From: TheStandardEurope.comTo: [log in to unmask] Sent: 09/05/01 22:06 Subject: INTELLIGENCER EUROPE: Sportal plays for extra time | http://www.thestandardeurope.com | ===================================================================== THE INDUSTRY STANDARD EUROPE'S I N T E L L I G E N C E R E U R O P E This Week in the European Internet Economy ===================================================================== Sign up for more FREE newsletters | http://europe.thestandard.com/newsletters | Wednesday, 9 May 2001 TOP STORY: * Sportal plays for extra time WORTH REPEATING: * Overweight and underweight in Japan THE WEEK: * News highlights BY THE NUMBERS: * The joys of e-mail marketing /=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= advertisement =-=-=\ John Chambers of Cisco, was not wrong when he said "E-Learning will make email look like a rounding error!" The 2nd European E-Learn Expo & Conference, is taking place at the Amsterdam Rai Centre, 26-27 June 2001, with over 75 of the world's foremost E-Learning speakers and authors, 120 companies and 450 delegates from all over Europe. See you there! http://tm0.com/sbct.cgi?s=110982215&i=339520&d=1377192 \=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=/ TOP STORY ~~~~~~~~~ Sportal plays for extra time The firm's management goes into an emergency meeting to thrash out a rescue package to save the online sports site. But some senior management have already bailed By Rick Wray The fate of UK-based online sports company Sportal will be known in the next 48 hours, according to sources close to the company. An emergency board meeting will be held on Wednesday evening to discuss the chances of rescuing the business. Sportal, which has been generating monthly revenues of about $1 million (1.1 million euros), needs about £6 million (9.7 million euros) in cash to take it through to profitability in the first quarter of next year. The uncertainty is taking its toll. Last week the group's UK managing director Stephen Nuttall resigned from the business. It is understood that he left because it was becoming increasingly obvious that Sportal was not going to be the new-media heavyweight he had once envisaged. His departure was accompanied by a round of redundancies that saw just under 20 people go from the company's London staff of 130. Over recent weeks privately-owned Sportal has approached many of its existing shareholders, which include Nomura, 3i and British Sky Broadcasting. Sources close to Sportal said that several existing shareholders offered to loan the company the cash it needed to survive on the condition that they took full control. But these terms were unacceptable to the management team led by founder Rob Hersov. As a result, Sportal has been in talks with new potential investors as well as a handful of media groups willing to bail out the company. But in the current depressed market, getting new investment has not proved to be easy, the source explained. "It is a savage market and shareholders, staff and partners need to know where the business is going. The next 48 hours are going to be crucial." BSkyB, with a 6 per cent stake in Sportal, is certainly not among the shareholders willing to invest further in the company. Earlier today the satellite broadcaster brought to a close its involvement in the UK's new-media revolution by writing down its investment in companies such as Sportal to zero at a cost of £16 million (26 million euros). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WORTH REPEATING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "People are buying Japan because they fear being underweight. Everyone's overweight Europe and underweight Japan." Kathy Matsui, strategist at Goldman Sachs, explaining recent fondness of asset managers for Japanese stocks. Quoted by the Financial Times. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- THE WEEK ~~~~~~~~ OPEN PLAN: BSkyB is to integrate its interactive TV shopping portal Open into the rest of its online operations at a cost of £40 million (65 million euros). The move is part of a bid by the satellite broadcaster to increase revenues from its interactive businesses and will result in 300 job losses. BSkyB has also re-evaluated its other new-media investments, valuing its collection of small equity stakes in start-ups such as Sportal and Mykindaplace.com at zero. http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16474,00.html YAHOO GOODBYE: Yahoo Germany CEO Peter Würtenberger is leaving the company to head up the portal venture being created by Bild newspaper and T-Online. Würtenberger is the latest in a line of international Yahoo executives to leave. European head Fabiola Arredondo quit in February and the chiefs of the Chinese, Asian and Korean operations have also left since January. Lars Toft, CEO of Yahoo Denmark will act as interim chief of the German operation until a successor is found. http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16445,00.html NFACTORY FLOORED: French content distributor nFactory has been forced to file for bankruptcy after iSyndicate Europe pulled out of a deal to buy the company. ISyndicate Europe, a joint venture between Bertelsmann Content Network and iSyndicate Inc, announced in January that it would buy nFactory. But since then iSyndicate - which aggregates and distributes content from different sources, and operates in France, Belgium, Spain and Morocco - has fallen on hard times and laid off more than half its staff. http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16438,00.html COMMERCIAL BREAKDOWN : T-Online, Europe's largest ISP, reported a 61 per cent sales increase to 280.2 million euros in the quarter that ended 31 March. But the costs associated with its flat-rate offer led to a 66.4 million euros loss (before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) for the quarter, the company said. The company was also hit by a sharp decrease in advertising and e-commerce revenues, which fell by 17.7 million euros to 31.3 million euros. T-Online added 700,000 subscribers in the quarter and now has 8.7 million, 7.1 million of whom are in Germany. http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16439,00.html TERRA STRICKEN: Spanish-American portal Terra Lycos more than doubled its net losses to $155 million (175 million euros) in the first quarter compared with the same period last year. The loss was largely attributed to the amortisation of the numerous acquisitions the company made last year. But Terra Lycos also saw revenues rise to $164 million (186 million euros) compared with $33 million (37 million euros) in the first quarter of last year. http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16466,00.html BRAND XML: A group of leading technology companies has agreed on a new flexible standard for describing data that is transferred over the Internet. Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Oracle, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Xerox and SAP, among others, volunteered their work on the standard, which is called XML schema. The standard will allow Web developers to use a common method for identifying Web data, and to more easily transfer formatted data. The World Wide Web Consortium is overseeing the standards process. http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16434,00.html ORACLE SPEAKS: The rarely understated CEO of Oracle, Larry Ellison, believes the business-to-business arena faces a severe Darwinian shakeout. Only his company and rival enterprise software firm SAP will be left standing, he said. "B-to-b should not be a new industry," he added. "It's just conventional software companies using the Internet to make people buy and sell more efficiently." In the past couple of years, thousands of software companies hoped to cash in on a $6 trillion (6.8 trillion euros) revolution. Now they face a harsh future. http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16462,00.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BY THE NUMBERS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A recent survey by Opt-in News suggests that 73 per cent of media buyers worldwide believe permission-based e-mail marketing generates better response rates than other marketing methods. http://www.emarketer.com/estatnews/estats/email_marketing/20010507_optin .html /=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= advertisement =-=-=\ Subscribe to other Newsletters produced by The Industry Standard Europe and receive all the latest news and information direct to your desktop. The Intellegencer Newsletter offers analysis of the European Internet economy and is also available in German, French, Spanish versions. http://www.thestandardeurope.com/newsletters \=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=/ STAFF ~~~~~ Written by James Price, Rick Wray and Rob Jeacock. 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