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Tag: Barry Diller

  • Four Labor Unions Ask FTC to Block Amazon’s MGM Purchase

    Four Labor Unions Ask FTC to Block Amazon’s MGM Purchase

    The Strategic Organizing Center (SOC) has written the Federal Trade Commission, asking the agency to block Amazon’s MGM purchase.

    The SOC represents four unions: the Service Employees International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Communications Workers of America and the United Farmworkers. Together, the four unions include some 4 million workers.

    The SOC has written an open letter to Ms. Holly Vedova, the FTC’s Acting Director, Bureau of Competition, expressing concerns over Amazon’s proposed purchase of MGM Studios, valued at $8.45 billion.

    The letter highlights the current state of the streaming video-on-demand (SVOD) market, a market Amazon is uniquely poised to gain an unfair advantage in.

    The SVOD market is in the midst of both massive expansion and increasing vertical integration. The market is currently dominated by an oligopoly of five firms. In 2020, Netflix (20%), Amazon Prime Video (16%), Hulu (13%), HBO Max (12%), and Disney+ (11%) collectively comprised 72 percent of the entire US SVOD market.1 Each of these firms operate their own studios as well as a streaming platform which acts as distribution channel for content they choose to acquire, or, increasingly, that they produce themselves.

    The letter goes on to highlight that Amazon’s dominance in other markets, specifically e-commerce, allows the company to offer its SVOD services for free, putting it in a position to abuse its market power.

    Amazon’s Prime membership – which bundles free, expedited delivery with streaming video at no additional cost to consumers – is radically different from the per-month-fee model implemented by SVOD competitors. This model, which has already drawn the attention of competition authorities in Europe, involves an aggressive pricing strategy that unfairly leverages Amazon’s dominance in e- commerce into the SVOD market by offering streaming content at no cost to consumers.

    The letter quotes former studio exec Barry Diller’s assessment of the deal to sum up the SOC’s objections.

    “[When I ran studios] the key point of movies was to please consumers,” but for a service like Amazon Prime “incentives have changed … The system is not necessarily to please anybody. It is to buy more Amazon stuff.”

    The SOC’s opposition to Amazon’s MGM deal is just the latest challenge the company is facing amid increasing antitrust scrutiny.

  • Google and Barry Diller’s IAC At Odds Over Chrome Extensions

    Google and Barry Diller’s IAC At Odds Over Chrome Extensions

    Google and IAC are at odds over what Google calls misleading marketing practices, putting a lucrative deal at stake.

    IAC/InterActive Corp. offers a number of extensions for Google’s popular Chrome web browser. IAC markets the extensions as useful tools to make users’ lives easier. These can include manuals for various tools, saving users from searching for them. Other extensions provide easy access to government forms, or daily Bible quotes.

    According to the Wall Street Journal, however, some of IAC’s extensions do not perform as advertised. Even worse, the Chrome safety and trust team found that some extensions steer users toward more ads. According to documents the WSJ gained access to, the behavior was egregious enough the Chrome team recommended “immediate removal and deactivation” of the company’s extensions from the Chrome store.

    IAC’s chairman, Barry Diller, has said doing so would be devastating to IAC’s business. That hasn’t stopped Google from removing a number of the extensions, although the company told Reuters it is still working with IAC and reviewing their remaining extensions.

    Part of Google’s concern as it moves forward is the need to juggle appearances with the security of its users. The company is already under extensive scrutiny over antitrust and anticompetitive concerns. As a result, any action Google takes need to be above reproach and not add to the scrutiny it’s already under.

  • Barry Diller: TikTok Deal Is A Crock

    Barry Diller: TikTok Deal Is A Crock

    “The whole thing is a crock,” says legendary internet mogul Barry Diller. “It starts, obviously, simply to say we want to protect the security of Americans from anything that could happen to them by using TikTok. It has now morphed into this kind of ludicrous game match between tossing ownership here, control there, etc. Its original aims are out the window and in has just come a whole political mismatch. The whole thing has been stirred up for no great good reason.”

