Trouble and trends, they say, come in threes. Today, a trifecta of deals shows how old-school web companies are engaging in a little retail therapy because they must, and because Wall Street has given them the equivalent of a year-end bonus, thanks to an uplift in tech stocks.
- Amazon is buying Quidsi, the parent of Diapers.com, for $500 million in cash, or roughly 3 times Quidsi’s 2009 sales. Diapers.com is a hit with the mommy set and is on target to generate $300 million in sales for 2010. Amazon will assume $45 million in debt as well.
- QuinStreet, an online marketing and lead-generation company is buying CarInsurance.com for $49.7 million in cash and is expanding its footprint in the insurance business. CarInsurance.com, as the name suggests, sells car insurance online and provides leads to automobile insurers.
- Shutterfly, an online photo service, bought the assets of WMSG Inc., for $6 million and will use these to expand its commercial print-on-demand business. WSMG was in the business of helping deliver direct-marketing campaigns for large companies like Toyota and Dell
Now, while we all like to obsess about what company Google will buy next, the recent wave of M&A shows that it’s actually these old school web companies of a certain age that are looking at a current boom in tech stocks as a way to bolster their businesses. A report from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) recently noted that during the third quarter of 2010, there were 104 mergers, a trend they expected to continue. And why not?
Over the past two months, the tech-heavy NASDAQ composite is up almost 500 points or roughly 18.5 percent to over 2800. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the tech stocks in the S&P 500 are trading at 13.9 times their forward earnings, versus the average of 12.7 times for the entire index. The current rally in technology stocks is driven by profits and growing sales for companies such as QuinStreet and Amazon.
QuinStreet’s stock is up 60 percent over the past three months, while Amazon has seen its stock jump 40 percent since early September, and Shutterfly shares have climbed over 35 percent since August of this year. Positive earnings are only adding to their coffers, which in turn means they can be used to beef up their businesses.
For related research check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):
- Cleantech Financing Trends 2010 & Beyond
- Report: U.S. Mobile Venture Capital Investment, Q2 2010
- Motives and Possibilities for a Big Apple Acquisition
My return to New York has reminded me of the existence of “Cool.” It was conspicuously absent from my summer stomping ground, Menlo Park, and I certainly don’t have much of it naturally, so I forgot about it until a few weeks ago.
You can imagine my not-in-Kansas-anymore reaction to passing clubs on a Saturday with a line around the corner — “hackathons” don’t exactly draw such crowds. While I’ve lived in NYC twice before during the summers of 2002 and 2009, I had mostly forgotten about Cool. Perhaps it’s because the tech world has always been the anti-Cool (or “Zero Cool” if you want…) and much of its culture and identity has been developed around an aversion to all forms of hipness.
Yet I can’t help but think about how the release of The Social Network will change mainstream perception of the tech world. In the same way that Hot Topic and Urban Decay hip-ified and mainstream-ified punk/goth/grunge right around the time when kids like me worshipped Kurt Cobain, I wonder if the same thing will happen to the once sacredly anti-Cool world of nerdom.
One of the first things I did upon my return to the city was accompany a friend to “Nerd Nite“. It was a series of lectures about topics that ranged from Race & Role Playing Games to Cancer. And while I thought I knew the types of people that attended stuff like this, I had clearly misjudged – when I looked around the room halfway through I noticed there was a healthy percentage of very dressed-up model-esque types in attendance. And for further evidence, look no further than the NY Times Sunday Styles section — with stories on TEDx, iPhones for babies, and, of course, The Social Network.
Has geekdom officially jumped the shark?
I was in high school in 2001 when the PBS Frontline Report “The Merchants of Cool” came out. I watched it with my best friend and remember how it shook our collective worlds in this profound way (when you’re 17, everything is profound). It was an hour-long exploration into how marketers try to manipulate teens. We were right in the sweet spot of the demographic and I was at once outraged and enlightened. Was everything I so deeply believed in just the product of some evil marketing overlord?
Thankfully, nerds have always been pretty crappy marketers (huge exception: Apple). They never had to be good because of phenomenons like “virality” and network effects and because advertising and branding were professions reserved for people who had some interest in Cool. The marketing budget for many tech/mobile startups is $0, even today. But I dare you to try and launch an energy drink with a $0 marketing budget.
