Ron Rovtar reported on our alliance with Google video.

I certainly do not want to make too much noise about this other than to say that it is the "beginning of the beginning" for this arrangement. Therefore it is way too early to have any financial feelings one way or the other.

However this is a prototype of deals we are doing and will do more of in myriad ways as we leverage our libraries of digital assets in licensing and OEM arrangements.

Stay tuned as we make more and more announcements of deals with organizations that want to distribute our digital assets. The key is being an owner of digital assets. Ownership equals leverage. We are blazing a trail in this area and will continue to do so.

I have blogged from an airplane at 37,000 feet flying to Tokyo (ANA Airlines) from New York and now I am blogging from the Cunard QM2 in the middle of the North Atlantic on my way to New York from Southampton, England.

Cunard have done an amazing job with WiFi and Satellites so that most of the time I am getting a broadband connection as good as I get in Starbucks in New York City.

I last sailed across the Atlantic in 1977 on The QE2. This ship is about 40% larger than the QE2 and incredibly modern and sophisticated. Three laps around deck 7 makes a nice mile walk.

By the way, obviously I cannot use my 8700 BlackBerry out here. But I must now tell readers that the BlackBerry folks and Mike Gartenberg of JupiterResearch fixed my email problems and I can now rave again about the 8700.

Google just posted terrific earnings growth. I have no idea how much of the growth comes from the new Google Video offering?

However Jupiterimages is now part of Google Video so perhaps we are helping drive Google's growth in some very tiny way! Take a look at some of our offerings from our Animation Factory and Thinkstock Footage sites now on Google.

My blog debate with Jason Calacanis certainly sparked lots of responses. I noticed that Business 2.0 writer Om Malik wrote that I was against blogs because blogs were hurting my business. I guess Malik just shoots from the hip when blogging without thinking because I am not aware of how our business at Jupitermedia is being affected by blogs? It would be great if Om could let me know? Now I know why Om is journalist and not a businessman.

I had a neat time yesterday debating rock Internet star Jason Calacanis about the commercial value of blogs.

Katherine Meyer of WSJ moderated. The WSJ team has made the debate available to non-subscribers - note link above.

I used to breakfast and debate with Jason in New York City when the Big Apple was his home (he now lives in Los Angeles) and Silicon Alley was his domain. It was good to have this online get-together.

SEARCH TERM ADVERTISER
Jupiterimages--- BigStockPhoto
Creatas -------- BigStockPhoto
Pixland -------- BigStockPhoto
IT Stock Free--- BigStockPhoto
Liquid Library--- BigStockPhoto
Goodshoot--- BigStockPhoto, Dreamstime
Thinkstock--- BigStockPhoto, Dreamstime
Brand X Pictures --- BigStockPhoto, Dreamstime, Photospin
BananaStock--- BigStockPhoto
Foodpix -------- Photospin

Check this out. Another batch of stock photo companies breaking "Google" rules by using various Jupiterimages' brand names to gain customers through Google searches.

It is hard to believe that organizations such as these resort to this unethical business practice. We have once again appealed to Google to have these "search terms" taken off of the Google site.

Others in the image business should do themselves a favor and check to see if they are being harmed by such practices.

I recently came across a terrific bit of Internet history. Back in early 1994 I hired a fellow named Chris Locke to build a Web initiative for the company I ran at the time - Mecklermedia. Chris was one of the few people in the world who really "knew" the Internet and the recently announced World Wide Web. Chris and others believed that it would be extremely complex and difficult to create and run Web site --even for the largest organizations.

MecklerWeb was proposed as the Web solution for any company that wanted to have a Web site.

So take a look at the early proposal and the naive nature (now 12 years later)of the offering.

By the fall of 1994 Chris and I went our separate ways in terms of how the Web would develop. I believed that Mecklermedia needed a "vertical" position on the Web and Chris felt this was a bad decision. I felt at the time that Web sites would one day resemble magazine publising "online" and that this would be particularly true for trade publishing. The present day JupiterWeb is in fact a result of that decision.

Now read a pundit's report about my decision to change MecklerWeb. I am pleased the way things developed even though at the time I was lambasted not only by this report but also by Jared Sandberg in The Wall Street Journal. Our stock price got walloped over my decision. Time has proved to be my friend as my prediction back in 1994 proved to be 100 percent correct.

I try to keep up with the various image industry blogs. Most are listed on the links toolbar below.

This morning I found this editorial that is several weeks old, but one that I must have missed at the time it was written.

Time will tell if the thoughts in this editorial are on the mark in comparing the future of Jupiterimages' to Getty Images - particularly in respect to which company will be best at leveraging their respective assets. Of course I would like to think that the editorial opinion will prove correct.

