IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM, GANG UP ON ‘EM:  Big news in the eCommerce-sphere yesterday with the announcement that Walmart and Google are entering a partnership to compete with Amazon for connected home purchases.  The idea is brilliantly simple – Walmart will begin fulfilling orders placed on Google Home devices, exactly the way Amazon fulfills its own Echo purchases.  Although Google Home trails Echo for in-home penetration the market for voice-activated digital assistants in just starting to heat up.  Google has the hardware and back-end tech, but they don’t have warehouses with a gazillion products ready to ship.  That’s where Walmart comes in.  Over the past few years Walmart has gotten much better at instant-ship-anything-to-anywhere eCommerce to compete with Amazon.  And now they’ll have Google Home to help drive those purchases.

NO SOLUTIONS (YET) FOR VOICE-BASED SEARCH:  In a recent survey of client-side digital marketing teams, the research firm BrightEdge is reporting a disconnect between what’s coming and how marketers are preparing for it.  The what’s coming is voice-enablement in tech – according to BrightEdge 31% of survey respondents say Voice is the “next big thing” in the idustry.  Yet within that same group 66% say they have no plans to begin preparing for Voice integration into Search.  This seems like sort of a head-in-the-sand disconnect, so what gives?  My guess is that marketers don’t have a clear understanding of how Siri or Alexa choose a certain piece of content as the response to users’ searches.  And without this understanding there’s no real road map for solving the problem.  I also predict Google, who has the most skin in the Search game, will play a large role is setting search standards on voice platforms.  More to come, I’m sure.

INSPIRATION THROUGH THE TELEPHONE:  If you’re a regular reader you know home much I love people who’ve made a significant commitment to our world by working hard and overcoming adversity.  That’s why I’d like to share the attached LinkedIn Pulse story about Alexander Graham Bell.  You may remember the name from your elementary school days as the inventor of the telephone.  But the story behind the invention is even more remarkable.  Bell didn’t set out to invent the telephone.  He was trying to solve a different problem of enabling deaf people to hear sounds through a technology.  He endured some epic failures and nearly worked himself to death in the process, but ended up created something unexpected that changed the way mankind communicates to this very day.  Of all the words of wisdom from AGB, my favorite is this . . . “A person, as a general rule, owes very little to what he or she is born with – they are what they make of themselves.”  So what are you going to make of yourself today?!?

Have a great Thursday guys!

PITCH-A-PALOOZA IS THE NEW NORMAL:  Can you remember the good old days of Fall 2015?  Everything seemed so quiet and peaceful, and then a monster called Pitch-A-Palooza showed up.  In the Oct’15-Mar’16 period 26 national advertisers went through full agency reviews, with the vast majority of those clients eventually changing AORs.  Nothing like that had happened before, so it was viewed as a “once in a generation” occurrence.  But guess what . . . according to the attached AdWeek link it’s beginning to look like near-constant agency turnover is becoming the new normal.  So why are clients changing their agencies more often these days?  It’s probably a combination of three things.  First, with all the transparency problems related to agencies’ billable services clients are more distrustful then before – and if you don’t trust your agency you’re more likely to find a new one.  Second, the pace of digital innovation is speeding up – so clients suffering from FOMO are more likely to be lured to new agencies with shiny new innovation toys.  And third, clients are now more likely to bring data and programmatic services in house – and the best way to decide if they should in-house marketing functions is to price/capabilities shop by doing an agency review.  Regardless of the reason, the acceleration of agency turnover is creating chaos for agencies and their media partners who must to react to this constantly changing landscape.

COULD JEEP BE GOING BEHIND THE GREAT WALL?:  If you’re familiar with the Auto sector you know that FCA (the parent company which owns Fiat, Jeep, Dodge, and Chrysler) has been passed around like a joint over the last 20 years with numerous buyouts, mergers, etc..  Now there’s word of a potential new suitor which could add another chapter to this saga.  This time it’s Great Wall Motor Co. (yes, they’re a real Chinese OEM), who’s showing interest in buying Jeep from FCA.  There’s no doubt about the value of Jeep as a global brand.  In fact, there’s a consensus in the financial markets that Jeep as a stand-alone entity is worth about 20% more than when it’s embedded in the entire FCA family.  So would FCA spin off Jeep to Great Wall at a nice premium and then shut down the rest of the brands?  It’s a crazy idea to consider given that Dodge and Chrysler are such legacy brands in the US.  But the same could have been said for Pontiac, Saab and Oldsmobile a few years back, and you don’t see those guys around anymore.  AutoNews.com has a solid write up of the current situation, and the prospects of Great Wall actually being able to pull off a Jeep acquisition.

