LinkedIn – OnMedea

… and Wall Street shrugged.

Zynga announces a $1 billion IPO and every freakin’ investment bank in New York is clambering to get in on it.

These are the very same banks that were recently slobbering all over LinkedIn and would most likely kill anyone who tries to stop them from getting in on the Facebook IPO.

What am I missing here?

AMC Networks (AMC, IFC, WE, Sundance) represents highly-regarded premium television content (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Killing, Walking Dead, etc.) – the kind of content Hollywood needs people to watch. The kind of content only Hollywood can make. And the kind of content people really love.

Sounds likes a win win win. And a buy buy buy.

Zynga represents little $1 digital pigs for sale in Farmville. Not what you would call premium content.

Sounds like a lose lose lose.

“Mad Men” or “Digital Pig”? AMC Networks or Zynga? Which would you imagine to be the Wall Street darling?

Cable Networks (and their two strong revenue streams) are the bread and butter of giant media corporations.

If Wall Street shrugs at a pure-play cable network spin-off like AMC Networks, what does that say about the future of old-school big media? Being an employee of old-school big media, I’m not sure I like what that says.

Should they adapt to the changing (but unproven) business models and stop distributing quality content – focusing instead on selling little digital versions of Don Draper for $1? Or should they continue to do what they best until they simply disappear because their audiences die of old age?

Personally, I blame the whole VC/Y Combinator mentally for creating this unearned enthusiasm for certain companies that are, when you really look at them and see what they produce, pretty boring, uninspired and a waste of time.

But more billionaires will be minted – and I suppose that’s ‘End Game’.

Jill Kennedy – OnMedea

The year is 2014.

The people of the world have abandoned social networking after going out on too many creepy dates.

LinkedIn, once a Wall Street darling, was acquired today by Monster.com for $37,242 – basically the value of the copper wire in the walls of their unfinished (and unpaid for) $1 billion dollar office complex in The Presidio.

At its peak in late 2011, LinkedIn (a groundbreaking social network in which people could send messages to each other) had a market cap of $560 billion – more than the top 2 companies in the world combined.

The stock began its plunge after CEO Jeff Weiner cashed out and left the company to become CEO of Apple at the beginning of 2012. Ironically, Apple’s stock began its plunge immediately after he became CEO.

It’s really a tragic story of greed and the inability to create a product that people can actually use. And if they did use it, it was only because they thought they should be doing it – because others were – and no one wants to be left out. But now everyone is left out.

About the sale, Mr. Weiner said: “I work at Apple now. I’m just thinking about running this company. LinkedIn was just a blip in my long career. It was really Reid’s baby, Reid’s vision (State Senator Reid Hoffman D-Palo Alto). I just worked there.”

And made over $2 billion while there.

Senator Hoffman was unreachable by phone but did release a statement through his office: “LinkedIn should have been my ticket to wealth beyond my wildest dreams. Thinking back, I wish I would have sold all (or even some) of my stock when it peaked like Jeff Weiner did. That bastard made $2 billion! It’s a God damned shame. State politics don’t pay shit.”

So LinkedIn, you were great once (in valuation), but now you’re gone. To quote The Lion In Winter – “The sun was warmer then…”

Shine on you crazy diamond!

Jill Kennedy – OnMedea

Tag: LinkedIn

AMC Networks Had An IPO Today…