The industry is now looking to Jupiterimages as the thought leader in the commercial image space. We are not the largest, but we see the future and we saw it right away when we entered the space nearly three years ago.

I am a baseball fanatic. I played the game through college and every spring and the start of the baseball season I have to remind myself that the last time I threw a competitive baseball was nearly 40 years ago. Fortunately my love of the game continues and is enhanced by participating (now for 15 years) in an online fantasy baseball league that is hosted on cbssportsline.com.

Related to all of this are some stats I came across in an article in The New York Times by Richard Sandomir about Major League Advanced Media. This powerhouse, owned by Major League Baseball, is estimated to be worth well north of $2 billion (my guess is that the number could well be doubled).

The baseball folks have become masters of streaming baseball games, but also have branched out into streaming college basketball and a host of other events including the recently played World Baseball Classic.

Subscription revenue last year was $60 million, but this number is sure to grow in 2006 and beyond. Another $200 million in revenue (2005) came from selling tickets and baseball related merchandise.

The important point to realize here is that this powerhouse was created by Major League Baseball and not some "media company". You really have to congratulate MLB for doing such a splendid job. MLB should give seminars on their success. Media companies would pay big bucks to get lessons from the Major League Baseball online wizards.

Many readers remember that several months ago I posted about Getty Images buying keywords using our image brand names on Google USA and France. Within minutes of that post, these ads were removed.

Now istockphoto, a division that Getty Images recently purchased for $50 million, has decided to use the same tactics by purchasing the keyword "Comstock" on Google.

Kind of shocking that this Getty Images' division would do the same as the parent. I guess this is where the expression "the apple does not fall far from the tree" comes from?

I am not sure if the istockphoto team figured out this concept or if they traveled to Seattle to learn at the master's knee?

I have been in business for 36 years and have learned that one wins in business with a good product and good business ethics. Chicanery works for a while, but those who practice it end up losers.

Needless to say we have protested to Google and warned istockphoto today to cease using our brand names in ad campaigns.

Jupiterimages gets quite a bit of press, but little is ever mentioned about our rapidly developing footage division. We are in the midst of building out a robust umbrella footage Web site, thus many of our footage brands cannot be seen with one click.

Nonetheless progress is being made from flash movies at BigShotMedia, to our Thinkstock team creating over 300 HD clips every month, to our creatas distribution group which is enjoying solid revenue growth.

Other are noticing too. Take a look at this ad from the Discovery Channel Cable network which uses 7 different Thinkstock footage clips in this short spot.

Danny devoted a blog entry questioning the synergy between JupiterResearch, the SES shows and the ClickZ Network (all now sold by Jupitermedia).

Danny indicated that from his perspective he could not see the synergy(ies) here. My answer is that Danny is great at what he does, but his focus on Search and his role as a consultant and not a business executive is why Danny did not see the synergies.

Let me say that I have the deepest regard and respect for Danny and mention his post only because it shows that Danny should never run a company (and why should he as makes more money than most CEOs throughout the world?!).

Danny was never privy to the inner workings of Jupitermedia. Therefore he would not know that the ad links that JupiterResearch had on the ClickZ Web sites brought in numerous leads to the JR sales team. This connection was invaluable and one of the several reasons we were able to turn around JR. Dozens of solid sales leads came in monthly from these links. These leads could never have been found from cold calling. Also these links led to numerous sales of one off JR research reports -a very lucrative business. Similarly, dozens of leads came to JR from its participation in the SES trade shows. The one day seminar that JR ran on the first day of each USA show attracted nearly 400 attendees. At the overseas shows JR would run a late day reception and once again many solid sales leads came the way of JR. When one considers that the average JR client paid close to $35,000 per year, one can start to understand that the relationship between SES, ClickZ and JR was incredibly valuable and lucrative for Jupitermedia.

Danny's comment that if this link was so valuable then why did Incisive Media not also buy JR when it was making the SES purchase? --Danny feels Incisive's decision not to buy JR illustrated that there could be no value between JR and SES (and ClickZ). Such a comment again demonstrates why Danny should remain the God he is in doing editorial and consulting work. I cannot and will not answer for Incisive, but I would suggest that budgetary considerations were at play not to mention that at the time we sold SES, JR had not been profitable (the profits started to come by the end of the year in which SES was sold).

No need to comment on any other issues from Danny's post because I think readers get the idea of why JR and SES (as well as ClickZ) had strong and invaluable financial synergies. In the end, Danny helped Jupitermedia and Jupitermedia helped Danny to do well. Danny is entitled to make comments about the deal, but he could not have been more wrong in his conclusions.