Theodore & Clementine

Sunday, July 29, 2007

congrats to business.com

business.com got acquired by r.h. donnelley aka yellow pages company!
the bid went up to $345 million ...
i read on some discussion board some people questioning the purchase price to be outrageous because some of them thinks that the price tag is for the domain name only. if you go to business.com it is like yahoo.com or google.com, but only it is a b2b search engine. and beside purchasing the domain name you get all the technology and people who works behind the scene and business.com is generating revenue. so what is there to complain about?



R.H. Donnelley to Acquire Business.com Inc.

CARY, NC UNITED STATES

Business.com's CEO, Jake Winebaum, To Be Appointed President of R.H.
Donnelley's Interactive Operations

CARY, N.C., July 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- R.H. Donnelley
Corporation (NYSE: RHD), one of the nation's leading Yellow Pages and online local commercial search companies, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Business.com, a leading businesssearch engine and directory and pay-per-click advertising network.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060731/NYM044LOGO)
Through this transaction, R.H. Donnelley will add to its existing interactive portfolio a rapidly growing and profitable business-to-business company, with online properties that include Business.com, Work.com and the Business.com Advertising Network. These online brands attract an audience of highly qualified and motivated business decision makers. Business.com optimizes the revenues from these properties through the use of its Performance Based Advertising (PBA) platform, which is considered to be one of the most advanced systems in the marketplace.

In addition, R.H. Donnelley's Triple Play(TM) business-to-consumer integrated marketing solutions will also benefit from a significant infusion of leading-edge search and directory technology and interactive thought leadership from Business.com, particularly in the areas of performance based advertising technologies and corresponding ad network capabilities. Business.com employs approximately 100 highly-skilled technologists, strategists and businesspeople and serves more than 6,000 business-to-business advertisers and their agencies. The company is profitable and is expected to generate revenues of greater than $50 million in 2007. It is widely recognized as a leader in the online business-to-business commercial search space and has been named to the "Inc. 500" and BtoB magazine's "Media Power 50".

"With this transaction R.H. Donnelley takes another significant step forward in the online local commercial search marketplace," said David C. Swanson, chairman and CEO of R.H. Donnelley Corporation. "Upon closing, we will immediately gain a profitable business-to-business vertical that is widely recognized as one of the leaders in the market. We also gain technology and talent that will accelerate our capabilities with DexKnows.com and other aspects of our digital strategy." Business.com is led by Founder and CEO Jake Winebaum, a highly-regarded, successful leader of Internet and media companies. Upon closing of the transaction, Winebaum will be appointed as President of R.H. Donnelley's interactive unit (RHDi), which will now include DexKnows.com(TM), LocalLaunch! search engine marketing company, Business.com, Work.com and the Business.com Advertising Network. Winebaum

will lead RHDi from Santa Monica, Calif., and will report directly to
Swanson.
Prior to starting Business.com, Winebaum led the Internet activities of
The Walt Disney Company, serving as the Chairman of Buena Vista Internet
Group, which managed high-profile brands such as Disney.com and ESPN.com.
His leadership and contributions to the Internet industry have been
acknowledge by Time magazine, which included him as one of the Top 50 Cyber
Elite and Wired magazine, who placed him on the Wired 25.
"We are very excited about joining the R.H. Donnelley organization,"
Winebaum said. "Business.com and the platform we built over the past seven
years are a perfect complement to R.H. Donnelley's interactive strategy.
The solutions that we have created for business decision makers and
advertisers are directly applicable to what is required to service the
local search and directory needs of consumers and local merchants. It is
exciting to become part of an organization with such substantial reach,
capabilities and resources. Business.com is already a profitable and
growing enterprise, but together we will accelerate this growth and ensure
our combined leadership position in the business and local markets."
Swanson added, "We are very pleased to welcome Jake and the
Business.com team to R.H. Donnelley. Jake's track record of success and
significant experience in building and running successful interactive
organizations make him the perfect choice to lead RHDi's fast-growing
interactive business."
Under the terms of the agreement, R.H. Donnelley will acquire
Business.com for $345 million in cash and deferred purchase consideration.
The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2007 and is subject
to customary terms and closing conditions, including compliance with the
Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976.
Conference Call Information
R.H. Donnelley Corporation will discuss this transaction and 2nd
quarter earnings on a conference call scheduled for Thursday, July 26,
2007, at 10:00 a.m. ET. Individuals within the United States can access the
call by dialing 888-387-9606 -- others should dial 517-645-6055. The pass
code for the call is "RHD." In order to ensure a prompt start time, please
dial into the call by 9:50 a.m. (ET). A replay of the teleconference can be
accessed from within the United States by dialing 800-793-2380 and
internationally by dialing 203-369-3339. There is no pass code for the
replay, which will be available through August 9, 2007. In addition, a live
Web cast will be available on RHD's Web site at http://www.rhd.com, and an
archived version will be available for up to one year.
About R.H. Donnelley
R.H. Donnelley connects businesses and consumers through its broad
portfolio of print and interactive marketing solutions. Small- and
medium-sized businesses look to R.H. Donnelley's experienced team of
marketing consultants to help them grow their companies and drive sales
leads. Consumers depend on the company's reliable, trusted, local business
content to deliver the most relevant search results when they are seeking
local goods and services. R.H. Donnelley's Triple Play integrated marketing
solution provides the most comprehensive print Yellow Pages, Internet
Yellow Pages and search engine marketing/search engine optimization
(SEM/SEO) tools for local businesses to attract ready-to-buy customers. For
more information, visit http://www.rhd.com.
About Business.com
Business.com (http://www.business.com) is the leading business search engine
and directory and pay-per-click advertising network, serving more than 30
million business users and thousands of advertisers every month.
Business.com helps business decision makers quickly find what they need to
manage and grow their businesses, and enables advertisers to reach these
users wherever they are across the business Internet through premier
partners, including The Wall Street Journal Online, Forbes, BusinessWeek,
Hoovers, Financial Times and Internet.com. The company recently launched
Work.com (http://www.work.com), a b-to-b community publishing platform featuring
more than 1,800 business how-to guides contributed by business experts.
Business.com was named to the 2006 Inc. 500 and BtoB magazine's Media Power
50. Business.com was founded in 1999 by eCompanies and is headquartered in
Santa Monica, Calif. Its investors partners include Benchmark Capital,
Institutional Venture Partners, Evercore Partners, Reed Business
Information and McGraw-Hill.
Safe Harbor Provision
Certain statements contained in the release regarding RHD's, RHDi's or
Business.com's future operating results or performance or business plans or
prospects and any other statements not constituting historical fact are
"forward-looking statements" subject to the safe harbor created by the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Where possible, the words
"believe," "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "should," "will," "planned,"
"estimated," "potential," "goal," "outlook" and similar expressions, as
they relate to RHD or its management, have been used to identify such
forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements reflect only our
current beliefs and assumptions with respect to future business plans,
prospects, decisions and results, and are based on information currently
available to us. Accordingly, the statements are subject to significant
risks, uncertainties and contingencies, which could cause actual operating
results, performance or business plans or prospects to differ materially
from those expressed in, or implied by, these statements.
The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to
differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements: (1) the risk
that the conditions to closing will not be satisfied; (2) the risk that the
transaction will be delayed or fail to close; and (3) the possibility that
the expected strategic advantages of the transaction will not be realized
or may take longer to realize than expected. Additional factors that could
cause RHD's results to differ materially from those described in the
forward-looking statements are described in detail in RHD's Annual Report
on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2006 in Item 1A "Risk
Factors" as well as RHD's other periodic filings with the SEC that are
available on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov.