A TOTAL ROYALTIES ECLIPSE:  Just went you thought eclipse-mania was gone for another 50 years comes one more obscure fact.  It turns out that one song above all others was really popular on Monday.  Of course I’m talking about Bonnie’s Tyler’s 80’s hit Total Eclipse of the Heart.  According to the attached Forbes link the song had a one-day surge on platforms like YouTube and Pandora.  In fact, the play stats in the chart below map exactly to the peak eclipse-viewing time.  Beyond the novelty of the song with this astronomical occurrence, this example demonstrates the power of music to bond us during collective experiences like what happened on Monday.  So who’s working on a song for Leap Day 2020?!?

Have a great Wednesday guys!

LET THE BRAINWASHING CONTINUE:  Nielsen is out with another propaganda piece about how AM/FM radio still effectively reaches millennials.  The gist of their research in the attached RAIN article is that the number of millennials listening to radio every week has remained steady at about 71-72M for the past several years.  But that’s not the headline I see.  In the graph below the number which jumps off the page is Streaming’s millennial reach, which has grown to 48M – that’s two-thirds of the AM/FM number!  The sheer fact that there’s parity between these two numbers proves that millennials are closer than ever to crossing the digital divide into streaming at the expense of radio.  Keep in mind an individual can be counted in both stats if they listen to any amount of terrestrial radio and streaming in the same week (which most people do), so the real test of AM/FM’s strength with millennials is in the Time Spent Listening.  I wonder what Nielsen’s AM/FM TSL numbers look like for millennial listeners?  My guess is that it’s dropping quickly as millennials migrate to streaming.  Maybe that’s the real story Nielsen should be covering, instead of clinging to Radio’s reach life preserver.

HOLIDAY’17, BY THE NUMBERS:  Last Friday eMarketer released its forecast of Retail sales for Holiday’17.  The overall estimates look positive – calling for +3.1% YoY growth compared to +2.9% in 2016.  The engine for this growth is (surprise!) eCommerce, with an expected +16.6% surge YoY.  If those numbers hold true eCommerce will comprise 11.5% of total holiday sales – still a minority of the spending, but it’s starting to become a significant slice of the total pie.  It’s also worth noting that holiday sales as a % of annual Retail sales is still declining slightly to 18.4% of the annual total.  This is probably due to early-season sales incentives in October (or even September!) pulling purchases forward from the traditional Nov-Dec time frame.  My only request is that we get through Labor Day without seeing any holiday ads this year!

GIVING CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE:  Finally today, I know I regularly criticize Network TV as a legacy video platform with eroding ratings and revenue, but even I need to tip my hat at what NBCUniversal has just pulled off through the leadership of Linda Yaccarino.  All told NBCU has raked in $6.5B (and counting) in upfront spending commitments across their network family and digital extensions.  Granted, their sales team is benefiting from a once-in-a-generation ratings trifecta with the Winter Olympics, Super Bowl, and World Cup all airing on the same network in 2018.  But these products don’t drive revenue by themselves, you have to actually convert the sales.  Based on the attached AdWeek link Ms. Yaccarino and team are doing just that.  And the recipe for their success looks an awful lot like how the top digital publishers’ approach sales.  Start with scale, use data to deliver the right audience as efficiently as possible, elevate brand relationships to content partnerships, and prove attribution on the back end.  The interview is an inspiring read, and really tells the story of a network sales org which has truly transformed itself to compete on today’s media battlefield.

Have a great Tuesday guys!

SEARCH IN A “ZERO UI” WORLD:  As Voice begins to replace Touch as the primary input method for tech, the UI (User Interface) will undoubtedly change.  The golden rule in tech is to be as simple as possible with a “one screen UI”, where users can just touch and go.  But as voice-activated devices become more prevalent the trend is moving towards “zero UI” where nothing is ever visually displayed.  You can imagine how drastically this change will affect Search advertising?  For starters voice-based searches will yield one result instead of the top seven google results on a single page.  So how do advertisers become that one search response?  Then consider that Search queries themselves will be longer and more question-like, since humans tend to speak in full sentences.  The attached AdWeek link breaks down the concerns of and consequences to the Search sector as we enter the Age of Voice.  Fascinating stuff to think about.

