I propose a 4th reason why they merged with Xhibit: the owners of SkyMall realized that with WiFi becoming more and more prominent on flights, bored traveler are less and less likely to flip through their magazines, but instead get online (where they'd have their own set of advertisements, shopping capabilities, etc). I think, therefore, it was the right move to cash out before companies themselves pull out of their agreements with SkyMall.
I think you're massively overstating how common WiFi is. First off it only exists over certain land areas, and secondly it is so costly on most flights few are paying for it ($35 for a 60 minute flight? Uhh no thanks).
Plus you'd still read Skymall during takeoff/landing where electronic devices are banned.
I think you're massively underestimating the future trend. More flights will have wifi for cheaper. Not less for more money.
Sure, from the looks of today it might not seem like a big disruption for SkyMall but it will.
On most flights I go on I'd say about 10-20% of the folks have a tablet device. That trend will also go up and continue to decrease the effectiveness of SkyMall.
On what basis do you claim that "most flights will have wifi for cheaper"? There really isn't much competition when you are at 10,000 feet. Also, if airlines wanted to differentiate themselves based on quality, they had ample opportunity to do so. From my understanding, for coach seats in the US, airlines compete solely based on price.
European low-cost airline Norwegian currently has free wi-fi on all their European flights. I'm pretty sure this trend will continue - it's a relatively inexpensive way for airlines to differentiate themselves from their competition.
I doubt wifi will get more expensive or be less common on airplanes in 4 years. But sure, assume it will. SkyMall would still have to compete with tablets that passengers carry.
I can't site a research paper to back this up though.
Great thought. That's why SkyMall (profitable, $100M+ revenue) should merge with an unprofitable reverse-merger OTC trading company that is unprofitable with $10M trailing revenue on 40/60 terms.
Instead of doing that, maybe they could have hired technical staff and built a mobile app themselves?
I actually thought of that, but I realized that BoingBoing (and the like) beat them to it but being the gatekeeper to the internet. From last I've seen, they have their own shopping portal (and Amazon was access was complimentary).
Why would I go out of my way to download the SkyMall app? What value would it give me?
Well it doesn't have to be 100% right now for people to be able to read the writing on the wall, right? They can look at trends and see Wifi adoption going up and legitimately worry about it even though not a lot of flights today have Wifi.
The people likely to pay for WiFi are also likely to be valuable Skymall customers. E.g. I always buy WiFi on domestic flights and haven't touched an issue of Skymall in years. I have, however, made Amazon purchases while flying.
Next time you're on a flight, scroll down on the wifi rates. I noticed that the top option was something like you mention, $35 or whatever per day. However, a few packages below the "per day" rate was a "duration of the flight" rate that was somewhat cheaper, like half or less.
> Internet access will be available for $8 all day, per device and will be displayed once you launch your internet browser and connect above 10,000 feet*.
Satellite-based global coverage is becoming a reality. Lufthansa, for example, has coverage on some transatlantic flights. United is currently in the process of installing WiFi on every flight, including over-water flights.
If this happens, then SkyMall's market just disintegrated like a wet telephone book -- they're competing with Amazon et al from boarding to arrival at the destination gate. Even without in-flight wifi, travelers who forgot to pack a book or magazine are no longer going to be a captive audience, so that 70% eyeball share will crash.
The product that skymall is selling is entertainment.
The value of being able to leaf through a magazine and see some interesting products. And maybe buy something you would never think of.
Just like HN is a venue to read things you might not come across in your own browsing. Skymall pushes product into easy viewing site because they are a printed magazine right at your fingertips.
Now of course you can do that online but you are in a confined space and a captive audience and that magazine has appeal plain and simple no matter what you can take a look at online. And of course you have plenty of entertainment on your tablet or laptop. But this is in a different format and it deserves at least a look.
Let me make up an outlandish example.
You have hotel wifi and a tablet in your private hotel room.
