Steven Carlson on Wed, 16 May 2001 13:06:29 +0200 (CEST) |
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[Nettime-bold] City by City: London, UK |
Dear Nettime, Geert Lovink suggested I post this newsletter to the list. It's a story of fear, loathing and innovation in post-bubble London. Hope you find it entertaining and informative ... Steven Carlson nowEurope moderator --- nowEurope: City by City A city-by-city look at who's building the European Internet Tuesday, May 15 2001 http://nowEurope.com FIRST GLANCE Dealing with disaster BIRD'S EYE VIEW Europe's 800-pound gorilla ON THE GROUND Netimperative -- Making sense, maybe even money wcities -- Shifting gears Lastminute.com -- A test of nerves Boo.com -- Embracing the village leper WHERE'S THE MONEY? Moving the goalposts AD VALUE Well read and in the red THE GURU Mike Butcher -- Guru for hire CONFERENCE BEAT Upcoming Events in Europe ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We value reader tips and contacts __________________________________________________________________ FIRST GLANCE Dealing with disaster This issue is a different type of City by City. It's about post-crash London, about surviving when reality has conspired against your dot-com dreams. London is just too big for City by City's normal approach. No handful of company profiles can even come close to taking the pulse of the internet and new technology sectors here. So, we chose this more selective angle. London is also a city of extremes. Because it is Europe's financial capital, and partly because of its extravagant media, nowhere on the Continent did the internet boom roar loader. And nowhere has the bust hit harder. While other European markets are starting to regroup and move on cautiously, London is still searching for the bottom. Thus, it seemed natural to concentrate in this edition of City by City on four companies that have taken a serious hit and to examine how they managed to survive--in one form or another. One saw it coming and abandoned its original strategy (wcities). Another was rescued by a new investor (Netimperative). A third is racing against time to escape a share price collapse that might yet kill it (Lastminute.com). And one completely collapsed (Boo.com), only to have its name salvaged. Each (excepting Boo) has so far endured through a combination of good timing, good planning and iron resolve. But they will need more of the same to continue surviving. __________________________________________________________________ BIRD's EYE VIEW Europe's 800-pound gorilla London is the center of nearly everything in the UK. It's home to 9 million people. It is one of the world's great financial capitals in a country with high GDP, an entrepreneurial culture, and a liberalized and competitive telecoms market. Its language is the language of the internet. All that fosters massive technological development and a healthy embrace of the internet by individuals and business. According to eMarketer, 44% of UK homes have a personal computer. EMarketer also reports that 32.2% of adult UK residents are active internet users (more than one hour per week), compared to 25.5% in France and 19.4% in Germany. A more liberal standard applied by Angus Reid Group (use in the last 30 days) identifies 41% as internet users. Thus, the UK lags only Europe's Nordic countries in terms of percentages online, but, with a population of 60 million, more than makes up for it in real numbers. The high rate of access is aided by its relatively low cost. The average monthly cost is USD 32, according to Boston Consulting Group, compared to USD 34 in France and USD 40 in Germany. Most of the advantage comes from low average internet provider charges. Indeed, a KPMG survey found 55% of home internet users in the U.K. use free internet service deals. On the business side, 34% of UK companies are connected, according to Datamonitor, against a European average of 27%. Andersen Consulting reports that 62% of UK businesses view e-commerce as a real competitive threat, compared to the European average of 40%. E-commerce turnover, meanwhile, was USD 3.93 billion in 1999, according to eMarketer, which also expects 2003 turnover to reach USD 101 billion, second only to their projection for USD 119 billion in Germany. Mobile phone penetration in the UK, on the other hand, is merely mediocre, but typical for a country with a well-established and reliable fixed-line system. According to a European Commission study, 32.2% of UK residents had mobile phones by 1999, well behind the Nordic countries and poorer countries with inferior fixed-line systems. <http://www.emarketer.com> <http://www.angusreidinteractive.com/flash/index.htm> <http://www.bcg.com> (Boston Consulting Group) <http://www.kpmg.com> <http://www.ac.com> (Andersen Consulting) <http://europa.eu.int/> (European