If you need to buy a bed, and you live in the tri-state area (New York City and environs), I’d recommend going to Sleepy’s. Sleepy’s has locations throughout the city, and a great reputation: a reputation for deep discounting mattresses for those brave enough to bargain. Only a sucker would walk into Sleepy’s and pay the sticker price. (As an aside, that’s one of the great hidden effects of Sleepy’s–the place makes you feel like a bargaining genius.)

I’m not going to tell you how much I paid for my bed, but, suffice it to say, I got an almost-50% discount by nonchalantly offering the following lines:

First: “I really like it, but I’m not sure I can afford it.”

Hundreds of dollars taken off of the price.

Second: “Are you sure you can’t do any better?”

Another, equally large chunk lopped off.

Third, and this is where we get to Dow Jones: “We’ve got a deal, but only if you throw in delivery for free.”

That’s what the final chapter in the Dow Jones/News Corp saga reminds me of. The Bancroft family had set a self-imposed deadline of 5pm on Monday, July 30, for accepting or rejecting Rupert Murdoch’s bid for the company. Negotiations reportedly had stalled over the issue of consulting/banking/lawyer fees paid by the family to investigate the possibility of a deal with News Corp, and probably other strategic options. Reports today indicate that the proverbial straw was that News Corp has agreed to pay what could amount to $30 million dollars in fees in exchange for the deal to happen.

To me, this feels a bit like getting the delivery for free. The key Denver trust that switched sides this morning was supposedly holding out for more money. Was all the drama and time spent really worth that little bit? $30 million is nothing to sneeze at, but next to $5 billion–of which the Bancrofts will get the lion’s share–well, when you put it in that perspective, it makes my nose itch.

A couple weeks ago, we published an article on minonline that reported on the announcement by the British magazine The Business that the capitulation of the Dow Jones board and the Bancroft family was imminent, and that the sale of the company to Rupert Murdoch would be announced “next week”. Well, “next week” is already several weeks ago, and we still have no deal: only anticipation. (Note: scratch The Business off the list of reliable sources…and, by proxy, minonline? Well, let’s hope not.)

Anyway, today brings us more news of possible future news from The New York Times: what will happen at the 5 pm deadline? Meanwhile, I haven’t prepared anything to write in anticiapation of either outcome…I’d better get my quill and start scratching!

Ps - 59% of theminsider readers polled do think the sale will go through, by the way. Sample size: 29. But a very smart, select, good-looking 29.

Just about two weeks after leaving The Nielsen Company, JEGI and Mike Marchesano announced that Marchesano was joining JEGI as a managing director. Kudos to both Marchesano and JEGI.

When Mike was first moved from CEO of VNU Business Media to CTO, a corporate position, I wrote about it in min’s b2b, and received some flack for my treatment of the matter from VNU PR people. They took exception to the way I saw the situation. I still stand by that reading (see the original article here, and the response by VNU PR here). And now, almost a year later, we at min were proven to have been correct, and the situation is reversed: Marchesano is leaving Nielsen for greener pastures. As I saw it, Marchesano wasn’t the kind of executive to be leading cost-cutting and efficiency initiatives. His pedigree is running businesses: BPA, Bill Communications. And, with that deep knowledge of how things get done from the top down, he should be a good fit at JEGI.

So, Kudos to Marchesano for leaving a situation that wasn’t best suited for him, and kudos to JEGI for picking up another player in the industry who will probably add to the impressive number of deals JEGI has compiled in the past 18 months.

I have it on a fairly reliable source that Mediabistro’s revenues come out to about $5-5.5 million a year.  That puts the revenue transaction multiple between 4.6 and 4.18–very high for B2B media.  But, as we know, standardized transaction multiples haven’t been established for digital properties.

When I first heard about Mediabistro being for sale last summer, I also heard the number $25 million floated around.  As in, that’s about how much they were looking for.  As the sale process continued, new information was hard to come by.  But I did hear that the asking price had been lowered, and lowered again.  To what, I don’t know.

Mediabistro’s revenues have been estimated to be at anywhere between $2 and $8 million a year, depending on what you read, which would put the revenue transaction multiple for the property at anywhere between 3 and 12 times (based on the $23 million sales price).  Three times, though somewhat high, is not beyond the pale.  Anything more might be.  Most B2B insiders that I talked to were incredulous about the price.  Some were not, and I count myself among them.