Monday, July 23, 2007

bead faire

it was a sunday morning and my cousin and i spend an hour and half at the bead faire. it was a bead lover's heaven for all those who love beads!
a line was already formed at the ticket booth when we arrived at 10am. it was also a pretty hot day especially with my huge belly. thank goodness we didn't wait that long to get in or i would have just have a heat stroke out there.
the first thing we checkout was polymer clay beads. the lady must have a lot of patient to make those beads. everyone of them were so detailed and they are all little art sculptures.
there was tons of beads!!! as we walked into the main hall with probably 100 of booths displayed of mostly semi-precious gemstones and freshwater pearls. at the via murano booth, i really love the vintage venetian glass beads. those were selling for $5-10 each. they were showing demo on how to use their snapeez jump rings and twisted tornado crimps. those are just great findings! i have to get some for my little shop.
i bought some thai karen hill tribe silver beads and charms. those where a bit expensive but well worth the money. the designs on those beads were intricate and just beautiful and they were not light weight. i bought my mix of ocean themes: fishes, seashells, starfishes, sea turtles and little swirls of waves.
i also purchased some potato pearls and some semi-precious gemstones.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

bye bye, plane

are nowadays flight attendants retarded or what? at least for the one that a mom and her 19 months old son met on express jet airlines is ... after trying to tell the mom to drug her baby boy so he can shut up from saying 'bye bye, plane' ... i would be concerned if it were a 19 years old person, but what can a 19 months old do beside throw a tantrum, yell and scream, cry ... and saying 'bye bye, plane' should be the least of a concern. at least the baby is not yelling 'bomb bomb, plane.'

From Associated Press on Yahoo! News:

Mom says she, toddler kicked off plane
Thu Jul 12, 2:15 PM ET

A woman said she and her toddler son were kicked off a plane after she refused a flight attendant's request to medicate her son to get him to quiet down and stop saying "Bye bye, plane."

Kate Penland, of suburban Atlanta, said she and her 19-month-old son, Garren, were flying from Atlanta to Oklahoma last month on a Continental Express flight that made a stop in Houston.

As the plane was taxiing in Houston en route to Oklahoma, "he started saying 'Bye, bye plane,' Penland told WSB-TV in Atlanta. The flight attendant objected, she said.

"At the end of her speech, she leaned over the gentleman beside me and said, 'It's not funny anymore. You need to shut your baby up,'" Penland told WSB-TV in Atlanta.

When Penland asked the woman if she was joking, she said the stewardess replied, "You know, it's called baby Benadryl."

"And I said, 'Well, I'm not going to drug my child so you have a pleasant flight,'" Penland told the TV station.

Penland said other passengers began speaking up on her behalf, and the flight attendant announced they were turning around and that Penland and Garren were going to be taken off the plane.

Penland and her son were let off the plane and did not complete the trip to Oklahoma, said Kristy Nicholas, spokeswoman for Express Jet Airlines, which flies as Continental Express on behalf of Continental Airlines.

Attempts by the Associated Press to reach Penland under a telephone listing that matched her last name were unsuccessful.

"I was crying, I was upset and I was thinking, 'What am I going to do? I don't have anything with me, I don't have any more diapers for the baby, no juice, no milk," Penland told WSB.

Nicholas said, "We received Ms. Penland's letter expressing her concerns and intend to investigate its contents."

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

4th of July and hot dogs

well, only in america ... do we have the celebration of independence and finally an american gaining back the title of nathan's hot dog eating contest winner. yup you got it ... the sport of competitive eating aired on espn. joey chestnut ate 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes beating the 6 times champ takeru kobayashi who finished second eating 63 hot dogs.
joey chestnut is from sunny california!

we also survived a 105 degree fun in the sun in the valley. even with 50 spf applied every 30 minutes my skin still got a slight tan.