Commission) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * eMarketer -- the world's leading provider of Internet statistics - makes sense of all the numbers and provides a realistic overview of the Internet marketplace. <http://www.emarketer.com> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * __________________________________________________________________ ON THE GROUND Netimperative -- Making sense, maybe even money Felicia Jackson will never forget that Monday morning one year ago. At 9:30 am she called the staff together and broke the news: Netimperative had been placed into liquidation. Just days before, the company's main backer, investment and research firm Durlacher, had pulled out of a commitment to pump USD 7.2 million into the company. Worse, Jackson had already launched the expansion that was to be funded by Durlacher. There were no reserves. No time. The company had hit the wall before it even knew it. "We were shell shocked." Jackson remembers. Netimperative went online in 1999, providing a portal of news and services for the internet professional. It proved successful in attracting its targeted audience. But the plan was, like so many others, painfully over-optimistic in terms of attracting advertising. The company had also spent heavily moving offices and recruiting internationally. But Jackson didn't give up. "We still had a sensible model: Create a community and then serve it." So, she frantically phoned investor after potential investor. Incredibly, Jackson found her white knight by the end of the week and before the staff disintegrated. On Friday evening Internet Business Group (IBG), a marketing, consulting and investment venture, agreed to pay about USD 1.5 million to acquire the company from liquidators Kroll Buchler Phillips. Crucial to the deal, says Jackson, was IBG's recognition that Netimperative's largest expenditures had been one-off charges. And, she admits, "Anyone who says there's no luck involved in finding investment is lying." Netimperative did not, however, then just skip merrily on its way. The staff of 35 has been cut to 17. Overall spending has been slashed by more than 80%. And the company may still not be out of the woods. Jackson, 32, has just announced the site will switch to paid membership. Six-month subscriptions will run USD 72 (�50), with an introductory offer of two years for the same fee. She won't say how many of her 8,000 members will have to sign up for her to break even. The move has London dot-comers aflutter. For, now that most purely online ventures have abandoned the hope that advertising will butter their bread, many are staring straight at the need to charge their audience. Netimperative will, in effect, be their guinea pig. Jackson accepts the role bravely. "If not enough people are willing to pay for it, then why are we doing it?" With hindsight, it seems crazy this question wasn't asked earlier, and not just at Netimperative. But to be fair, a year ago every web-based business was under pressure to do one thing: gather market share. Charging for content within a sea of free content seemed suicidal. Obviously, things have changed. And, despite the dot-com pain, things do seem to make more sense now. <http://www.netimperative.com> <http://www.durlacher.com> <http://www.ibg.com> wcities -- Shifting gears As disaster looms for many free content providers, some have decided to to start charging their audience. If they like it, need it, want it, they�ll pay for it. Maybe. But what to do when, like city guide web site wcities, you're just not specialized enough? After all, even if the content is great, few surfers will pay for it when there's so much free travel and destination information out there. Answer: Switch customers. Tan Rasab, 33, funded the launch of wcities in 1999 with his own money and modest investments from family and friends. He raised USD 8m in venture capital later the same year, building a solid audience and quickly adding cities and location-based services to the site. But, as with NetImperative, his expectations for advertising revenues proved grossly unrealistic. Though his staff won't admit the company ever reached a crisis point, it was surely headed there. So, the company shifted gears. Instead of marketing the product directly to a mass audience--with all the attendant costs--and figuring out how to make money doing so, wcities decided to concentrate on creating content and, in effect, to let someone with an existing audience sell it. Now wcities licenses the use of its more than 300 city guides and location based services to web and WAP portals, wireless telecom operators and travel industry players. It was a clean shift from B2C to B2B. (Seems New Economy manufacturers still need high volume retailers.) And it worked. The company has signed a number of high profile deals, beginning