I believe that is changing. There’s a great presentation about the impending convergence between Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley. While it will still take some time for Cool to trickle all the way across the country to Silicon Valley, I can feel its omnipresence in NYC Tech, even more strongly than I did just last summer. NYC knows how to manufacture Cool, and the cruise-ship-like behavior of big brands is finally starting to embrace “digital spend” in more creative ways (thanks Old Spice guy).
This feels somewhat new, and I’ll be honest, kind of bizarre. What happens in a world where where Paul Graham and Ashton Kutcher are homeboys, Biz Stone hawks liquor and Mark Zuckerberg is the new Kurt Cobain?
Stay tuned.
Amanda Peyton is the co-founder of MessageParty, a location-based mobile messaging application. She is a Y Combinator alumni, recent MIT Sloan graduate, and New York City resident. This column has been modified from a version originally published in her newsletter. Find out more at amandapeyton.com.
Follow us on Twitter.
Sign up for Mediaite’s daily newsletter.
eric seiger
Good <b>news</b>: State seizes newborn baby after mom eats poppy seed <b>...</b>
Hey, heard a few days ago on the news that they(they meaning either health officials here in PA or it was HHS) were going to start screening all new mothers for depression several times each year. Mandatory screenings for depression. ...
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
In Hiring Joel Klein, <b>News</b> Corporation Signals Interest in <b>...</b>
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, signaling an interest in the education sector, has hired Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor. News Corporation announced Mr. Klein's hiring shortly after it was reported that he was ...
eric seiger
Trouble and trends, they say, come in threes. Today, a trifecta of deals shows how old-school web companies are engaging in a little retail therapy because they must, and because Wall Street has given them the equivalent of a year-end bonus, thanks to an uplift in tech stocks.
- Amazon is buying Quidsi, the parent of Diapers.com, for $500 million in cash, or roughly 3 times Quidsi’s 2009 sales. Diapers.com is a hit with the mommy set and is on target to generate $300 million in sales for 2010. Amazon will assume $45 million in debt as well.
- QuinStreet, an online marketing and lead-generation company is buying CarInsurance.com for $49.7 million in cash and is expanding its footprint in the insurance business. CarInsurance.com, as the name suggests, sells car insurance online and provides leads to automobile insurers.
- Shutterfly, an online photo service, bought the assets of WMSG Inc., for $6 million and will use these to expand its commercial print-on-demand business. WSMG was in the business of helping deliver direct-marketing campaigns for large companies like Toyota and Dell
Now, while we all like to obsess about what company Google will buy next, the recent wave of M&A shows that it’s actually these old school web companies of a certain age that are looking at a current boom in tech stocks as a way to bolster their businesses. A report from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) recently noted that during the third quarter of 2010, there were 104 mergers, a trend they expected to continue. And why not?
Over the past two months, the tech-heavy NASDAQ composite is up almost 500 points or roughly 18.5 percent to over 2800. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the tech stocks in the S&P 500 are trading at 13.9 times their forward earnings, versus the average of 12.7 times for the entire index. The current rally in technology stocks is driven by profits and growing sales for companies such as QuinStreet and Amazon.
QuinStreet’s stock is up 60 percent over the past three months, while Amazon has seen its stock jump 40 percent since early September, and Shutterfly shares have climbed over 35 percent since August of this year. Positive earnings are only adding to their coffers, which in turn means they can be used to beef up their businesses.
For related research check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):
- Cleantech Financing Trends 2010 & Beyond
- Report: U.S. Mobile Venture Capital Investment, Q2 2010
- Motives and Possibilities for a Big Apple Acquisition
My return to New York has reminded me of the existence of “Cool.” It was conspicuously absent from my summer stomping ground, Menlo Park, and I certainly don’t have much of it naturally, so I forgot about it until a few weeks ago.
You can imagine my not-in-Kansas-anymore reaction to passing clubs on a Saturday with a line around the corner — “hackathons” don’t exactly draw such crowds. While I’ve lived in NYC twice before during the summers of 2002 and 2009, I had mostly forgotten about Cool. Perhaps it’s because the tech world has always been the anti-Cool (or “Zero Cool” if you want…) and much of its culture and identity has been developed around an aversion to all forms of hipness.
Yet I can’t help but think about how the release of The Social Network will change mainstream perception of the tech world. In the same way that Hot Topic and Urban Decay hip-ified and mainstream-ified punk/goth/grunge right around the time when kids like me worshipped Kurt Cobain, I wonder if the same thing will happen to the once sacredly anti-Cool world of nerdom.
