Jupiter's sale of SEW & the SES conference series to Incisive Media last year for what many thought was a paltry $43 million is described in detail on the least readable blog on the web, Brett Tabke's. I'll excerpt the pieces I thought were most valuable, but to be honest, you should read the whole thing to have a full understanding of the subject. This is something that affects all of us:
So along comes the SES sale to a no name company that no one stateside had every heard of and who had no history in this space. Most analysts felt that the sale price of $43 million was pretty cheap at the time. The public explanations about it didn't match the reality of the sale. Alan Meckler is as wise an old owl as there is on the net today. This stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. There was another shoe to drop. Befuddled and not a smoking gun in sight. That left the only plausible explanation to be the simple face value one: that $43 million in the hand is better than the vast unknown in the future bush.
We had a sharp consultant working for us a year ago. She was helping with a long term business plan and strategy. She did a study of the seo/sem/conference sector. Her work, was all top notch. Stuff we read about in business books, but we never thought we could actually have completed. As she was presenting the competitive Intel on Jupiter/Incisive to us, she talked a bit the sale of ClickZ/SES. She made a comment that now seems pretty insightful:
"I would be curious to see Danny Sullivans contract. It is the only variable we don't know about."...
...So, Yesterday when I read the news that Danny was leaving Search Engine Watch, I honestly was not all that surprised. 13 months later, Alan Mecklers other shoe hits the floor. I finally exhaled...
...Lets cut to the chase: $43 million for SEW/SES/ClickZ without Danny Sullivan locked into a long term contract and no non-compete? (belly laugh) Raise a virtual glass to Mr. Alan Meckler. You old dog you - nicely done sir! Daddy warbucks is back at the top of my list!
https://weblogs.jupitermedia.com/meckler/archives/014664.html
https://weblogs.jupitermedia.com/meckler/archives/009626.htmlI know for about six months I have been increasingly concerned about the industry. There was something soothing and calming about SES San Jose, but it seemed so status quo to boderline "been there - done that"...
...Me and a good friend were talking a few months ago that we knew we were probably going to see some shake up at SearchEngineWatch this year. You see, Danny Sullivan just turned 40 this year. I don't care who you are, the big four oh works on a man in weird ways. I know it does. I've been there recently. I have the new convertible sports car to prove it. We thought Danny would get a dog or something - not leave SEW!
This is an area where I really show my naïveté - not only did I have no idea a shakeup was coming, I never made the connection between the Jupiter Media sale & this event until I read Brett's post. It's good to feel dumb sometimes - it keeps you humble.
Anyone wanna write a nice little perl script to convert that blog into an rss feed?
I'm not sure I can really say I felt something was going to happen but San Jose certainly felt very different this year. The overall tone of the sessions and the angle that many of the presenters were taking did not resonate with me as it had in previous years. I got the feeling that many presenters were selling their services more than sharing information. Perhaps other knew that a change was coming and figured they might as wll 'get the most' out of it this time around.
Danny is a bright and personable guy. I think it will be interesting to see how well SES fares without his involvement. Part of me hopes that he starts a competing track but another part of me thinks he might just take this opportunity to do something more out of the spotlight.
I do however feel that whatever Danny chooses to do will be both a personal and private success and wish him the best.