You then spot a magazine of pornographic pictures in a drawer and that type of stuff turns you on (as it does most men, right?). Even if you can view the porn online you are still going to leaf through the magazine because it's easy to do and just "take a look" for the entertainment value. (That's quite different from actually buying the same magazine in the store in the hotel).
>The product that skymall is selling is entertainment.
Their advantage over amazon may be the entertainment value, but it seems improper to say they're "selling entertainment" when realistically they're selling ads. I don't see the connection to porno magazines since they're completely different business models.
> it seems improper to say they're "selling entertainment" when realistically they're selling ads
SkyMall has four main assets, in two classes:
1. deals with airlines to put their magazine in the plane seat pockets (stable), and with companies to advertise in their magazine (ephemeral); and
2. cultural expertise in dealing with airlines (rare), and with selling advertising in a magazine (commonplace).†
Even though advertising is, of the two, the revenue-generating asset, the other one is a monopoly (it's an exclusive contract with a lot of venues, sort of like Ticketmaster.) So, if advertising stops working out for them, and they're going to pivot, I would imagine they'd keep the monopoly--their magazine getting put in seats--and try to find a new revenue-generating content-stream to fill that magazine with. Deciding to instead keeping the advertisers, and the advertising "business", and trying to find a new way to use them, sounds kind of braindead.
...in fact, if I were them, and I was pivoting, I'd sell off the advertising "aspect" of the business to a company that wanted some built-up advertiser relationships... hmm.
Here's some speculation: Xhibit bought SkyMall on a PE trading system, right? If Xhibit is internally thinking of itself as a PE firm in this action--and if SkyMall was frank with them about their worries that their advertising revenue-stream will go kaput--then Xhibit might be trying to split SkyMall: to absorb the advertising part of the company into itself (where they can use the advertiser relationships in digital-media industries), pivot the magazine into something else, make it profitable doing that something else, and then sell off the magazine, like any other PE firm.
This also, sort of, explains why Xhibit has so many nascent ventures; what could be going on is that, since they're absorbing SkyMall's advertiser base, they're just asking those advertisers what extra services (beyond just magazine ads) they would pay for--and then setting out to build them.
---
† (Also, expertise in the logistics of getting a magazine printed and into the hands of airlines, but that's not much relevant either way.)
I've been out of the print magazine biz for a long time, and was only an editorial content supplier at best, but the figures SkyMall was charging for quarter-page or full-page ads in their magazine were eye-watering. For a top 5 newsstand computer magazine in the US I'd have expected $10-15K/page; SkyMall were pushing an order of magnitude above that, presumably because of the size of the market but also the captive nature of the audience.
A secondary issue: most people don't look at the ads in magazines for entertainment unless there's no other entertainment option available. SkyMall had the privileged position of being the only eyeball candy to hand for millions of flyers who weren't allowed to use their laptops or tablets or phones at certain times, and who hadn't thought to buy an emergency magazine or paper book. (Full disclosure: I'm often one of them.) I suspect games or ebooks or emagazines will prove vastly more attractive than a SkyMall catalog, so what's going to drop is the number of eyeballs on pages, which will eventually bite into the first-time-buyer stats for the advertisers, with indirect knock-on effects on the SkyMall business as a whole.
The advertiser-relationship side of the business is indeed likely to stay viable, and Xhibit has bought a buttload of goodwill business, but the magazine is almost certainly going to become non-viable as soon as iPads are legal during take-off and landing and especially if a price war breaks out between airlines over in-flight wifi.
As the owners of SkyMall, how would you cash out on this deal? As I understand it, Xhibit didn't pay cash for SkyMall. I take this to be a stock-for-stock merger. So the owners of SkyMall end up with a stake in Xhibit but not cash.
You might argue that the SkyMall people could sell their stock now. But if Xhibit is as much of s sham as the authors say, then it's going to be hard or impossible to cash out at a good price. Once you start selling the shares of an artificially inflated company, the price falls fast. You might unload a few at a high price, but just a few.