    Barry Diller, Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp and Expedia Group, says the entire TikTok deal is a crock:

    It’s no deal. I don’t know that it means much of anything at the moment. The whole thing is a crock. It starts, obviously, simply to say we want to protect the security of Americans from anything that could happen to them by using TikTok. It has now morphed into this kind of ludicrous game match between tossing ownership here, control there, etc. Its original aims are out the window and in has just come a whole political mismatch. I have no idea how it settles. I also think it’s relatively endless. The whole thing has been stirred up for no great good reason.

    Once you start tossing this grenade about protectionism and once you start turning these things into political questions vis-a-vis China… I’m not saying that China treats fairly. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have policies quote against in terms of competition and all of that and not stealing property and all of those things. However, once you say we won’t do this because of you the reciprocal out of that is going to be just as bad. Once you start it it’s inevitable that that race just keeps going up and up and up and prevents just natural commerce.

    Barry Diller: TikTok Deal Is A Crock
  • You’ve Got To Bail Everyone Out, Says Barry Diller

    You’ve Got To Bail Everyone Out, Says Barry Diller

    “You’ve got to bail everyone out,” says Expedia and IAC Chairman Barry Diller. “This is like when you’re picking losers and winners. Everybody is in the same position which is the world stopped for commerce. You see this when you drive down streets and you see big cities and small cities and you see nothing is open. They’re ghost towns. The damage that is being done every day is enormous. Everybody needs to be bailed out of this one-time thing and we’ll worry about paying the bills later.”

    Barry Diller, media mogul and Chairman of IAC and Expedia, says that every business in the United States must be bailed out in an interview on CNBC:

    You’ve Got To Bail Everyone Out

    What we’re doing at Expedia is using the time to do a lot of the things that we were not able to do when we were running a hundred miles an hour to keep up with our growth. You can think of it as a small business writ large. And then one day the door closes. And if you’ve got a small business with nobody coming in you have no revenue. Well, travel-related companies have no revenue. Expedia, like many large travel companies, has a very very large cost base so we haven’t yet dealt with that specifically. The real planning inside the company is to come out of this stronger than when we went into it.

    The bailouts of the airlines are necessary. Full stop. You’ve got to bail everyone out. This is like when you’re picking losers and winners. Everybody is in the same position which is the world stopped for commerce. You see this when you drive down streets and you see big cities and small cities and you see nothing is open. They’re ghost towns. The damage that is being done every day is enormous. Everybody needs to be bailed out of this one-time thing and we’ll worry about paying the bills later. 

    What has to happen is the fear has to decline

    What has to happen is the fear has to decline. The fear of associating with other people. There are plenty of friends of mine who say I’m not going to go to the theater or I’m not going to do this because I’m afraid. Actually, now people are saying, even though you’ve been isolating for three weeks you can’t come over to my house, which is kind of nuts. Fear is the next thing that’s going to thaw. Until that happens, whether you test people on the way in or whatever you do, at some point everybody’s going to have to be comfortable being a foot away from other people. If that fundamentally changes then a huge amount of our infrastructure disappears, which I don’t think will happen.

    You kind of have to get over it (the fear). You go into a theater and you’re sitting literally within inches of people, you go in thinking that no one is going come in with enormous toxicity. No one is going to come in who has got some terrible communicable disease and sneeze on you. You kind of just trust in that. We’re all too frightened right now. We’re gonna have to get over it or everything will change.

    One Way Or the Other This Is Going To Be Over or We’re Over

    When we see the damage that is being done everywhere we’ll really see in the second quarter (what’s happening). How can you get fair value? I absolutely believe that in a year or two from now this will be over. One way or the other this is going to be over or we’re over. But how can you value that today? I don’t think you can do it? 