PROOF OF SECOND SCREENING:  Second screening is TV’s dirty little secret that we’re all guilty of.  When we’re sitting on the couch watching a show and a commercial break comes on we immediately start using our mobile phones.  This is, of course, a problem since TV advertisers are paying big money for ads we’re not watching.  But the data behind how much second screening we’re doing has been anecdotal or observational at best, since it’s hard to track exactly how TV viewers are using their phones mid-show – until now.  According to the attached Recode article Facebook has started to compare platform usage by viewers of a particular show vs. a base group.  The images below tell a very clear story.  The first graphic is FB’s usage by viewers of a measured show by the minute.  Those medium blue usage spikes coincide with the commercial breaks.  Compare that to the second graph of FB users who weren’t watching the show.  FB time (which is definitely second screening), doubles or even triples during the breaks.  This creates a silent but deadly audience attrition which would never show up in Nielsen’s TV ratings.

MILLENNIALS MARKETING FAILS:  Over the past decade there have been countless articles about the importance of marketing to Millennials.  But we don’t often hear of what not to do through brands’ failed attempts.  That’s why the attached  AdWeek article is so refreshing.  In it the author dissects five campaigns in which the brands simply tried too hard to connect with this generation, and ended up having their marketing attempts backfire.  My fav is the response to Hillary Clinton’s “3 emjoi” Twitter campaign – once you read the article the image below will have you smirking.  The take away from these cautionary tales is obvious.  Millennials, above all previous generation, know when brands are being fake.  So they’ll see through attempts to overtly covet them by trying to fit in with cliché stereotypes, and when brands become something that isn’t genuine.  Sometimes just being real is the best approach.

Have a great Monday and stay safe during the eclipse!

IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM, BUY ‘EM:  At first glance Walmart is getting it’s eCommerce clock cleaned by Amazon.  Like all B&M retailers, Walmart’s core business is under attack by consumers’ behavioral shift towards digital, and only 10% of Walmart’s in-store shoppers also buy online.  But that’s not the whole story.  Behind the scenes Walmart is investing heavily in eCommere, as noted in the attached Digiday article.  Everyone knows about Walmart’s 2016 acquisition of Jet.com for $4B.  But did you also know they’ve acquired Bonobos, Moosejaw, and several other niche eTailers.  Through these acquisitions Walmart’s eCommerce rev is +63% ytd – not too shabby!  And beyond the immediate revenue benefit, Walmart is absorbing code-writing engineers, tech proficiencies, and consumers’ purchase data across several different retail touch points.  So while Amazon is currently getting all the headlines as the Retail category killer, Walmart keeps gobbling up the smaller fish in Amazon’s digital pond.  Better not go to sleep on these guys!

RATINGS DEFLATE-GATE?:  If it’s mid-August it must be just about time for America’s top TV tradition . . . football.  But even the mighty NFL isn’t immune to the decline in TV viewership that’s being felt across the entire industry.  Last year live game ratings fell 8% vs. the previous year, mostly because people are spending less time sitting in front of TVs in general.  That trend appears to be continuing into 2017-18, according to the attached Variety link.  For a year-over-year comparison check out the table below. You’ll see the aggregate C3 ratings estimates for 2017-18 next to the 2016-17 C3 numbers.  All in, agencies are expecting the NFL’s ratings to drop about 20%.  Granted these are just estimates, but it speaks to a broader trend.  If King Football is on the long and steady road of TV ratings decline, what does that say about the rest of the lesser network shows out there?

HOUSTON, WE STILL HAVE AN ATTRIBUTION PROBLEM:  Finally today, I’d like to leave you with solid bird’s eye perspective on the marketing challenge of attribution.  As you know, Last Click Attribution remains the industry standard despite its obvious flaws.  Here’s a simple example of the problem – if you visit Cars.com and click on a Ford F150, then connect with the dealership and eventually buy the truck, Cars.com will get full attribution credit for selling the vehicle.  Obviously you’d have heard of Ford before going on the site (through decades of branding), probably had your mind set on an F150 (with call-to-action advertising), and maybe did a little online research (searched the internet), before you found the specific truck you wanted on Cars.com.  So how can marketers track and give credit to all of these channels through Multi-touch Attribution?  That’s the challenge addressed in the attached Digiday link.  What’s really cool about this article is that it touches broadly on factors that affect Multi-touch like Data Lakes, Walled Gardens, etc..  So it’s a great fresher on all things attribution.