I've been on flights where inflight wifi was $$, but inflight WiFi access to Skymall was free. I don't think the growing availability of Wifi will hurt them among the type of people who buy their overpriced (and often useless) merchandise.
Seems like a fitting fate for Skymall. A company that profits by selling overpriced shiny garbage is bought by an overpriced and shiny company, that is garbage.
People are free to try to locate that "shiny garbage" and buy it cheaper but yet some people continue to purchase those things from skymall either because they are a) in a hurry b) money is no object c) product is unique enough that it can't be easily found
Here's a question. One of the problems people have is app discovery. What if there was a magazine onboard airplanes where you could advertise cost effectively and get distribution for an app? Wouldn't you see that as providing some value just like any advertising?
They have a captive audience (bored passengers in airlines) and the shiny things they sell appeal to consumers with no self-restraint. The value they provide is nearly zero. They exist and make money due to a complete lack of competition and an endless stream of idiots.
"shiny things they sell appeal to consumers with no self-restraint."
Where are you drawing this conclusion from? Perhaps there are people who like to spend money and buy things because it gives them a rush and makes them feel good. Same as people will spend money on other feel good things (like a ball game or a concert, a movie or a play or play an online game).
What exactly is wrong with buying "shiny things"?
And they don't lack competition as many of the things in the catalog can be located elsewhere. After all you still need to order and have it shipped to you.
Look stores in the terminal have a business model that depends on a captive audience as well and the pricing for many items is certainly higher than it would be in other locations. Why shouldn't it be? This is capitalism and there is nothing wrong with it at all.
The shiny things, value you impute being zero, they sell are in fact products built by companies because they think people will in fact buy them. Somebody went thru non trivial trouble to make that bronze Sasquatch, and others are making an effort to sell it because they think it will sell.
The more I see of "valueless crap" the more I'm amazed at how much value people see therein.
Your comments radiate the smug elitism of someone who has never has their personal choices subjected to hostile review. I'm no fan of SkyMall (or e.g. Sharper Image) but it still rankles to see other peoples’ choices dismissed as invalid rather than simply different.
Funny thing is, I've browsed through for some ideas for electronics projects (not to use as-is, mind you, just to fiddle with) and found parts at wholesalers. What can I say, they were a handy supply of barely usable, often unnecessary rubbish, but as a museum of oddities and bad ideas, it was rather inspiring.
How is it that Xhibit has so many faces on it's About Us[1] page but they still had to hire an elancer? Did they make the iOS version and out-source Android development?
Why would anyone associate the cassette icon used for "My Content" and "Statistics" with a brief spoken message? I guess you had to put something there ;)
So they're basically a company doing adwords PPC/CPA (cost-per-action) campaigns and they managed to become public via reverse takeover?
A big portion of the PPC industry has always been shady. I build software for diabetics and constantly came across highly-optimized landing pages promising to cure diabetes for $99. With highly questionable diets or videos.
They buy up all the expensive adwords health keywords (competing with big pharma), so they must be raking in money.
I also have friends who worked as adwords marketers for people making millions selling non-FDA approved health products (for ex. cleansers and skin bleaching products).
My wife got scammed by one of those nutraceutical "trials" once. You get some sample pills on a 14-day trial. The phone number to cancel the trial is disconnected. 14 days later, your card gets charged $80.
I've noticed a lot of them advertising on Facebook.
Is there any reason you know for the decline outside of your article? Has the merger hit snags since then? Did you ever look into the 10%+ beneficial holder "XSE LLC".
I think the most plausible scenario is that SkyMall wasn't a good investment to begin with, so their private investors dumped them.
We have no hard numbers. Magazine advertisers often don't pay list price for ads and their expenses are private deals with the airlines, who are likely to drive a hard bargain if they can. And I'd be skeptical about how many people actually read them regularly; a survey commissioned by the company could be exaggerated or flawed in some way.