    II think the streaming will be impacted by (the crisis) also. You go a few more months and while people say (that Netflix) and other subscriptions to entertainment) will be the last things they’ll cut because people feel they desperately need it to just get through the day but that is eventually going to take its toll. People truly will not have the discretionary income to afford it. 

    Cornoavirus Doesn’t Change the Dynamics of Anything

    But it doesn’t change the dynamics of anything. You’ve got the competitors. Streaming has taken over the world. Hollywood is irrelevant. The only companies that have a true path, an absolute clear business model path forward, have nothing to do with the entertainment business. Amazon and Netflix. Everybody else, good luck to them. They may be able to build subscription services that may be profitable but that world has changed forever. I think this pandemic has nothing to do with it other than earnings that are going to be much less for a while. 

    Of course, there are opportunities (to invest in) you just have to have a very long view or sure-footed look at things as not only they are but as you think they will be. We’re looking at some very large potential acquisitions for IAC. This is the environment where if you are acquisitive you’re going to do the thing that for many years everybody’s asked for. Oh my God, everything’s over-inflated and prices are crazy. You can’t buy things for this or that without these new premiums. Well, you know what, that’s all gone. If you’ve got capital what could be a better time than to exploit what is a terrible downfall for many companies.

    You’ve Got To Bail Everyone Out, Says Barry Diller
  • Barry Diller: I See the Landscape As Cataclysmic

    Barry Diller: I See the Landscape As Cataclysmic

    Expedia and IAC Chairman Barry Diller said that the economic and business landscape caused by the coronavirus and the political actions to fight it have been cataclysmic. Diller does not see a return to normal anytime soon. He believes that people will first have get over being scared and that won’t be easy.

    Barry Diller, Chairman of Expedia and IAC discusses our current “cataclysmic landscape in an interview on CNBC:

    I See the Landscape As Cataclysmic

    I see the landscape as cataclysmic,” says Diller. “We’re in something that it’s very hard to be objective about because we’re in the eye of it and we’re inside of it. We can’t really see it for what it is. Everybody says the same thing there’s been nothing like it before and while we know some things we really know nothing. We know nothing about what happened and when we’re going to get out of it. “

    What will we be doing and will our habits change? Will this result in some really profound difference in people’s lives in the future? So I see it as everybody is scared. The fact that we have so much media and so much information with all it telling us that we’ve got to be quite scared about cohabitating with anyone. That ain’t good. 

    A Quick Return To Normalcy Will Not Happen

    No, (I don’t believe that we will go back to normal on the other side of this as we did after 9/11). What I said then was that if there’s life there’s travel. I still do believe that but this is not going to be what happened then which was a very very quick return to normalcy. That is not going to happen. At best, we’ll have kind of a rolling way out.

    As far as travel is concerned, while I’m absolutely optimistic that it will happen at some point, I don’t think it will be soon. It will probably be September, October, November, or December to really get life back. And in order to travel, you have got to have that. So they’re totally different conditions. This is not analogous. I don’t think this is analogous to anything and is certainly not analogous to 9/11 and to the financial crisis in 2008.

    Barry Diller: I See the Landscape As Cataclysmic
  • Expedia Cuts Ad Spend From $5 Billion To $1 Billion

    Expedia Cuts Ad Spend From $5 Billion To $1 Billion

    “It’s the tale of two cities for me.,” says IAC and Expedia Chairman Barry Diller in a CNBC interview. “On one hand, I have IAC see which is advertising, home services, and dating. Of course, the crisis hurts some but it’s stable. IAC is very well-capitalized. So I’ve got all these hungry players in my company who want to go out and buy things and are very aggressive and are thinking of this opportunity. “

    “While on the other hand, I have Expedia, which has no revenue,” says Diller. “It’s a bit of a weird kind of constant imbalance. But as far as advertising is concerned at Expedia, for instance, we spend $5 billion a year in advertising. We won’t spend $1 billion dollars in advertising probably this year. You just rip that across everything and there you are.”