If I were an operator–and let’s not forget that I am but a lowly editor–a couple of things about what Mediabistro is not doing would intrigue me.  First, Mediabistro does not rely on display advertising.  The Web site has a very valuable audience and robust traffic.  A simple and non-intrusive redesign could free up some nice real-estate for advertising.  Second, I know that I religiously read the Mediabistro daily news feed.  There are opportunities for more editorial products as well as expansion of the current products, like FishbowlNY.  Third, Mediabistro has a nice educational platform that can be built upon and then rolled into….  Fourth, more face-to-face events.  Mediabistro was built on face-to-face events–informal events.  Those should continue, of course, and I’m sure Laurel Touby wouldn’t have it any other way.  But Mediabistro has the brand power now (and the backing with Jupitermedia) to launch larger, more formalized, sponsored events.  In time, it could also launch award shows as well.  And, finally, with Jupiter’s corporate muscle and knowledge of job boards, Mediabistro’s central business can be built upon through technology and marketing.

So maybe Mediabistro’s revenue numbers don’t justify a $23 million price tag.  But, with some hard work, in time, they will.

A couple of months ago, the Interactive Advertising Bureau publicly called out Nielsen//NetRatings and comScore (in effect, the entire online measurement industry) for not being audited and standardized.  IAB, N//NR, and comScore met and hashed it out.  A whole bunch of acronyms showed up.  Steps were taken.  Press releases sent.  Now, several months later, N//NR has taken the wind out of those sails and is poised to motor by the whole IAB regulation ship by declaring engagement to be king and setting out to measure it.

My suspicion is that IAB, along with all the metrics vendors, will get in line behind Nielsen.  And why not?  The institution of PVs/UVs is under attack from all angles, and marketers know this.  The job of N//NR et al is to provide publishers with numbers they can use to improve their own business practices and to sell inventory.  Engagement numbers will soon be the best numbers for doing that.

I had lunch today with John Byrne, executive editor of BusinessWeek and EIC of BusinessWeek.com–an event, in itself, not worthy of a blog post, although it was pleasant and John is great company. However, he said something that has stuck with me.

We were talking about his new job as EIC of BW’s online efforts. In the jungle of the Internet, BW is a big cat. But even a big cat sometimes must struggle to survive in the jungle. The complication of his job–the bewildering number of directions he could take the brand, alone–is intimidating. He’s intense, and up for it:

“We have got to get this [Web site, online efforts, etc] right–we absolutely have to. If we don’t, our brand is exposed, and that’s not acceptable.”

Lessons to publishers:

1. A failure to beat or at least match the competition with online offerings on both the reader and client side will expose the other parts of your business to attack from rivals. Marketers today want integrated packages. Many readers want a 360 degree brand experience. If you can’t deliver on some parts of either of those desires, your rivals will eat you alive.

2. Every major brand should have an editor like Byrne. He’s BW.com’s brand champion. I could barely keep track of all the content partnerships, schemes, deals, ploys, and strategies that he went through in our brief lunch. This guy is creating out of nothing extreme, scalable value for his company. There are online editors who manage content and keep the camel train moving, and there are guys like John–guys who drive new product development, understand that good relationships are at the core of all important strategic partnerships (and works on those relationships), and have an eye on the horizon, looking for new ways to expand the brand and create value.

Do we belive The Business magazine when it says that the Dow Jones & Co. board have finally come to an agreement on all of the terms of this much-discussed-but-not-yet-consummated $5 billion deal? This at the same time as Reuters is reporting the the DJ board is meeting with Ron Burkle to try to seek out other suitors…. Read the article from The Business here.  Read the Reuters article here.

I believe it. What other party (interested or not) in the world has the right mix of assets, plans, schemes, and personal ambitions (not to mention money) to want to buy DJ–at $60/share. Only Rupert Murdoch can legitimately afford to pay that price. In fact, for what he has in store, $60/share is a pretty good deal. When Murdoch gets a hold of The Wall Street Journal and other assets of DJ, he is going to leverage the content worldwide through his massive media network, the keystone of the plan being to launch a new financial news network to rival CNBC. What’s Ron Burkle’s rationale for paying a 67% premium on the DJ share price (as of the announcement of the $5 billion Murdoch bid)?

The media world is just going to have to get used to a Murdoch-owned Journal–with all the peril to editorial integrity and quality journalism that entails.

As a reporter, you sometimes dread quiet, holiday weeks. Just when you think that business is asleep for the summer–at least for the July 4 holiday, say–something big happens. And it always seems to happen right before deadline.

This week, the big news items were Wasserco’s sale of ALM to British publisher Incisive Media (for $630 million), and NewBay’s buy of Imas Publishing (terms not disclosed). (See the full reports in this week’s min’s b2b.)

I found it curious that both deals were announced the day after July 4. Usually, a holiday week, a day before or after a holiday, is a good time to announce bad news. This time, that’s not the case.

Steve Palm, CEO of NewBay, told me that they just wanted to announce the deal as soon as it was done, and it got done yesterday. A spokesperson for ALM said the same thing.

I guess it was just a lazy summer week after all….