From their 10-K: "We owe $375,000 at a fixed interest charge of ten percent (10%) regardless of the time of repayment to four shareholders due March 31, 2014"
That means they issued a 10% bond sale that four dumbshits, already holding common shares, bought into. A 10% bond!
When spain was on the verge of insolvency, they were issuing bonds at 7%
"fixed interest charge of ten percent (10%) regardless of the time of repayment"
Does that mean, as it sounds, that the interest is $37,500 whether they pay it back in ten days or ten years? I realize it's due March 31, 2014, but if it's not paid by when it's due, no more interest accrues?
I don't know anything about the specifics here but if it helps interest that is fixed is fixed pro term. So "fixed interest mortgage rate of 5%" is actually 5% per annum.
If they don't pay it back they continue to accrue a [presumably compounded] 10% charge.
Couldn't there be lots of other reasons? Like the current owners may have been forced to do it? From reading the article, I got the impression that this business was being passed around like a toy. Are the previous owners indirectly linked to investors in the airlines that carry the catalogue? Or members of the same club? I think I have watched too many detective shows, but there you go.
a) Xhibit has built a solid digital agency team on the back of nutraceutical affiliate marketing offers, and enough revenue to support a trailing $300 - 500m valuation. But they realize their business isn't sustainable, and want to unlock the value of their team & experience with a larger play. They have failed at doing this with their own projects.
b) Najafi Companies, that originally owned Skymall, recognizes that the continued move to digital will eventually, and probably quite rapidly, decimate what is effectively a print advertising business in Skymall. They need a forward looking strategy, and a team that can execute said strategy ASAP.
c) Given that both companies are in Phoenix, a fit is recognized, and Skymall's recently appointed CEO Kevin Weiss is named CEO of the merged organizations. They sign him to a 5-year agreement to develop the digital strategy for Skymall and, given his background at "Author Solutions" which shows his experience in transitioning print-to-digital, this makes sense.
d) They hatched this plan when Xhibit's CEO met Skymall's CEO standing in line to use the restroom at a Phoenix Sun's game (a team that Najafi Companies has an investment in).
I'd suggest listening to this interview with the the CEO of Xhibit for even a few minutes to get a sense of the kind of "value" their team is bringing to the table.
His meandering string of banal platitudes and buzzwords is seriously next level:
"I personally refer to Xhibit as a multi-dimensional digital ad agency. Our gaol was to build a company with combined strengths of design, development, and distribution, to be a one stop shop for a clients digital marketing and advertising needs. Our synergistic array of software suites, tools, and offerings have been engineered from the ground up to help companies maximize results from digital strategies. I really want to emphasize results, Nick. Since we build our concepts from the ground up to help businesses maximize revenue, I always have the belief that if a client made money from a marketing campaign, they will in turn spend more money. This is why we have integrated some performance result models into our work today. The long term success any business or product relies on monetization."
The difference is that that Ballmer is talking about a company with real products that makes billions of dollars, and this guy is talking about a company with no real products and no revenue to speak of.
I don't know if it's next level so much as it is more or less standard verbiage from leadership at the agencies I've worked for.
I've tried to figure out why it is that some of the jargonized business talk seems more concentrated there than other places I've worked -- and the bigger the brand names involved, the more concentrated it seems to get.
My guess when you earn your bread and butter being the third party vendor that management turns to solve their problems, you do better in the marketplace when you speak the language they do.
It's just so charming when an interviewee answers by reading pre-written responses in an style that would never be used in a real (even somewhat formal) conversation.
"recognizes that the continued move to digital will eventually, and probably quite rapidly, decimate what is effectively a print advertising business in Skymall."
Skymall has distribution and provides entertainment. (See my comment below about finding a porn magazine in a hotel room vs. online)
My impression was that "Author Solutions" wasn't about "transitioning print-to-digital", it was about scamming people with aspirations to be authors, by charging them ridiculously large up-front fees for various "services" (often presented as independent providers, but actually usually kicking the money back to Author Solutions) and promising unrealistic results, then walking away with the money after those results fail to materialize.