One of the first things I did upon my return to the city was accompany a friend to “Nerd Nite“. It was a series of lectures about topics that ranged from Race & Role Playing Games to Cancer. And while I thought I knew the types of people that attended stuff like this, I had clearly misjudged – when I looked around the room halfway through I noticed there was a healthy percentage of very dressed-up model-esque types in attendance. And for further evidence, look no further than the NY Times Sunday Styles section — with stories on TEDx, iPhones for babies, and, of course, The Social Network.
Has geekdom officially jumped the shark?
I was in high school in 2001 when the PBS Frontline Report “The Merchants of Cool” came out. I watched it with my best friend and remember how it shook our collective worlds in this profound way (when you’re 17, everything is profound). It was an hour-long exploration into how marketers try to manipulate teens. We were right in the sweet spot of the demographic and I was at once outraged and enlightened. Was everything I so deeply believed in just the product of some evil marketing overlord?
Thankfully, nerds have always been pretty crappy marketers (huge exception: Apple). They never had to be good because of phenomenons like “virality” and network effects and because advertising and branding were professions reserved for people who had some interest in Cool. The marketing budget for many tech/mobile startups is $0, even today. But I dare you to try and launch an energy drink with a $0 marketing budget.
I believe that is changing. There’s a great presentation about the impending convergence between Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley. While it will still take some time for Cool to trickle all the way across the country to Silicon Valley, I can feel its omnipresence in NYC Tech, even more strongly than I did just last summer. NYC knows how to manufacture Cool, and the cruise-ship-like behavior of big brands is finally starting to embrace “digital spend” in more creative ways (thanks Old Spice guy).
This feels somewhat new, and I’ll be honest, kind of bizarre. What happens in a world where where Paul Graham and Ashton Kutcher are homeboys, Biz Stone hawks liquor and Mark Zuckerberg is the new Kurt Cobain?
Stay tuned.
Amanda Peyton is the co-founder of MessageParty, a location-based mobile messaging application. She is a Y Combinator alumni, recent MIT Sloan graduate, and New York City resident. This column has been modified from a version originally published in her newsletter. Find out more at amandapeyton.com.
Follow us on Twitter.
Sign up for Mediaite’s daily newsletter.
eric seiger
Good <b>news</b>: State seizes newborn baby after mom eats poppy seed <b>...</b>
Hey, heard a few days ago on the news that they(they meaning either health officials here in PA or it was HHS) were going to start screening all new mothers for depression several times each year. Mandatory screenings for depression. ...
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
In Hiring Joel Klein, <b>News</b> Corporation Signals Interest in <b>...</b>
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, signaling an interest in the education sector, has hired Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor. News Corporation announced Mr. Klein's hiring shortly after it was reported that he was ...
eric seiger
eric seiger
eric seiger
Good <b>news</b>: State seizes newborn baby after mom eats poppy seed <b>...</b>
Hey, heard a few days ago on the news that they(they meaning either health officials here in PA or it was HHS) were going to start screening all new mothers for depression several times each year. Mandatory screenings for depression. ...
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
In Hiring Joel Klein, <b>News</b> Corporation Signals Interest in <b>...</b>
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, signaling an interest in the education sector, has hired Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor. News Corporation announced Mr. Klein's hiring shortly after it was reported that he was ...
eric seiger
Trouble and trends, they say, come in threes. Today, a trifecta of deals shows how old-school web companies are engaging in a little retail therapy because they must, and because Wall Street has given them the equivalent of a year-end bonus, thanks to an uplift in tech stocks.
- Amazon is buying Quidsi, the parent of Diapers.com, for $500 million in cash, or roughly 3 times Quidsi’s 2009 sales. Diapers.com is a hit with the mommy set and is on target to generate $300 million in sales for 2010. Amazon will assume $45 million in debt as well.
- QuinStreet, an online marketing and lead-generation company is buying CarInsurance.com for $49.7 million in cash and is expanding its footprint in the insurance business. CarInsurance.com, as the name suggests, sells car insurance online and provides leads to automobile insurers.
- Shutterfly, an online photo service, bought the assets of WMSG Inc., for $6 million and will use these to expand its commercial print-on-demand business. WSMG was in the business of helping deliver direct-marketing campaigns for large companies like Toyota and Dell
Now, while we all like to obsess about what company Google will buy next, the recent wave of M&A shows that it’s actually these old school web companies of a certain age that are looking at a current boom in tech stocks as a way to bolster their businesses. A report from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) recently noted that during the third quarter of 2010, there were 104 mergers, a trend they expected to continue. And why not?
Over the past two months, the tech-heavy NASDAQ composite is up almost 500 points or roughly 18.5 percent to over 2800. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the tech stocks in the S&P 500 are trading at 13.9 times their forward earnings, versus the average of 12.7 times for the entire index. The current rally in technology stocks is driven by profits and growing sales for companies such as QuinStreet and Amazon.
QuinStreet’s stock is up 60 percent over the past three months, while Amazon has seen its stock jump 40 percent since early September, and Shutterfly shares have climbed over 35 percent since August of this year. Positive earnings are only adding to their coffers, which in turn means they can be used to beef up their businesses.
For related research check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):
- Cleantech Financing Trends 2010 & Beyond
- Report: U.S. Mobile Venture Capital Investment, Q2 2010
- Motives and Possibilities for a Big Apple Acquisition
My return to New York has reminded me of the existence of “Cool.” It was conspicuously absent from my summer stomping ground, Menlo Park, and I certainly don’t have much of it naturally, so I forgot about it until a few weeks ago.
You can imagine my not-in-Kansas-anymore reaction to passing clubs on a Saturday with a line around the corner — “hackathons” don’t exactly draw such crowds. While I’ve lived in NYC twice before during the summers of 2002 and 2009, I had mostly forgotten about Cool. Perhaps it’s because the tech world has always been the anti-Cool (or “Zero Cool” if you want…) and much of its culture and identity has been developed around an aversion to all forms of hipness.
Yet I can’t help but think about how the release of The Social Network will change mainstream perception of the tech world. In the same way that Hot Topic and Urban Decay hip-ified and mainstream-ified punk/goth/grunge right around the time when kids like me worshipped Kurt Cobain, I wonder if the same thing will happen to the once sacredly anti-Cool world of nerdom.
One of the first things I did upon my return to the city was accompany a friend to “Nerd Nite“. It was a series of lectures about topics that ranged from Race & Role Playing Games to Cancer. And while I thought I knew the types of people that attended stuff like this, I had clearly misjudged – when I looked around the room halfway through I noticed there was a healthy percentage of very dressed-up model-esque types in attendance. And for further evidence, look no further than the NY Times Sunday Styles section — with stories on TEDx, iPhones for babies, and, of course, The Social Network.
Has geekdom officially jumped the shark?
I was in high school in 2001 when the PBS Frontline Report “The Merchants of Cool” came out. I watched it with my best friend and remember how it shook our collective worlds in this profound way (when you’re 17, everything is profound). It was an hour-long exploration into how marketers try to manipulate teens. We were right in the sweet spot of the demographic and I was at once outraged and enlightened. Was everything I so deeply believed in just the product of some evil marketing overlord?
Thankfully, nerds have always been pretty crappy marketers (huge exception: Apple). They never had to be good because of phenomenons like “virality” and network effects and because advertising and branding were professions reserved for people who had some interest in Cool. The marketing budget for many tech/mobile startups is $0, even today. But I dare you to try and launch an energy drink with a $0 marketing budget.
I believe that is changing. There’s a great presentation about the impending convergence between Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley. While it will still take some time for Cool to trickle all the way across the country to Silicon Valley, I can feel its omnipresence in NYC Tech, even more strongly than I did just last summer. NYC knows how to manufacture Cool, and the cruise-ship-like behavior of big brands is finally starting to embrace “digital spend” in more creative ways (thanks Old Spice guy).
This feels somewhat new, and I’ll be honest, kind of bizarre. What happens in a world where where Paul Graham and Ashton Kutcher are homeboys, Biz Stone hawks liquor and Mark Zuckerberg is the new Kurt Cobain?
Stay tuned.
Amanda Peyton is the co-founder of MessageParty, a location-based mobile messaging application. She is a Y Combinator alumni, recent MIT Sloan graduate, and New York City resident. This column has been modified from a version originally published in her newsletter. Find out more at amandapeyton.com.
Follow us on Twitter.
Sign up for Mediaite’s daily newsletter.
eric seiger
eric seiger
Good <b>news</b>: State seizes newborn baby after mom eats poppy seed <b>...</b>
Hey, heard a few days ago on the news that they(they meaning either health officials here in PA or it was HHS) were going to start screening all new mothers for depression several times each year. Mandatory screenings for depression. ...