with an investment and distribution pact with BT Openworld. BT got 17% of wcities for USD 15 million and also agreed to purchase wcities content for its web portal, Btinternet, and mobile portal, Genie. A web, WAP and iTV distribution deal with, Freeserve, the UK's largest free internet service provider, was followed by a web deal with Italia OnLine. And on April 11, the company announced an agreement to plug its content into AOL's Digital City, the leading destination information service in the U.S., as well as AOL's MapQuest and other destination services. Meanwhile, wcities no longer need worry about advertising and promotions or bite their nails over their own website's traffic figures. It can concentrate on creating solid content and backing it with a platform that can deliver to any online device. According to Nigel Couzens, wcities� head of marketing, the company hopes to close another financing round within the next couple months, raising USD 25-30 million. He says the money will likely come from a new strategic investor. At that news, nowEurope's antennae were raised. wcities has just been doing a lot of talking with AOL over a distribution deal and may soon have a new strategic investor. Will it be AOL? After an awkward moment of silence, Couzens said he could not disclose that kind of information. With or without an AOL investment, wcities has escaped dot-com oblivion with a nifty shift of gears. <http://www.wcities.com> <http://www.freeserve.com> <http://www.iol.it> (Italia OnLine) <http://www.aol.com> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Europemedia.net - The information hub for Europe's new media http://www.europemedia.net Europemedia.net provides new media, telecoms and technology news from across all Europe, as well as a personalised newsletter. You can find event listings, features, searchable archives and industry & country factfiles. Europemedia also produces personalised news and content solutions for clients. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Lastminute.com -- A test of nerves It's the company that listed at the (what else?) last minute. On March 14 2000, Lastminute.com floated 26% of its shares on New York's NASDAQ and the London Stock Exchange, raising a whopping USD 150 million for the website that sells last minute travel services, tickets and gifts. Investors eagerly bought up shares, pushing the share price to nearly USD 45. But then the floor fell out of the NASDAQ, and what might have been a price correction after a hyped IPO turned into a bloodbath. Within days, the share price dropped below USD 10. The stock bottomed out in March of this year at USD 2.38 per share and now huddles just below USD 4. Of course, Lastminute got its cash, but it won't last forever. There are few signs the NASDAQ will rebound any time this year, and Lastminute is still losing money. Its reserves should (and must) hold out at least until mid-2002, when the company hopes to start turning a profit. In the meantime, the share price looms over management as an annoyance and a threat. An overvalued share price for a company in a rapid growth stage is a cushion against mistakes. It offers an assurance of cheap funds, if needed. Conversely, a share price in the toilet means there is no room for error. Shareholders will scream over any deviation from projected performance, aware that disaster waits should the company run out of money before profits are realized or the share price rebounds enough to allow raising more cash. It makes for a very high stakes test of nerves. "It certainly forces you to focus." says Lastminute's head of global marketing Sep Riahi. "I wouldn't say it makes it a pressure cooker, because it already is a pressure cooker." he adds with a laugh. But Lastminute is hitting its projected numbers. It is the most recognized e-commerce brand in the UK, and it's one of the most popular European-based e-commerce sites. In fiscal year 2000 (ends September 30), the site generated USD 49 million in revenues, up from USD 3.7 million in fiscal 1999. Most recently, second quarter results for fiscal 2001 showed transactions worth USD 45 million, up 47% over the previous quarter and nearly four and a half times the total transaction value in the same period of 2000. The other risk from a share price collapse in this day of stock options, is that key employees will lose enthusiasm and may even jump ship. The antidote for this, according to Riahi, has to be given long beforehand. "It's very important to get the right people on board early on. From the beginning, we've stressed this is a long-term thing and we didn't want anyone looking for an early exit." Easier said than done, but the original team gathered by Martha Lane-Fox and Brent Hoberman is, to their credit, still in place at Lastminute. Ironically, Lastminute may be getting