    Diller says that the travel industry is a proxy. “Yes, there are some basic things that are worthwhile to advertise during this period. But we haven’t seen anything economically this quarter. Why anybody is poring over these first-quarter numbers is clueless to me. How the market can go up in this atmosphere is insane. But as you get into the second quarter you’re going to see advertising (cuts) across the boards. Why would it sustain?”

    Expedia Cuts Ad Spend From $5 Billion To $1 Billion
  • All of Broadcasting Is In Danger From Streaming, Says Barry Diller

    All of Broadcasting Is In Danger From Streaming, Says Barry Diller

    “It’s all of broadcasting that’s in danger because of what’s happened with streaming and with other services in that the only people who are willing to watch commercials are people that can’t afford to buy the goods being sold,” says media mogul Barry Diller. “That’s an existential long-term issue. It’s a fascinating time because it truly is a giant arms race. When you have a giant arms race it really is kind of last dollar in.”

    Barry Diller, Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC and Expedia, discusses how streaming has upended broadcasting and Hollywood in an interview on CNBC at The Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference:

    Don’t Know Who Is Going To Win The Streaming Wars

    I don’t know who is going to “win this” (the streaming wars). This is a weird transformation. Ten years ago you essentially have these six movie companies that had hegemony over the entire production-distribution business. Along comes two complete outsiders, Netflix and Amazon, that totally upended what was a kind of a stable business in terms of how it functioned all throughout the world. If you owned a movie company you kind of had a worldwide franchise. Now you have an arms race that never existed before. You have a complete blurring of television and movies which only happened in the last couple of years. 

    You have these two new entrants which have forced not only consolidation on the old players but forced them to now make investments in their wildest dreams they’ve never had to make before. So you have Disney which has mobilized itself like a true, God-knows, super force wanting to compete in streaming because of these two big players, Amazon and Netflix. You have AT&T reorganizing itself, buying Time Warner. They’re going to compete. 

    Hollywood Was a Cottage Industry and Now It’s an Arms Race

    How many people are going to be at this table five or ten years from now? I think it’s impossible to say. Hollywood is irrelevant. It is irrelevant to the following extent. Before, anything those majors did was kind of an absolute. You couldn’t dislodge them, you couldn’t do anything. So along comes two outside players and everybody is completely dislodged and discombobulated because they can’t get access directly to the audience. 

    The fact that they’re competing and the fact that you’ve got two big funded players─although they do have a lot of debt─Disney and AT&T, who are going to enter this in a very vigorous way, but that has nothing to do with what we used to call or think of “Hollywood.” This was a cottage industry and now it’s an arms race.

    All of Broadcasting Is In Danger From Streaming

    I’ve said this to my parral, no one is going to compete with Netflix in gross subscribers. I believe they have won the game. There is nothing that I can see that is going to dislodge them. Amazon is in a completely different business in that it’s selling Prime which gives you all sorts of services, just among them is video and television. Disney has the best chance just because of its very very popular content and the money, the distribution, and the Disney name that it’s putting behind it. Disney has the best chance to get millions of new subscribers. Will they ever get to Netflix (subscriber levels). I don’t think so. I don’t think it matters much. 

    I never thought and don’t believe that it takes size really (to compete) because if you’re making content there are so many buyers. You don’t need to have any size, you just need to have some talent and some energy and you can do well. Can you build a big empire? Unlikely. I don’t think that the smaller players are necessarily in danger. It’s all of broadcasting that’s in danger because of what’s happened with streaming and with other services in that the only people who are willing to watch commercials are people that can’t afford to buy the goods being sold. That’s an existential long-term issue. It’s a fascinating time because it truly is a giant arms race. When you have a giant arms race it really is kind of last dollar in.