You lost me at "built a solid digital agency team", and you're using euphemisms instead of just saying "spam". There's nothing solid or legitimate about what they were doing.
hacker news in general seems to have an uneasy relationship with the line between "digital marketing" and "spam". possibly because aggressive email marketing campaigns really do pay off for startups, regardless of how many people they annoy in the process.
They do in the short term, but in the much harder to measure long term, I'm guessing that they do more damage than good. I know many people who absolutely abhor and refuse to ever use LinkedIn thanks to their incredibly aggressive email team, for example, but I'm sure the engagement numbers looked real good when they sent out each of those email blasts.
If "weight loss product, colon cleanser and green coffee supplement" are what they are marketing, a better "harsh" word would be deceptive.
Not only are they marketing deceptive products, they were too stupid to do it successfully and now their merchant accounts are frozen. I choose the word stupid because there is a strong history of the FTC going after other companies selling these exact same products in this manner since about 2009. (The biggest being Jesse Willms, $359m http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2012/02/willms.shtm)
So, yes, Skymall & its original owners got scammed.
...since americans will buy ice while on their arctic trip, this CEO's biggest problem in my opinion is securing free wi-fi, onboard internet access for the next digital-centric Skymall.... so that he is able to convert as many people as possible of those 70% that browse the Skymall catalog nowadays.
Given that Skymall is on just about every US-bound or intra-US flight, if this Weiss character can't insure the impulse buy of these passengers, he should be fired as soon as he can't deliver on this.
If Internet access cannot be secured on the airplanes because of whatever, then he should serve the catalog from a local server onboard the aircraft through an existing wifi or worst case, invest in onboard wifi w/the air co's.
Maybe it's simpler than all this. Maybe it's just a front for organized crime. The front of a mob operation won't seem to make much financial sense if looked at too closely, because what's really going on isn't in the reports, and what's in the reports is just for show.
As someone who has had the misfortune of holding this type of scam stock in the past, I have great sympathies for the shareholders.
There are all sorts of ways you can find yourself holding a worthless investment(myself, via the entreaties of an overly enthusiastic and gullible friend) but once you have it, the rationalization machinery is going to kick in deeply, because now you're a sucker, and you really don't want to feel like one.
That's why there's often a lot of online noise generated around obviously bad companies like Xhibit - it only takes the slightest big of hope to keep people in as the price plummets.
Option #4, the old owners of Skymall financially benefit from the deal regardless of the up and down of the stock price. What if current holders of xhibit stock are the ones getting scammed here?
Nothing to see here. In general, being a cheater is much more efficient strategy than being a working drone, and, on the other side requires much less actual skills. This is why, for example, so many people struggling to create an appearance of competence and success, without actually possessing any appropriate skills or qualities. Their overconfidence sometimes fools simpleminded neighbors.
Creating an empty-shell companies based on buzzwords, bandwagon effect and spikes of mass hysteria in order to gain ballooned valuation via media campaigns and staged "acquisitions" is a normal practice nowadays. The nonsensical valuation of companies such as Zynga are canonical examples.
Using just appearance and media manipulations to create an association between few buzzwords, a brand and ignorant snap-judgement - "oh, that is a cloud virtualization mobile stock" or, you know, MongoDB - "instant gratification and productivity (of ignorant)" is a new-normal.
The exit strategy could be a fail fail due to "bad economy", while pocketing all the money, or, if lucky, sale to a bigger fool, but first one is much easier.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 162 ms ] threadPlus you'd still read Skymall during takeoff/landing where electronic devices are banned.
Sure, from the looks of today it might not seem like a big disruption for SkyMall but it will.
On most flights I go on I'd say about 10-20% of the folks have a tablet device. That trend will also go up and continue to decrease the effectiveness of SkyMall.
I can't site a research paper to back this up though.
Instead of doing that, maybe they could have hired technical staff and built a mobile app themselves?
The cost is closer to $12-15 for a long haul and as little as $5-7 for a mobile device or shorthaul or with a coupon pack.