some benefit from the share-price plunge. After greed, fear may be the next best motivatorand control on spending. "We've definitely been more careful with our money." says Riahi. And, with much less dot-com clutter fighting for attention, advertising spacefrom outdoor to onlineis cheaper and delivers more impact. But will Lastminute reach profitability by 2002? The company lost a mind-boggling USD 51.4 million in fiscal 2000. It lost another USD 29.9 million, mostly in operating losses, in the first half of fiscal 2001. On top of that, the company spent an additional USD 30.8 million acquiring France's most popular travel website, Degriftour. Cash reserves are down to USD 89 million. Sometime, and soon, Lastminute will have to start not only generating more revenues, but reducing losses if it hopes to break even by next year. Otherwise, that lousy share price will, indeed, mean the end of Lastminute. <http://www.lastminute.com> Boo.com -- Embracing the village leper If there is a poster child for dot-com hubris, it is Boo.com. Its birth was extravagant, its death spectacular. But, ironically, the name that attracts so much scorn across the internet industry is still alive. Last September, Boo.com was relaunched by New York-based fashionmall.com, which purchased the Boo name, it's magazine Boom and other branded content for an undisclosed amount. But even if Boo came cheap, what on earth, you might ask, were Fashionmall thinking? As a corporate entity Boo was founded in London at the end of 1998 by two 30-year-old Swedes, Ernst Malmsten and Kajsa Leander. They raised USD 135 million from such blue chip investors as the Benetton family and French billionaire Bernard Arnault, as well as US investment banks Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. The pair then proceeded to spend with reckless abandon on everything from marketing and promotions, to recruitment and technology. It took a year to actually launch the website, and, only six months after that, Boo was out of cash. By then, the market had begun to sour on online retailers. Appalled by Boo's burn rate, and probably embarrassed by their own lack of supervision, investors declined to produce the USD 30 million Malmsten and Leander said they needed to keep Boo afloat. And it only got uglier. The 300 staffers (who survived earlier job cuts) each got a mere USD 1,200 in severance. In liquidation, according to CNET, the company's customer information, including names, telephone and credit card numbers, addresses and shopping habits--gathered with promises of protecting privacy--were sold to the highest bidder. Adding one final insult to injury, the Guardian reported that Malmsten and Leander held an auction among London publishers for the "warts and all" story of Boo's rise and fall. The pair reportedly signed with Random House for nearly USD 200,000. After all that, Fashionmall stepped in and embraced the village leper. Why? Fashionmall's rather gruff New York public relations folks wouldn't answer. (Nor would they comment on Boo's current performance.) But there is one simple answer: The vast majority of Boo's potential customers don't give a fig about the company's history. Thanks to Boo's gargantuan branding efforts, the name is widely known and, among the masses, still says "chic" and "trendy." Fashionmall still believes in online retail, and by running Boo from New York (Boo has no London presence whatsoever, despite the site's Euro-Brit flavor), the company can administer it relatively cheaply. Now, about online retail ... <http://www.boo.com> <http://www.fashionmall.com> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The VEO European Internet Newsletter is designed to keep professionals interested in the Internet up-to-date with the progress of the rapidly converging new economy of the Internet, Interactive TV, telecoms and mobile applications across Europe. This twice-monthly newsletter is a service to clients and partners of VEO (http://www.veo.net), a business development firm that accelerates the expansion of Internet related companies in the digital world. Read the archives and sign up for free at http://www.veo.net/pages/news/news.html. