I just finished moderating a panel for min on SEO and SEM. I won’t go over everything that I learned, but I found one point blog-worthy.

According to our panelists, blogs are becoming increasingly important as marketing conduits and content conduits for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that Google gives them preferential treatment. The message is to put as much good content on blogs as possible, and, of course, optimize and market it.

More Information:

- Our panelists were Paul Bruemmer, director of search marketing at Red Door Interactive (a consultancy), Sandor Marik, director of search marketing at CondeNet, and Derek Fulford, search marketing manager at The Weather Channel Interactive.

- For more information on the webinar or to listen to it in its entirety, go here.

- Go to BuzzLogic.com to measure which blogs are the most popular in your industry.

On Monday, I will be playing in the annual ABM/McGraw Hill charity tennis and golf tournament to benefit ABM’s BPEF Internship program.  I’d like to extend my thanks to my company, Access Intelligence for sponsoring my participation in this event.  The entire industry works better when we develop and participate in events that benefit young people (full disclosure: I, myself, am a young person).

The BPEF program has influenced my own small editorial team greatly.  Courtney Barnes, who is the editor of PR News and will be editor, along with me, of min magazine in the fall, started at Access Intelligence as a BPEF intern.  I was talking with her today about her experience.  When she took the job, she figured that she would do it for the summer while looking for a “real job.”  After a few weeks, however, she realized that she loved writing for a living and saw real room to grow at AI.  AI loved her back.  That was two summers ago, and Courtney is now a legitimate star here.

On the flip side, my group had one BPEF editorial intern last summer who did NOT work out.  And a sister group in the company had a BPEF marketing intern that also had trouble and was asked to leave after a few weeks.  But I like those numbers; I love those numbers.  Ask any HR person if they’d be satisfied interviewing one superstar for every two bad apples, and I think you know what their response would be.  

So, if you can’t participate in events like the one being held on Monday, I urge you to support the internship programs at your company.  Nurture the young talent that you have–you will probably encounter a dud here and there, but you just might end up with a superstar.

This week brought to us the announcement of the firing of four top editorial staffers at Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News, the Reed TV books that have dominated the space for years.  Maybe “firing” is a strong word–it rarely happens these days.  Suffice to say, they were let go, cut loose…ankled?

Anyway, the TV trades are in big trouble.  Our own CableWorld (CW is an Access Intelligence book, which is parent to The Minsider) is down over 50% on the year in ad pages.  The traditional advertisers, cable networks, no longer need to advertise in trade publications to reach the carriers.  Most networks already have almost complete saturation, and their sales departments can effectively reach all nationwide carriers by making phone calls.

What CW and other need to do is reposition both from a sales and editorial perspective.  There are (and have been for years) many emerging technologies that are changing the way carriers do business.  Those technology vendors are perfect targets for a new advertising base.

I reported in min’s b2b this week on the ascension of Jason Young to the position of CEO of Ziff Davis, replacing Bob Callahan, who is now chairman of the company.  I think–and I said so in the issue–the pressure of running the company, running the sales process, and borrowing money to stay afloat became too much for one executive to handle, especially over the course of a year or more.  Therefore, Willis Stein (ZD’s PE owners) put Young in charge of running the show, leaving Callahan the ability to focus on selling the company as chairman.

The piece of the puzzle that I couldn’t place by the time min’s b2b went to press was whether ZD was still retaining Lehman Brothers and Evercore Partners to help them negotiate the sale.  I reached out to a spokesperson for the company, and she said that the company “declined to comment on whether the investment houses were still retained.”

If you read other media reports, you saw that “the sale is less of a focus.”  This is not what I originally thought.  If Lehman and Evercore, however, are no longer in the picture, then perhaps the period for actively seeking buyers is over.  And, the company’s position–that is, declining to comment–makes me believe that Lehman and Evercore are, indeed, no longer in the picture.

And, considering all of this, I now wonder, what is Callahan’s status with the company?  Was he kicked upstairs? 

Frankly, it doesn’t look like it would be a good idea for the company to continue on with only the consumer/small business and gaming divisions left.  Enterprise was about 40% of the company’s revenue, but a smaller percentage of the company’s costs–the company overall may have shrunk by 40% or so, but corporate overhead remained the same…well…maybe got a little bit smaller with the promotion (?) of Callahan to chairman.

According to Paidcontent.org, the Ziff Davis Enterprise group, which was recently purchased by Insight Venture Partners (comprehensive, insider coverage…lighter, non-subscription coverage) for $160 million, was merged today with Developer Shed, an online-only tech publishing play, along with recent acquisitions that DS had recently made.  The new entity will be known, to Paidcontent’s dismay, as Ziff Davis Enterprise.  Go to the Paidcontent article here.

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.