ColemanMedia Report

A study released by the Foundation For Needlessly Speculative Journalism last week revealed that over 6 million man hours of work in the advertising industry alone have been wasted in October by reading Mediapost and Ad Age articles about imaginary mergers and acquisitions within the media space. The articles, which focus largely on speculative mergers like those between faltering portals AOL and Yahoo!, and potential acquisitions by media giant Google, have tripled in recent weeks, according to the report. “Speculative journalism is nothing new to the ad industry,” said media watchdog Clive Biegelstein. “But this is getting ridiculous. Over 60,000 words were published yesterday about news that hasn’t even happened yet, and probably never will. It’s like professional trade media has nothing real to report on, so they just make up the news. I mean, really, people, this isn’t CNN or FOX.”

Sources with close ties to both companies reported Tuesday afternoon that popular social network and rising Imperial power Facebook loaned moribund content portal AOL $10 a few minutes before lunchtime earlier that day. According to the sources, who asked to remain unnamed, the $10 was promptly spent on a chicken burrito bowl with guacamole and corn salsa and a medium drink at a nearby Chipotle. The transaction has online media gossip mavens chomping at the bits. “Clearly this is Facebook’s first real foray into the content aggregation business,” said Kara Shushit of the confoundingly popular online column All Things Presumed. “Just look at it: AOL has all this content that no one sees, and Facebook has all these people that never actually see each other in person. It’s a match made in heaven.” Officials with AOL could not be reached for comment as their phones were down, but a spokesman for Facebook said, “AOL didn’t have any cash and left its ATM card at home, so we loaned it some lunch money. I really don’t see what the big deal is here.”

A report issued Monday by the Center for Gratuitous Mergers & Acquisitions revealed that Internet and search giant Google went nearly 8 hours late last week without acquiring another company, surprising nearly every cognizant human being, including many within the company.  According the report, Google did not purchase another company for 7 hours and 54 minutes after announcing the May 20th acquisition of music syncing service Simplify Media, a new record for the company.  ”This is certainly eye-opening,” said lead researcher Jurgen von Schniedgelfen. “Google’s appetite for assets has been insatiable.  They recently purchased every pizza restaurant within 15 miles of their Mountain View campus just so they wouldn’t have to log the receipts in their expense reports.  For them not to purchase a Plink or a Picnik or the Commonwealth of Belize is either an oversight or an omen.”   Officials with Google echoed those sentiments.  Co-founder Sergey Brin, when reached via iPhone, said only, “We didn’t?  Why didn’t we buy anyone?  Where’s Larry?”

While the Justice Department and the rest of the online ad industry closely watch developments in the proposed merger between Yahoo! and Bing, search giant Google quietly completed its purchase of the Internet Tuesday morning, according to sources with Price Waterhouse Coopers, who brokered the deal.  Google, which already effectively owns online search and online video, went back into “acquisition mode” last week after admitting that it overpaid by approximately $1 billion for YouTube.  ”We’ve made some mistakes in the past with our acquisitions,” said Google President Sergey Brin.  ”But I think the Internet is a good buy.  Unlike the banks, we’ve got the cash, so it made sense to buy when the price was right.  We’re already in negotiations to buy Music, and we’ll probably buy Fear as well, since it’s such an effective marketing tool.”  Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

Following in the acquisition steps of Google, Time Warner, and Yahoo, millionaire investor Reginald L. Patsy completed the purchase of soon-to-be-defunct file sharing service Pirate Bay late Monday, along with a ownership certificate for the Brooklyn Bridge, according to sources with the Associated Press. Patsy reportedly purchased the site for $7.7 million from Pirate Bay owners Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundstrom as they were being carted off to a Swedish prison for copyright infringement. “A lot of people thought this was a huge mistake,” said Patsy. “But look at what Roxio did with Napster, and how much money Yahoo! made with GeoCities. I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank. Plus, Lundstrom told me that if I threw in an extra $300,000, he would sell me a bridge in Brooklyn. I mean with Real Estate prices in New York, how could I say no?” According to the notary who recorded the sale, the ownership certificate for the Brooklyn Bridge was hand-written on a cocktail napkin from the Aspen Social Club on 47th.