckabee.

Responding to a question about whether Romney was qualified to be commander-in-chief, McCain made a crack about Romney’s experience selling and buying companies and eliminating people’s jobs.

Huckabee’s whining incessantly about not getting equal time. He’s lucky he’s up there. It’s not as if anyone has voted for him lately. And Ron Paul is even luckier.

The governor’s loaded dice

I like to stay away from debates over what kinds of benefits may or may not flow from Gov. Deval Patrick’s three-casino proposal. My reasoning is simple: casinos are bad news for a whole host of reasons, including traffic, crime and predicted increases in the divorce and suicide rates. If it turns out that Patrick’s rosy promises of tax revenues and jobs turn out to be true, well, I’m still against it.

Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that there’s considerable evidence that the numbers really don’t add up. The latest example is Steve Bailey’s column in today’s Globe, in which Bailey notes that the governor has promised four or times as many construction jobs as were created by the Big Dig, which was only the largest public-works project in the history of the known universe.

A more in-depth analysis of the numbers is provided in CommonWealth Magazine by Phil Primack. His story is proof, really, that there are no good numbers — and that as others, most prominently the Weekly Dig, have reported, Patrick has mainly adopted the assumptions of Clyde Barrow, a UMass Dartmouth researcher who is staunchly pro-casino. Primack’s story is must reading for anyone looking for a comprehensive overview of the numbers.

If the Legislature is unwilling to kill Patrick’s proposal outright, then at the very least it ought to commission an independent study. Legislators in the middle might be surprised at how little we’re going to get out of this, especially compared with how much we’re going to be hurt.