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

NEXT BATTER UP IN THE VIDEO BALLGAME . . . APPLE:  Well you knew this wouldn’t take long.  Now that the likes of Netflix and Facebook are getting serious about video content as a way to disrupt the TV industry, get ready for other techs to run the same play.  And now Apple is up to the plate.  According to the Wall Street Journal Apple is planning to invest $1B in custom video content over the next 12 months.  With that kind of bank Apple could launch its own production studio and fund about 10 new shows.  Obviously the shows will have to be strong to attract an audience.  As Netflix just proved with the Shondaland poach from ABC, the demand for high-end creative talent is soaring.  It’s worth noting that Apple doesn’t have a ton of experience in content production.  So far their organizational skill set has proven to have limits.  No doubt they’re the preeminent hardware creators in tech, but they’re not as good at monetizing media.  So video content will definitely require Apple to flex a new set of muscles.  Should be interesting to watch this one play out.

GOING DEEP ON AUTO DEALERSHIP DATA:  The NADA is out with a useful set of stats around auto dealerships’ revenues and correlated ad spending in the US.  There’s ton of data in the attached Inside Radio link, with most of the auto info in the front half of the article.  Here’s a quick summary of the most relevant points:

• US Domestic Dealerships Ad Spending is +1.5% YTD at an average of $244,835 annualized
• US Foreign Dealership Ad Sending is -1.2% YTD at an average of $325,043 annualized
• Domestic Dealers spend 8.2% of gross revenue on adverting, while Foreign Dealers spend 8.5% of their gross
• Luxury Brand Dealerships YTD Spending is -5.2%, while Mass-Market Dealers are +3.9% YoY
• 56% of Dealerships’ revenue comes from New Car Sales, and 31% comes from Used/Preowned

My take away on these stats – there’s so much doom and gloom going on with US Auto right now as sales hit a cyclical cool down after seven years of straight growth.  But if you get inside the numbers at the dealership level you can find pockets of growth and marketing opportunities.

POWERFUL ADVICE, REAL INSPIRATION:  Finally today, I’d like to leave you with one of the most inspirational commencement addresses ever.  This video is from Denzel Washington’s speech at the Dillard University graduation ceremony in May, 2015.  There are so many powerful themes in packed into this four minutes that it almost gives me goosebumps.  Fail big.  Problem solve outside the box.  A dream without goals is just a dream.  Hard work works.  Don’t confuse movement with progress.  When you achieve success reach back and pull someone else up.  Each one teach one.  And my favorite . . . don’t just make a living, aspire to make a difference.  It’s almost as if Denzel was playing a part in one of his movies, but this is a real speech to a live audience.  If you want a road map for going from good to great in your life this is as good a place as any to start.  Go full screen on this one and turn up the volume – I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Have a great Thursday guys!

TOP DIGITAL STATS:   AdWeek hasn’t done a roundup of the top digital stats in a few weeks (summer vaca?), so yesterday’s list feels like sort of a catch up of the past few weeks.  Pandora made the list with Edison’s study of music consumption on Amazon Echo devices.  As if we needed any stats to prove ice cream’s consumption surge during the summer months, you’re covered in the Bonus Stat section.  And I’m not really sure what’s going on with the 8-yo boy drag queen video in #3, but 28M people have watched it.  Somebody must have a ton of time on their hands!  Enjoy this week’s list.

BRANDS COME BACK TO YOUTUBE:  After a six month boycott of YouTube Verizon is beginning to advertise on the platform again.  Remember how the initial issue came about – brands became aware of (and then outraged by) the fact that they had no control over video content their ads were running adjacent to.  So an innocent Verizon ad could run before a video from a hate group or even ISIS terrorist propaganda.  So brands pulled off YouTube immediately to do damage control and pressure Google (YT’s owner) to clean up its game.  Since then Google has implemented more stringent screening measures for what content makes it’s on their video platform, and more importantly allow 3^rd party tracking for the first time.  These moves were enough to convince Verizon (and others) to cautiously return.  In Verizon’s case they’ll be using IAS’s new Ad Analytics Tracker to keep YouTube honest.  Don’t be surprised if content verification for OLV becomes a standard ask of all publishers, even if they never had an issue with objectionable content.