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * __________________________________________________________________ WHERE's THE MONEY? Moving the goalposts The week City by City visited London, News Corporation's USD 650 million venture capital fund Epartners decided to give back USD 520 million--80% of the fund's money--to investors. "There is a lot of capital still chasing a rapidly dwindling number of great opportunities. We just don't think we can put that much money to work effectively." Epartner's managing director Mark Booth told the Financial Times. What's wrong with this picture? Do innovators and entrepreneurs suddenly stop appearing during a market slump? nowEurope thinks not. But Booth is blaming them for failing to come up with the goods. And that is a foolish notion. The explanation lies not with entrepreneurs but with investors. Let's face it, many of them invested imprudently in the frenzy of 1999-2000 and got burned. Now, they have moved the goalposts back to where they should have been in the first place and, in many cases, even further back. Suddenly, from big VCs to independent angels, investors are stressing the value of aggressive and methodical due diligence, as if blessed by some new level of wisdom. Despite the pullback, most agree there is money ready to be invested, and from every level. "Entrepreneurs are suffering. But there's still a lot money out there. It takes a lot longer to close a deal, though." says Adam Valkin from Arts Alliance. As if to provide evidence that money is, indeed, still out there, Venture Capital Report, an association of more than 200 business angels, recently hosted an event at London's Cavendish Hotel, where a handful of screened entrepreneurs gave their best pitch. About 50 angels were in attendance. Even in the worst of times it seems London has a depth of equity investors with which no other European city can even pretend to compete. <http://www.epartners.com> <http://www.artsalliance.com> <http://www.vcr1978.com> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NEED A HIGH-QUALITY WEB APPLICATION? Nextra provides custom web solutions for clients such as GE, the Four Seasons Hotel Group, and Citibank. Check our portfolio - http://www.nextra.hu/english/portfolio.html - Web applications for e-commerce, corporate Intranets or Extranets, HR systems, client management, banking, publishing portals and many other areas * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * __________________________________________________________________ AD VALUE News sites and red ink The British do love their newspapers. Ten national dailies combine to print more than 13 million copies. Nine national Sundays add another 15 million copies. About 55% of the adult population reads at least one daily newspaper. Combine that with the industry's reputation for aggressive, even eccentric, behavior, and it is no surprise the newspapers� race to embrace the web--joined by everyone from the BBC and The Economist, to Ananova the virtual newscaster and the Anorak Press Review--has been frenetic. But the results have been less than impressive. News sites seem to be bleeding no end of cash, ad rates have plunged and the wreckage is starting to pile up. The Financial Times, which can boast one of the best news sites in the UK (especially for business and finance, of course), has just laid off 40 employees from its online division. Express Newspapers, publishers of the fourth widest circulated daily in Britain, has abandoned its online version completely. It wasn't supposed to be this way. The news media already had the content and working relationships with advertisers. A new way to significantly widen their audience without having to print more copies, obtain more licenses or buy satellite time was supposed to be a boon. But, as everyone knows, the advertising pay-off never happened. A year ago, banner ads were selling for as much as USD 40 per 1,000 unique visits per month, but have plunged to as low as USD 3, according to Sam Michel, who runs Chinwag, a publisher of online mailing lists and newsletters, including UK-Netmarketing and MarketingSherpa. Though he may be biased (as might nowEurope), Michel says advertising agencies in London are continuing to push online spending, but are showing a preference for smaller, even more targeted content, like online newsletters. Email marketing also continues to gobble up more and more online marketing budgets. "It's not that banner advertising doesn't work. It's just that it was too expensive." he says. Who still likes banner ads? Financial services, travel industry players and technical equipment makers, says Michel. But there just aren't enough to go around to meet the spending at all those news sites, never mind the whole universe of online ventures. So, while few observers expect any more big outlets to abandon their online operations altogether, expect more layoffs and cuts. <http://news.ft.com/home/rw/> <http://www.express.co.uk> <http://www.chinwag.com> Top 10 web properties in the UK, April 2001 Property Unique Audience Time/visit (millions) 1. MSN 5.1 31:48 2. Yahoo! 4.5 40:32 3. AOL Time Warner 3.8 17:48 4. British Telecom 3.1 24:21 5. Freeserve 3.1 12:40 6. Microsoft 3.1 6:15 7. Lycos Network 2.9 13:22 8. BBC 2.1 13:57 9. Excite@Home 2.0 12:41 10. Ask Jeeves 1.9 10:18 Source: Nielsen-Netratings Top 10 online advertisers in the UK, April 2001 Advertiser Impressions (millions) 1. TRUSTe 95.9 2. MSN 77.7 3. Amazon 39.7 4. Yahoo! 