> Internet access will be available for $8 all day, per device and will be displayed once you launch your internet browser and connect above 10,000 feet*.
This trend will continue and expand.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/stow-it-no-more-f...
If this happens, then SkyMall's market just disintegrated like a wet telephone book -- they're competing with Amazon et al from boarding to arrival at the destination gate. Even without in-flight wifi, travelers who forgot to pack a book or magazine are no longer going to be a captive audience, so that 70% eyeball share will crash.
The product that skymall is selling is entertainment.
The value of being able to leaf through a magazine and see some interesting products. And maybe buy something you would never think of.
Just like HN is a venue to read things you might not come across in your own browsing. Skymall pushes product into easy viewing site because they are a printed magazine right at your fingertips.
Now of course you can do that online but you are in a confined space and a captive audience and that magazine has appeal plain and simple no matter what you can take a look at online. And of course you have plenty of entertainment on your tablet or laptop. But this is in a different format and it deserves at least a look.
Let me make up an outlandish example.
You have hotel wifi and a tablet in your private hotel room.
You then spot a magazine of pornographic pictures in a drawer and that type of stuff turns you on (as it does most men, right?). Even if you can view the porn online you are still going to leaf through the magazine because it's easy to do and just "take a look" for the entertainment value. (That's quite different from actually buying the same magazine in the store in the hotel).
Their advantage over amazon may be the entertainment value, but it seems improper to say they're "selling entertainment" when realistically they're selling ads. I don't see the connection to porno magazines since they're completely different business models.
SkyMall has four main assets, in two classes:
1. deals with airlines to put their magazine in the plane seat pockets (stable), and with companies to advertise in their magazine (ephemeral); and
2. cultural expertise in dealing with airlines (rare), and with selling advertising in a magazine (commonplace).†
Even though advertising is, of the two, the revenue-generating asset, the other one is a monopoly (it's an exclusive contract with a lot of venues, sort of like Ticketmaster.) So, if advertising stops working out for them, and they're going to pivot, I would imagine they'd keep the monopoly--their magazine getting put in seats--and try to find a new revenue-generating content-stream to fill that magazine with. Deciding to instead keeping the advertisers, and the advertising "business", and trying to find a new way to use them, sounds kind of braindead.
...in fact, if I were them, and I was pivoting, I'd sell off the advertising "aspect" of the business to a company that wanted some built-up advertiser relationships... hmm.
Here's some speculation: Xhibit bought SkyMall on a PE trading system, right? If Xhibit is internally thinking of itself as a PE firm in this action--and if SkyMall was frank with them about their worries that their advertising revenue-stream will go kaput--then Xhibit might be trying to split SkyMall: to absorb the advertising part of the company into itself (where they can use the advertiser relationships in digital-media industries), pivot the magazine into something else, make it profitable doing that something else, and then sell off the magazine, like any other PE firm.
This also, sort of, explains why Xhibit has so many nascent ventures; what could be going on is that, since they're absorbing SkyMall's advertiser base, they're just asking those advertisers what extra services (beyond just magazine ads) they would pay for--and then setting out to build them.
---
† (Also, expertise in the logistics of getting a magazine printed and into the hands of airlines, but that's not much relevant either way.)
A secondary issue: most people don't look at the ads in magazines for entertainment unless there's no other entertainment option available. SkyMall had the privileged position of being the only eyeball candy to hand for millions of flyers who weren't allowed to use their laptops or tablets or phones at certain times, and who hadn't thought to buy an emergency magazine or paper book. (Full disclosure: I'm often one of them.) I suspect games or ebooks or emagazines will prove vastly more attractive than a SkyMall catalog, so what's going to drop is the number of eyeballs on pages, which will eventually bite into the first-time-buyer stats for the advertisers, with indirect knock-on effects on the SkyMall business as a whole.