MY CRAP-O-METER JUST WENT OFF:  Finally today, I need to unload on Inside Radio and their cohorts at Westwood One (both owned by broadcast radio operators), for publishing yet another BS hit piece about Pandora.  The main point of today’s article in Inside Radio is that Pandora’s “limited reach” means marketers will max out on who hears their message and then start to over saturate P’s audience with too much frequency.  Here are my two biggest problems with the article.  First, WW1 is comparing Radio’s reach and frequency to Pandora as if Radio is one entity.  But Radio’s stats are compiled from the aggregate of 11,341 commercial radio stations across the country.  No advertiser ever buys every station all at once, so to tout the collective reach as something brands can buy is misleading.  In fact, it would be interesting to see how individual stations’ reach/frequency stack up to P in any given market, instead of comparing it to the entire Radio universe.  And second, WW1’s assertion that “Radio’s grows frequency gradually”, even as brands spend up to 250 GRPs per week is nonsense.  Are any brands besides iHeart running 250 GRPs in a week anymore?  Of course not – so don’t try to prove your point with hyperbole.  Even if a brand did buy a heavy radio schedule in a given market, stations can’t de-duplicate the number of times the same ad is being heard across the different stations.  So without that data point WWI has to average the frequency between each station in the market, instead of aggregating what listeners are actually hearing.  As you can tell, I could go on for days about the kaka in this piece.  I just hope brands don’t get sucked in to Radio’s fallacy of reach, and have full transparency on what they’re running on individual stations.

Have a great Wednesday guys!

NETFLIX FLIPS THE SCRIPT ON THE MOUSE:  It’s officially war between Netflix and Disney.  You may recall last week Disney announced it was pulling all of its content from Netflix in 2019 to start its own OTT service.  Now in a counterpunch move Netflix has poached Shonda Rhimes and her entire production company Shondaland away from ABC.  Rhimes and team have been the creative content machine for ABC over the past decade with shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal” to their credit.  By hiring Ms. Rhimes Netflix is acknowledging the fact that content is king (which is the same muscle Disney flexed last week), but then flipped the script by literally stealing the content engine right out from one of the big networks.  It’s a brilliant pivot by Netflix to outflank Disney by using it’s very own leverage.  This announcement will cause reverberations across the TV industry, because now streamers like Netflix are now competing as a distribution channel and also as a platform for original network-caliber content.

SHAREABLES:  Yesterday I participated as a speaker at a Tech Media Digital Conference in Minneapolis.  One of the collateral pieces to come out of this event came from a blogger called Toprank Marketing.  For the event they produced an eBook of quotes to “Supercharge Your Digital Marketing”.  If you go into the attached Toprank link and then click into each speaker (including yours truly), you’ll see a digital marketing tip within each presenters’ respective field of expertise.  Taken as a whole it’s a useful collection of snippets which could assist brands and agencies in organizing their future digital strategies.  Thought it was worth the share!

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:  And finally today, I’ve seen the image below exploding on LinkedIn over the past few days.  It’s such a cool and simple analogy.  Not sure if this is a true story or not, but it speaks volumes about what employers should really be looking for during the interview process.  Relatable experience, a job-specific skill set, and relationships are key ingredients in the right hire.  But I liken those assets to putting your name on a test – anyone being interviewed should bring these elements.  The true difference maker an employee brings is often in their drive to succeed.  Show me exceptional drive, effort and will power, and you’ll always have a place on my team!

Have a great Tuesday guys!

ALEXA . . . PLAY PANDORA:  We’re starting to see a growing body of research around what’s being consumed through voice-enabled digital assistants like Amazon Echo.  The latest research comes from Edison who followed the behaviors of 444 Echo owners as they gave over 15,000 commands to Alexa.  So what are we using these devices for?  In a nut shell, we’re listening to music . . . and a lot of it!  During the study 58% of respondents used their Echoes to listen to music for an astounding 4:34 of average listening time per week.  And this in-home audio consumption is typically a shared experience, with 77% of study participants listening to music with family and friends.  AdWeek provides a full summary of Edison’s findings in the attached link.  While today’s data is great news for audio streamers like Pandora, I’m guessing we’re just in the top of the first inning of connected device listening with so much more growth to come.