38.5 5. Jobsite 26.4 6. Excite 23.6 7. Freeserve 22.3 8. Marbles 21.5 9. Compaq 20.4 10. Lycos 19.3 Source: Nielsen-Netratings <http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * nowEurope is now selling sponsorships Upcoming issues include: Paris, Budapest and Tallin For rates and availability, please contact: Buba Dolovac <[email protected]> +36.20.377.1711 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * __________________________________________________________________ THE GURU Guru for hire A guru among gurus, Mike Butcher was, until recently, news editor at the European edition of The Industry Standard. He had left the top editor's job at a smaller publication, New Media Age, only eight months previous. Now he's freelancing. After just 23 editions, the weekly's US parent suddenly pulled the plug, dumping the London-based magazine and nearly all its 65 staffers. Such a short run in the publishing business means its owners never even gave the title a chance. Butcher wasn't eager to trash his former employers, but he didn't disagree. "It was because of the very fast slowdown in America where the economy looks like a car crash." he says. "It had nothing to do with our performance." In other words, the parent company lost the will to follow through on a project it had already launched, but well before it could have begun to pay off. The London magazine's management were given a week to find an investor willing to keep the title alive. They hired Credit Suisse First Boston. But a Netimperative-like miracle didn't happen. The magazine's closure had a particular impact in London. This was not another e-zine. It was good old-fashioned print on paper covering the new economy for a well-placed readership that had already reached 30,000. Its sudden fall was surprising and a symbolic blow to Europe's new economy apostles. "In terms of perception of the new economy, it certainly was a big deal." says Butcher. Despite his personal experience, Butcher believes Britain's dot-com picture is bright. "I don't know if we've bottomed out, but it's a good time to invest in tech start-ups." he says. "The web isn't going away. The number of people online is still going through the roof. Wireless is not going away." And money is being invested, Butcher insists, though "they're not the huge deals, and there aren't many IPOs." He also doesn't see the wider implications from the tech slump being as bad as in the US. "The tech sector here is a smaller part of the overall economy. I�m not saying it hasn't been difficult, but there's still a lot more tech growth ahead in Europe." Hopefully some of that will benefit an unemployed journalist, or two. __________________________________________________________________ CONFERENCE BEAT We welcome reader recommendations for upcoming European conferences mailto:[email protected] May 22-23: MforMobile Content & Entertainment, Cannes, FR Partnerships, strategies and revenues for mobile content and entertainment. Contact Jonathan Gardner at +44 20 7375 7563. http://www.mformobile.com/ents Jun 9-12: East-West Collaboration Conference; Budapest, HU. To bring together companies and organizations from Central and Eastern Europe, the CIS and the 15 member states of the European Union with the purpose of helping them find potential business partners. Contact Viktoria Levai at +36.1.327.3100 http://www.osi.hu/ep/im2001 Jun 25-26: 14th Bled Electronic Commerce Conference; Bled, SI This year's theme is e-Everything: e-Commerce, e-Government, e-Household, e-Democracy. Contact Joze Gricar at +386.4.237.4291 http://ecom.fov.uni-mb.si/ __________________________________________________________________ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS nowEurope would like to thank the following people for their help in preparing this issue: Peterjon Creswell John Browning __________________________________________________________________ MASTHEAD Copyright 2000 nowEurope Publications Published by Steven Carlson <[email protected]> Edited by Christopher Condon <[email protected]> Sponsorship enquires: Buba Dolovac <[email protected]> Please forward this newsletter in its entirety. nowEurope: City by City is a sister publication of the nowEurope discussion forum, serving European Internet professionals since 1995. The nowEurope archives are located at: <http://www.topica.com/noweurope-digest/read> For your FREE subscription, send a blank email to: <mailto:[email protected]> To unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]>. Be aware that if you're subscribed under an old email address that is forwarding to your present address, the above address won't work. In dire need, please contact Steven Carlson at <mailto:[email protected]>. _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list [email protected] http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold