No major media company made the Businessweek 50, is this a good thing or a bad thing, and do big media CEOs even care?

By SDH This week’s issue of Businessweek is all about the Businessweek 50 (BW 50). It’s a list of the 50 best performing companies in their respective industries. It is no surprise to see companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon on the list. It’s also no surprise that there are no major media companies on the list. Why? Well with the exception of maybe Disney, media companies haven’t really been performing well at all. Companies like News Corp dropping cash left and right for other companies doesn’t mean all is well. The BW 50 is dominated by companies in tech, energy, beverages and science. So should big media CEOs take this as a sign that they need to ramp up their businesses or do they take lists like the BW50 as just that, a list? We’re sure most of them wouldn’t have mind having their company listed as one of the best performing. Guess they just didn’t meet the requirements.

Businessweek got game

By SDH Get bored during the afternoons at work, tired of reading about the fall of Bear Stearns, tired of reading about the economy, tired of reading about Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke? Well Businessweek can help you get past it all. Businessweek.com has launched Businessweek Arcade, a compilation of 20 free, independently developed Web-based games which reflect the best in indie game design. Helen Waters, editor for Businessweek.com’s innovation and design channel explains it all: We explore how the gaming landscape is changing. A new generation of game designers that grew up immersed in the medium has come of age and is now working to make its mark, altering what is played and how it is played (and where). We report from the cutting edge where designers, influenced by a wide range of new technologies from the social Web to motion-sensing, are altering the gaming industry's contours, bending and breaking old rules, and transforming a once-solitary activity into a model of rich, social interaction.

Looking Back: Jean-Marie Messier’s colossal mess

By SDH Unlike other overseas media companies, Vivendi Universal under then CEO Jean-Marie Messier was on a mission to become a force in Hollywood and win America over. After the Vivendi Seagram merger, which created Vivendi Universal, an entertainment and telecom behemoth Jean-Marie, became smitten with Hollywood. He was known as the French Utility exec that bought his way into Hollywood and was proud of it. At one point he was spending more time in America than back home in France manning the ship. He even purchased a multimillion apartment on Park Ave which Vivendi Universal paid for. There was almost never a Universal Studios film premier without Jean-Marie present, smooching and rubbing elbows with the stars of his movies and hanging out with the artists of Universal Music. Jean-Marie was on a mission to be the most powerful man in Hollywood, and this goal, set in motion events the eventually lead to his down fall. Jean-Marie went on one of the biggest shopping sprees in media and entertainment ever. He dropped cash on any and everything he felt would bring him closer to his goal of being the superpower in Hollywood. It seemed like every week Vivendi-Universal would announce a new deal. With a major new company under his rule, Jean-Marie landed a Businessweek cover which asked “Will Vivendi’s glitzy deal live up to the hype?” Well we all know it didn’t. Messier resigned after pressure from his board of directors who accused him of spending too much too fast, and has since gone underground, at least it seems that way. Vivendi Universal was dismantled and the company went back to being just Vivendi. It was the fall of a budding superpower stopped short by blind ambition. Jean-Marie almost achieved his goal of total dominance, perhaps it was all happening too fast for Jean Marie and the Vivendi Universal board to handle. Even Barry Diller was in the whole mix!

John Malone now has an additional 369 reasons to throw Barry Diller out on his ass, and more in this Afternoon's round up

-SDH For IAC/Interactive Corp CEO Barry Diller, news that the company lost $369.9 million in the fourth quarter, on a big write-down at its mortgage referral business couldn't have come at a worst time. Reports like this will just give Diller's indirect boss John Malone more ammunition in his quest to re-gain Liberty's 62% voting shares from Diller and use them to show him the door. [AP] So Time Warner says they are working to split AOL's outdated dial business from it's newly rolled out ad driven business. But if Time Warner is looking to sell the dial up business, who in the world would want to by a declining business? [CNNmoney] Businessweek announced today that it has named Jessica Sibley in a new roll as Senior Vice President and Worldwide Publisher [PRNW]

Businessweek.com getting all Aggregaty and Videowy, Editor John Byrne and his hair tells us how

-SDH OK first things first. What's up with Businessweek Editor John Byrne's shag? We hope he falls on a clipper real soon. Anyway, with a new design in print, Businessweek.com is stepping up it's game as well. In an interview with PBS/Mediashift Byrne tells us the whats, whens, whys and hows. Did we mention John Byrne's hair? Byrne believes that if Rupert Murdoch opens up the Wall Street Journal Online and makes the content free of charge, it will be “checkmate” against Yahoo Finance, the current leader in traffic for financial sites. But Byrne is more mysterious about BusinessWeek’s chances of catching the portals, telling me BusinessWeek has “a strategy to significantly scale and we’ll soon be able to talk about exactly how that will happen.”