FACEBOOK TWISTS THE KNIFE:  It’s fairly common knowledge that Facebook’s Instagram is taking Snapchat to the woodshed with its copy-cat Stories feature, which it launched a year ago.  But what we didn’t realize is just how early FB knew it was hurting Snap.  Over the weekend news broke that FB has been using it’s Onavo VPN (Virtual Private Network) to collect and analyze data on user interaction with Snapchat.  In other words, if your company uses Onavo as its VPN FB can watch how you’re using Snapchat in order to set its Instagram strategy.  Apparently this is perfectly legal under Onavo’s user privacy agreement, but it seems scary powerful.  Talk about a competitive advantage FB was able to leverage to squash an upstart competitor!

ADS ARE GETTING REALLY PERSONAL:  Do you remember the 2002 Tom Cruise movie Minority Report?  I saw it in an actual movie theater (yes, I’m old).  Of all the Hollywood future tech featured in that movie the thing I remember the most is the scene with the OOH advertising which could recognize you by your retina and then deliver customized ads as you passed the interactive billboards.  So could this kind of dynamic advertising actually happen?  The retailer Cost Plus World Market is taking a baby step in that direction with its current shopper-customized print campaign.  The creative is customized down to the name, location, type of home, and lifestyle of each consumer receiving the ads.  So how is Cost Plus doing this?  According to AdWeek the solution is old school simple – they’re just asking customers to enter personal information about themselves into a website.  Then they turn that data is into amazingly personalized (not to mention contextually relevant) ads.  Granted, this approach may not be as automated as the instant retina recognition in Minority Report, but it plays to the same theory that advertising customized to individual consumers is the way of the future.

BONUS HIT:  Here’s a quick follow from Friday’s article about SoundCloud’s last ditch funding effort.  According to RAIN SoundCloud took the money – $170M for majority ownership of the company.  Included in the deal are a new CEO and CFO.  So has SoundCloud bought enough time to turn things around?  I think you could read in to founder Alexander Ljung’s statement two ways when we says “As I said, we’re not going anywhere.”  Only time will tell.

Have a great Monday guys!

MORE EARNINGS CALL PAIN FOR SNAP:  Yesterday Snap, Inc. reported a pretty big miss on all key metrics in its Q2 Earnings Call.  Digiday has a concise summary of their results in the attached link.  While they’re technically still in “growth mode”, Snapchat’s Daily Active Users growth is flattening to just +7% over Q1.  Since inventory is created through user interaction, if usage drops so do the number of ad units needed to drive topline revenue growth.  As expected Wall Street reacted negatively to the news with the stock dropping 12% after hours.  Once you get past all the minutia of the Street’s forecast vs. results, Snap’s issue really comes down to one thing . . . they have not found a way to counterpunch against Facebook’s Instagram Stories, which was a direct clone attack against Snapchat’s most popular product feature.  Snap’s problems can best be explained in the following Tweet.  Until they figure this one out I’d expect the pain to continue.

FACEBOOK GOES ALL IN ON VIDEO:  Speaking of Facebook, up until now video on has been ancillary on the platform, with product features like a Video Tab and Facebook Live getting relatively little traction.  But that’s about the change when FB launches its new Watch platform.  Watch will include long form episodic videos, original content from over 30 producers, and even some live MLB games.  By upping the ante on hubbed video content FB is hoping to better compete with Google’s YouTube and even try to outflank OTTs like Netlfix and Amazon.  When you combine this development with Wednesday’s announcement from Disney that it’s pulling content from Netlfix in 2019, you get the impressions that a video battle royale is about to break out among the tech giants.  Makes you wonder what shape NBC, CBS, ABC  and Fox are going to be in after this all shakes out. My guess is they’ll have much lower ratings thanks to many new tech buddies in their video sandbox.

SOUNDCLOUD’S JUDGEMENT DAY:  Finally this week, we may be nearing the conclusion of the long, sad saga of SoundCloud.  According to RAIN a pair of investment groups from Singapore is offering SoundCloud a cash lifeline of $170M in return for majority ownership in the streamer.  SoundClound CEO Alexander Ljung has reportedly told investors that if this deal isn’t accepted by today they may not be able ”to continue as a going concern.”  This sets up a Sword of Damocles moment for investors who much choose between giving up over half of their equity for a relatively small amount of cash, or reject the offer and face probable bankruptcy.  I’m just wondering what SoundCloud would do with a fresh $170M to turn their business around?  Obviously they’re bleeding money no matter what.  So if they agree to this latest cash infusion are they just pushing off their inevitable demise?

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!