    I Think That Regulation Is Mandatory (of Big Tech)

    I have absolutely always thought and always believed in sensible regulation (in regards to Google, Facebook, and others). When you get to be of a certain size and when you influence markets there should be regulation that’s tailored to some of the things that are outgrowths of you having a certain kind of market size where you can dictate things that may not be in, let’s call it fair playing field, best interest of all players, etc. I think that regulation is mandatory. I think that it will happen. 

    I don’t think that these companies should be “broken up” unless it is proven that regulation doesn’t work. I’ve lived in environments where I grew up in broadcasting, broadcasting was a very regulated world. You actually got your license from the government and they could take it away from you. That’s sword over your head made you act. If you didn’t want to act decently, it sure of spurred you along the way. So I’m a believer in good regulation. I’m hopeful.

    All of Broadcasting Is In Danger From Streaming, Says Barry Diller
  • Barry Diller on the Internet Revolution: Really Young, Truly Radical, Very Troubled

    Barry Diller on the Internet Revolution: Really Young, Truly Radical, Very Troubled

    Internet pioneer Barry Diller says that the Internet revolution is still really young. He also says that this truly radical revolution is right now a very troubled revolution.

    Barry Diller, Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC and Expedia, Inc., recently reflected on the relative youthfulness of the Internet and areas which are still ripe for entrepreneurs. IAC owns popular dating platforms such as Tinder and Match.

    Below are Barry Diller’s comments made during an interview on Fox Business which you can watch in its entirety below:

    The Internet Revolution is Still Really Young

    The growth is just part of the revolution. People forget that the internet revolution is still really young, only 22 or 23 years. It took 10-15 years just to get up enough bandwidth to actually have rich media being served through it. We are really at the very earliest stage of this.

    Expedia is one of the first companies to kind of colonize travel for the internet 20 years ago. That’s a world where the colonization of all these businesses is just now coming on ‘full line’ where you can do almost everything and almost everything more through digital platforms. So the growth is everywhere.

    Fintech is Just Now Going Mainstream

    Financial technology, Fintech, is just now really getting into very much mainstream. Big companies are being built for this. For us, it’s home services. Being able to the same thing you do when you want a car, being taken someplace rather than drive yourself, where you have an app and with Uber. Home service, which has been one of the most difficult areas to tame.

    It’s the most, essentially, local of everything. It’s where your water heater breaks, your air conditioning doesn’t work, just take it on the emergency or quick service side, and you want help. Now there is an app in Angie Home Services in Home Advisor where literally you do the same thing. You say I need a plumber and it will show you plumbers hovering around, Uberish like service providers, where you will be able to do the full-service of that transaction on your mobile device because it’s there and it’s ready for you.

    It’s Really a Platform

    That is just now at it’s very earliest stages. It’s just one example where the growth runway is infinite. It’s really a platform. The platform takes consumers over here who have needs and service providers over here who provide services and through technology, it makes a perfect match or at least a good match.

    That’s what all of those things are, they are platforms. Once you have a platform then when you say will others be created, well certainly there will be other platforms created, but there won’t be that many because the network effects have to come into play.

    Tinder is Now Moving on the Same Track as Match

    We’ve been involved in Match almost 20 years I think. We bought Match quite early in the cycle. We found that… you know what, that’s a very good idea. We found this little company in Texas called Match.com which we bought. The thing is when you say it’s just now becoming where people get married, we had over a million marriages ten years ago come from Match.com.

    Then the technology moved forward and you have Tinder, which is actually younger in terms of people. People on Match were fairly serious, yes they wanted to date and see what happened on a little one-time date, but they also really wanted relationships. Tinder got younger and earlier stage of pre-relationship, one-time dating or one-time whatever. But now, it is moving on the same track as Match did where real relationships are coming out of Tinder. It’s an alternative to the historic pattern of going to bars or being fixed up. This actually does bring technology into the mix.

    This is a Truly Radical Revolution

    When you are inside of a revolution, which I was just lucky enough in timing to get into in a very early stage, you don’t realize the effects of what is happening around you. This is a truly radical revolution. Right now it is a very troubled revolution which happens at very early stages.