The advertiser-relationship side of the business is indeed likely to stay viable, and Xhibit has bought a buttload of goodwill business, but the magazine is almost certainly going to become non-viable as soon as iPads are legal during take-off and landing and especially if a price war breaks out between airlines over in-flight wifi.
You might argue that the SkyMall people could sell their stock now. But if Xhibit is as much of s sham as the authors say, then it's going to be hard or impossible to cash out at a good price. Once you start selling the shares of an artificially inflated company, the price falls fast. You might unload a few at a high price, but just a few.
People are free to try to locate that "shiny garbage" and buy it cheaper but yet some people continue to purchase those things from skymall either because they are a) in a hurry b) money is no object c) product is unique enough that it can't be easily found
Here's a question. One of the problems people have is app discovery. What if there was a magazine onboard airplanes where you could advertise cost effectively and get distribution for an app? Wouldn't you see that as providing some value just like any advertising?
I say good riddance.
Where are you drawing this conclusion from? Perhaps there are people who like to spend money and buy things because it gives them a rush and makes them feel good. Same as people will spend money on other feel good things (like a ball game or a concert, a movie or a play or play an online game).
What exactly is wrong with buying "shiny things"?
And they don't lack competition as many of the things in the catalog can be located elsewhere. After all you still need to order and have it shipped to you.
Look stores in the terminal have a business model that depends on a captive audience as well and the pricing for many items is certainly higher than it would be in other locations. Why shouldn't it be? This is capitalism and there is nothing wrong with it at all.
Personal experience.
>Perhaps there are people who like to spend money and buy things because it gives them a rush and makes them feel good.
I feel bad for these people.
>What exactly is wrong with buying "shiny things"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumerism#Criticism
>This is capitalism and there is nothing wrong with it at all.
This is a non-sequitur. I can be against Consumerism and still be a proponent of Capitalism.
The more I see of "valueless crap" the more I'm amazed at how much value people see therein.
What an insulting joke.
Looks like their Twitter account was suspended: https://twitter.com/TwitYap
Elancer from Punjab who put the app together has a couple screenshots: https://www.elance.com/samples/twityap-android/71857479/
Totally funny stuff...
1. http://www.xhibitcorp.com/about-us
Last updated Sep 19, 2011
0 reviews
10-50 installations
How is that even possible? Less than 50 installations in two years?
It's sad that this might work to get people to part with their money.
Since then, the stock price of the acquiring company (XBTC) has fallen roughly in half.
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=XBTC+Interactive#symbol=X...
A big portion of the PPC industry has always been shady. I build software for diabetics and constantly came across highly-optimized landing pages promising to cure diabetes for $99. With highly questionable diets or videos.
They buy up all the expensive adwords health keywords (competing with big pharma), so they must be raking in money.
I also have friends who worked as adwords marketers for people making millions selling non-FDA approved health products (for ex. cleansers and skin bleaching products).
I've noticed a lot of them advertising on Facebook.
We have no hard numbers. Magazine advertisers often don't pay list price for ads and their expenses are private deals with the airlines, who are likely to drive a hard bargain if they can. And I'd be skeptical about how many people actually read them regularly; a survey commissioned by the company could be exaggerated or flawed in some way.
That means they issued a 10% bond sale that four dumbshits, already holding common shares, bought into. A 10% bond!
When spain was on the verge of insolvency, they were issuing bonds at 7%
"fixed interest charge of ten percent (10%) regardless of the time of repayment"
Does that mean, as it sounds, that the interest is $37,500 whether they pay it back in ten days or ten years? I realize it's due March 31, 2014, but if it's not paid by when it's due, no more interest accrues?