611 dead at Businessweek publisher McGraw-Hill

-SDH The publisher of Businessweek, McGraw-Hill says it plans to shit can 611 people or 3% of it's work force apparently to make things look a little pretty on paper when they report full-year earnings for 2007 in 2 weeks. We feel a long cold slog on the way don't you? Where will all those poor bastards go? The greatest number of job cuts are at McGraw-Hill Education, whose products include course work materials. The unit is eliminating 304 jobs and will take a pretax restructuring charge of $16.3 million. Standard & Poor’s is losing 172 jobs, or slightly less than 2 percent of its work force. The announcement came a day after the Moody’s Corporation, a top competitor, said it would cut 275 jobs and take pretax charges of $47 million to $52 million in the fourth quarter, citing similar external circumstances. Job Cuts at McGraw-Hill Will Eliminate 3% of Staff [NYT]

Businessweek outsider, admits guilt in dishing inside information to two Wall Street scum bags, protects a possible third scum bag

-ZOE S. Juan Renteria, a young dumb and naive former Quad Graphics employee who apparently worked on the Businessweek printing line, is in hot water for browsing the "Inside Wall Street column" and then tipping off two sleeze balls at Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs on stocks mentioned favorably in the column. Renteria, 22, who during questioning did not identify what sounds like third individual, plead guilty, and is facing 25 years in prison. Could it be that the third person is a Businessweek insider who had plenty to gain? Who is this person Juan Renteria is protecting and how much are they paying him if at all? Luck for Juan he may not have to worry about dropping the soap where he is going. Juan Renteria, who worked at Quad Graphics Inc. in Sussex, Wis., told a Manhattan federal judge that he supplied another person, whom he didn't identify, with the names of stocks mentioned favorably in BusinessWeek's Inside Wall Street column. BW INSIDER ADMITS GUILT [NYP]

can we get our businessweek cover now please?

It happened, so will Jeff Bewkes cover Businessweek? We think he is worthy of a cover story, especially now.... no? Earlier: We had to do it: We present to you the Businessweek cover that will be

Businessweek's Young Entrepreneurs list: A mixture of sexy, a touch of creepy and some what the f__k

Businessweek published their (we've lost count) Young Entrepreneurs list and we can't believe some of the ideas these youngsters came up with and are actually making money doing it, but then again this is America. You can sell dirt to a ditch digger and make enough money to summer in the Hamptons, if anyone still does that anyway. The individual that creeps us out this list, is a guy by the name of Amit Nar, who says that he can help you sleep. Now based on how this guy looks, we wouldn't even think of closing our eyes with him standing over us for a half a second. There are are two friends Max Durovic and Michael Kenny who got the bright idea to launch a advertising company that incorporates some clown like behavior by juggling ad signs to get the public's attention or some shit like that. There is another dude by the name of Ashutosh Gupta, a 19 year old who offers financial consulting, yeah like we need some kid to tell us which bill collector to put off paying until next pay period. All in all though the list is further proof that, there is money to be made in this great old country, and that the next generation is already in place to take the baton and run with it. Hell they already got it. At lease no one creeped us out as much as this guy. 2007 Finalists: Best Young Entrepreneurs [BW]

The year of the makeover continues. Next up, Newsweek

Following in the footsteps of Time and Businessweek, Newsweek will pull the curtains back on its online and print editions on Monday officially dubbing 2007 the year of magazine makeovers. But the folks at Newsweek aren't publicity sluts like Time or Businessweek opting to stay under the radar with their revamp, as explained by it's stealthy editor Jon Meacham. "It was stealth redesign," Meacham said yesterday as he was getting ready to ship the first of the new-look pages to the printer. "I just want people to judge it when they see it," said Meacham. "I don't believe in sweeping declarations." NEWSWEEK GETS A NEW LOOK IN PRINT, ON WEB [NYP]

You know what? We kinda like the new BusinessWeek after all

So we may have been a little hard on the folks at Businessweek and their 18 month process to spruce up the magazine and for that we say Oh well. But in addition to the big OH WELL! we have to say we like the new look of Businessweek. Sure you may have to look twice when you come across on newsstands but that's the whole point we guess. Good job boys and girls. BusinessWeek, owned by the McGraw-Hill Companies, is looking for some magic of its own to raise circulation and keep advertisers interested. The Internet has hurt business magazines in particular, and the new BusinessWeek format — which includes more news summaries and fewer lifestyle articles — is meant to be more Weblike. “We’re seeing a reader who is much busier than ever,” said Stephen J. Adler, editor in chief of BusinessWeek. “But if you really add tremendous value to the reader and they’re deeply engaged in the material, the broad premise is, that’s good for everyone: the consumer and the advertiser.” Imitating the Web, for the Busy Reader [NYT]

Businessweek's soon to be revealed nip and tuck aims to enhance the un-enhanced

So the guys and gals over at Businessweek will roll out a new look with the October 12th issue. When it was first announced it was said that the blue line under the logo will be removed and inside, sections will have bigger, bolder font so we can navigate through the pages better. But that’s what the table of content is for though right? Well from the sound of things it seems like they did something similar to what Time did on the inside? Bigger page numbers,bold department names and a couple a new sections. Yawnish! We have taken 18 months to create this design, which was based on market research and reader input,” BusinessWeek group president Keith Fox tells Folio: Alert. Fox joined BusinessWeek in April after serving as president of McGraw-Hill Professional. “The goal of the redesign is to enhance the reader’s experience and to update the magazine to have a 21st century appeal. It will bring our readers faster, smarter and richer content. It would probably be best to call this a relaunch, not a redesign.” BusinessWeek Undergoes Redesign for '21st Century Appeal' [Folio]

Businessweek's techno-wonderboys

Businessweek magazine brings us their list of "next generation tech leaders" and they are not as scary looking as past Businessweek listees. This year's list represents tech's best and brightest, culled from a long list of nominees by the top U.S. venture-capital firms and BusinessWeek.com editors. As often is the case with younger entrepreneurs, a lot of these guys—and as it happens, they're all men—are helping drive innovation on the Internet. This year's hot areas include social networking, digital music, and Web applications. Others are on the cutting-edge of chips, and one is building a better flat-panel display. Tech's Next Gen: The Best and Brightest [Businessweek]