    Part 1 of Barry Diller interview on the Internet Revolution:

    Part 2 of Barry Diller interview on the Internet Revolution:

  • Whoopi Goldberg Among Legion of Celebrities Mourning Joan Rivers at Funeral

    Whoopi Goldberg Among Legion of Celebrities Mourning Joan Rivers at Funeral

    There wasn’t the reported red carpet outside New York’s Temple Emanu-El Sunday for the arrival of mourners Sunday, but Joan Rivers’ funeral was very much the star-studded event the legendary comedienne envisioned.

    Whoopi Goldberg, who said “Joan made me laugh harder than anyone I’ve ever known,” joined dozens of A-list celebrities from the worlds of Hollywood, theater, fashion and media.

    Howard Stern delivered the eulogy, while Broadway singer-actress Audra McDonald offered her rendition of the gut-wrenching song, Smile.

    Leading off the service was a men’s choir singing some of Rivers’ favorite Broadway tunes. Hugh Jackman was also expected to sing at the end of the service, according to The Seattle Times.

    They were among the many A-list celebrities who came to mourn the 81-year-old trailblazer who died Thursday, a week after she stopped breathing during a routine throat procedure at a Manhattan medical clinic.

    Other mourners included Rivers’ dear friend Kathy Griffin; colleague and friend Kelly Osbourne; Sarah Jessica Parker; and celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz.

    Theater legends, including Bernadette Peters, Alan Cumming and Tommy Tune, were also in attendance.

    From the music industry, record producer Clive Davis was in attendance; and from the fashion industry, designers Carolina Herrera and Michael Kors paid their respects.

    Television stars Barbara Walters, Geraldo Rivera, Diane Sawyer, Giuliana Rancic, Kathie Lee Gifford, Hoda Kotb, Andy Cohel, and Late Night band leader Paul Shaffer, as well as moguls Barry Diller, Donald Trump and Steve Forbes, were among the many who came to mourn Rivers.

    And as per her wish, a large contingency of paparazzi lined the street across from the temple amongst hundreds of fans from around the world.

    The comedian shared her last wishes in her 2012 book I Hate Everyone … Starting With Me:

    “When I die — and, yes, Melissa, that day will come; and, yes, Melissa, everything’s in your name — I want my funeral to be a huge showbiz affair with lights, cameras, action….I want Craft services, I want paparazzi and I want publicists making a scene! I want it to be Hollywood all the way. I don’t want some rabbi rambling on; I want Meryl Streep crying, in five different accents. I don’t want a eulogy; I want Bobby Vinton to pick up my head and sing Mr. Lonely. I want to look gorgeous, better dead than I do alive. I want to be buried in a Valentino gown and I want Harry Winston to make me a toe tag. And I want a wind machine so that even in the casket my hair is blowing just like Beyonce’s.”

    Those words were reportedly printed in the funeral program.

  • Barry Diller Talks Net Neutrality at SXSW

    Barry Diller Talks Net Neutrality at SXSW

    Barry Diller spoke about the various aspects of the media today. We looked at what he had to say about the The Daily Beast/Newsweek deal, The Daily, and the iPad here.
    Diller also spoke for a bit about net neutrality. “We are not where we should be,” he said. “We need an unambiguous rule – law that nobody will step between the publisher and the consumer.”

    He went on to say that he finds it “really surpsing” that when he talks to different groups, that there aren’t more people screaming on the part of all of the people who are in various ways – creating, thinking, and using the Internet. “I’m not saying we should overthrow the government,” he noted, but seemed to call for more vocal action from the people.

    He took a subtle jab at the Wall Street Journal’s editorial policy, calling it “wacky” (his second jab at News Corp. – following comments about The Daily). He described the WSJ’s stance of it being “a terrible thing” to have rules and laws for net neutrality, on the basis that it would “impede investment”.