If they don't pay it back they continue to accrue a [presumably compounded] 10% charge.
a) Xhibit has built a solid digital agency team on the back of nutraceutical affiliate marketing offers, and enough revenue to support a trailing $300 - 500m valuation. But they realize their business isn't sustainable, and want to unlock the value of their team & experience with a larger play. They have failed at doing this with their own projects.
b) Najafi Companies, that originally owned Skymall, recognizes that the continued move to digital will eventually, and probably quite rapidly, decimate what is effectively a print advertising business in Skymall. They need a forward looking strategy, and a team that can execute said strategy ASAP.
c) Given that both companies are in Phoenix, a fit is recognized, and Skymall's recently appointed CEO Kevin Weiss is named CEO of the merged organizations. They sign him to a 5-year agreement to develop the digital strategy for Skymall and, given his background at "Author Solutions" which shows his experience in transitioning print-to-digital, this makes sense.
d) They hatched this plan when Xhibit's CEO met Skymall's CEO standing in line to use the restroom at a Phoenix Sun's game (a team that Najafi Companies has an investment in).
(1) http://biz.yahoo.com/e/130621/xbtc8-k.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfA165MFcBI
"I personally refer to Xhibit as a multi-dimensional digital ad agency. Our gaol was to build a company with combined strengths of design, development, and distribution, to be a one stop shop for a clients digital marketing and advertising needs. Our synergistic array of software suites, tools, and offerings have been engineered from the ground up to help companies maximize results from digital strategies. I really want to emphasize results, Nick. Since we build our concepts from the ground up to help businesses maximize revenue, I always have the belief that if a client made money from a marketing campaign, they will in turn spend more money. This is why we have integrated some performance result models into our work today. The long term success any business or product relies on monetization."
http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html
What an appropriate misspelling - gaol is a British term for prison.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=define%3Agaol
I've tried to figure out why it is that some of the jargonized business talk seems more concentrated there than other places I've worked -- and the bigger the brand names involved, the more concentrated it seems to get.
My guess when you earn your bread and butter being the third party vendor that management turns to solve their problems, you do better in the marketplace when you speak the language they do.
Skymall has distribution and provides entertainment. (See my comment below about finding a porn magazine in a hotel room vs. online)
a) You made a lot of speculative statements that are based on no facts of any kind.
Not only are they marketing deceptive products, they were too stupid to do it successfully and now their merchant accounts are frozen. I choose the word stupid because there is a strong history of the FTC going after other companies selling these exact same products in this manner since about 2009. (The biggest being Jesse Willms, $359m http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2012/02/willms.shtm)
So, yes, Skymall & its original owners got scammed.
Did you even take a look at Xhibit's SEC Filings? http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=XBTC - their quarterly finances are a mess.
Skymall may be in a rough place, but the idea this should have been a merger of equals is ... no words. So stupid.
EDIT: Read the executive bios and ask yourself if you'd hire a single one of them to do anything: http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyOfficers?symbol...
Given that Skymall is on just about every US-bound or intra-US flight, if this Weiss character can't insure the impulse buy of these passengers, he should be fired as soon as he can't deliver on this.
If Internet access cannot be secured on the airplanes because of whatever, then he should serve the catalog from a local server onboard the aircraft through an existing wifi or worst case, invest in onboard wifi w/the air co's.
Don't sell horses heads in the magazine do they?
There are all sorts of ways you can find yourself holding a worthless investment(myself, via the entreaties of an overly enthusiastic and gullible friend) but once you have it, the rationalization machinery is going to kick in deeply, because now you're a sucker, and you really don't want to feel like one.
That's why there's often a lot of online noise generated around obviously bad companies like Xhibit - it only takes the slightest big of hope to keep people in as the price plummets.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=XBTC+Profile
Creating an empty-shell companies based on buzzwords, bandwagon effect and spikes of mass hysteria in order to gain ballooned valuation via media campaigns and staged "acquisitions" is a normal practice nowadays. The nonsensical valuation of companies such as Zynga are canonical examples.
Using just appearance and media manipulations to create an association between few buzzwords, a brand and ignorant snap-judgement - "oh, that is a cloud virtualization mobile stock" or, you know, MongoDB - "instant gratification and productivity (of ignorant)" is a new-normal.
The exit strategy could be a fail fail due to "bad economy", while pocketing all the money, or, if lucky, sale to a bigger fool, but first one is much easier.