    What will happen, Diller said, is that they’re going to have to build more capacity to accommodate the increase in online video, and they will charge for usage (which he said he thinks is appropriate), but the people who control the broadband will say that they feel it’s their right to say when they think entities are using too much, so they should pay if they’re pushing the bandwidth out. “It would be like asking a toaster to pay for the electricity,” he said.

    He said he doesn’t think it would be the death of entrepreneurship, but that what would be terrible is that the Internet would follow the pattern of other communications media from the last hundred years – in the hands of the very few, where editorial politics come into play – and whoever can pay the most wins.

  • Barry Diller Talks Daily Beast/Newsweek, The Daily, and the iPad at SXSW

    Barry Diller, Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp (and Expedia) spoke at SXSW Interactive today here in Austin about a variety of media-related
    topics.

    In response to all of the big valuations we’ve seen lately (Twitter, Groupon, etc.), he said, “What interests me is starting businesses on our own – finding ideas that
    we can support, and simply investing in invention or ideas, and not in chasing crowds.”

    “I’ve never been an investor,” he added. “I got into the Internet very early – very lucky.”

    “I think for everybody here [SXSW], what I like so much about this place is that so many people here are essentially following their curiosity…They’re enabled by a  miracle – the Internet is a miracle.”

    He then discussed the Newsweek/Daily Beast parntership. “We started the Daily Beast because we said nobody was out there – no place yet that had actually a  journalist’s [an old media process] that was in the rhythm of the Internet, he said, adding that it’s not an aggregation site, and stressing that it brought a truly old world, journalistic discipline to the Internet.

    “Along comes Newsweek,” he said. “Which was becoming more and more irrelevant as a weekly news magazine” when news flashes at the speed of typing a few keys and at the
    push of a button. He said, at the Daily Beast, they had longer pieces – deeper things they wanted to cover, so they took the DNA of the Beast and infused it into the print book.

    He admitted that he doesn’t know if it will work. “We’ll see in six or eight months,” he said.

    The discussion then moved to iPad-only publications – namely “The Daily”.

    Diller said he finds it amazing that they put out such a product, and spent so much promoting it, and made it so hard to actually use, recalling that he had to download it on his PC before getting it on his iPad. “That does not seem to me like a contemporary product,” he said.

    He pondered why News Corp. would put out an original product for any single platform. “In today’s world that sounds kind of nuts,” he said. “Apple likes it if you pay  them. That’s what Apple likes… they invented a gadget. Until that gadget gets superceded by others, which will happen, their closed system will work.”

    He then admitted to owning an iPad 2, saying that it is better than the original, but adding that the latest Kindle is better than the original too.

  • Barry Diller Gives Up Role Of IAC CEO

    Barry Diller Gives Up Role Of IAC CEO

    Less than a month after IAC’s Ask.com announced its decision to stop competing in the search market, another major change is taking place as Barry Diller gives up the title "CEO of IAC."   Gregg Blatt, who previously served as CEO of Match.com, will replace Diller.

    Diller, an industry legend, isn’t leaving the company, in any event; he’ll now act as "Chairman and Senior Executive."  Also, Diller intends to purchase enough stock over the next nine months to increase his voting share to more than 40 percent, so it’s not like he’ll be an important figure in name only.

    Diller just explained in a statement, "It’s been clear to me for some time that this Company needs a full time aggressive and aspirational executive in the CEO role.  While I’m not going anywhere, IAC, with its operating businesses growing, large cash resources and virtually no debt, needs the kind of leadership that Greg Blatt can bring it in order to continue to grow and thrive many years into the future."

    So back to Blatt.  Blatt became CEO of Match.com in early 2009, and the site experienced record growth under his supervision.  Before that, he served as executive vice president, general counsel, and a member of the Office of the Chairman at IAC, and put in some time at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, too.

    Blatt said with regards to his promotion, "I couldn’t be more excited about the new position and the opportunities in front of IAC."