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
In Hiring Joel Klein, <b>News</b> Corporation Signals Interest in <b>...</b>
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, signaling an interest in the education sector, has hired Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor. News Corporation announced Mr. Klein's hiring shortly after it was reported that he was ...
eric seiger
eric seiger
Good <b>news</b>: State seizes newborn baby after mom eats poppy seed <b>...</b>
Hey, heard a few days ago on the news that they(they meaning either health officials here in PA or it was HHS) were going to start screening all new mothers for depression several times each year. Mandatory screenings for depression. ...
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
In Hiring Joel Klein, <b>News</b> Corporation Signals Interest in <b>...</b>
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, signaling an interest in the education sector, has hired Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor. News Corporation announced Mr. Klein's hiring shortly after it was reported that he was ...
eric seiger
Good <b>news</b>: State seizes newborn baby after mom eats poppy seed <b>...</b>
Hey, heard a few days ago on the news that they(they meaning either health officials here in PA or it was HHS) were going to start screening all new mothers for depression several times each year. Mandatory screenings for depression. ...
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
In Hiring Joel Klein, <b>News</b> Corporation Signals Interest in <b>...</b>
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, signaling an interest in the education sector, has hired Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor. News Corporation announced Mr. Klein's hiring shortly after it was reported that he was ...
eric seiger
Good <b>news</b>: State seizes newborn baby after mom eats poppy seed <b>...</b>
Hey, heard a few days ago on the news that they(they meaning either health officials here in PA or it was HHS) were going to start screening all new mothers for depression several times each year. Mandatory screenings for depression. ...
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
In Hiring Joel Klein, <b>News</b> Corporation Signals Interest in <b>...</b>
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, signaling an interest in the education sector, has hired Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor. News Corporation announced Mr. Klein's hiring shortly after it was reported that he was ...
eric seiger eric seiger
eric seiger
eric seiger
eric seiger
Good <b>news</b>: State seizes newborn baby after mom eats poppy seed <b>...</b>
Hey, heard a few days ago on the news that they(they meaning either health officials here in PA or it was HHS) were going to start screening all new mothers for depression several times each year. Mandatory screenings for depression. ...
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
In Hiring Joel Klein, <b>News</b> Corporation Signals Interest in <b>...</b>
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, signaling an interest in the education sector, has hired Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor. News Corporation announced Mr. Klein's hiring shortly after it was reported that he was ...
When trying to decide on an internet marketing company there are many factors to consider. But before you can decide on what will work for you, you need to understand "what is internet marketing".
Internet Marketing is an all-inclusive term for marketing products and/or services online - and like many all-inclusive terms, Internet marketing means different things to different people.
Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, e-mail marketing, and Web 2.0 strategies.
Internet marketing is relatively inexpensive when compared to the ratio of cost against the reach of the target audience. Internet marketers also have the advantage of measuring statistics easily and inexpensively.
Internet marketing requires customers to use newer technologies rather than traditional media. Low-speed Internet connections or lack of an internet connection all together are some barriers to this medium.
Internet advertising and SEO companies provides professional strategy and services for marketing online, web site marketing and Internet advertising. When you research search engine optimization companies and Internet marketing firms, you will find many companies that offer outstanding web site promotion services and an expert SEM consulting. In today's internet marketing world, there are a many companies that will fit your specific needs. Not to mention that competiveness also makes the over cost very affordable. Remember; don't settle on the first company you come across. Do a competitive analysis of at least 3 different companies.
Current Internet marketing, web site promotion and search engine optimization methodologies and best practices, involves thinking about having potential new clients viewing your web site, from the time you choose your domain name until you have many rich content web pages, and you are implementing programs to increase your web site traffic.
This includes paid advertising from Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. and natural search engine rankings. These costs can and do vary greatly. They ultimately depend on many factors, including but not limited to the following:
How competitive your keyword phrases are. If you want paid banner, text, and or Pay per Click (PPC) advertising. Remember this is marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), the bigger your budget the more multiple campaigns you can run.
How extensive of a relevant text link building campaign you want. Depending on your budget you can have a staff working on this full time or you can have a one time blast that tries to accomplish the biggest band for your buck. There are hundreds of more factors involved but as you find while doing your research, there are many options at your disposal to fit your budget.
eric seiger
Good <b>news</b>: State seizes newborn baby after mom eats poppy seed <b>...</b>
Hey, heard a few days ago on the news that they(they meaning either health officials here in PA or it was HHS) were going to start screening all new mothers for depression several times each year. Mandatory screenings for depression. ...
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
In Hiring Joel Klein, <b>News</b> Corporation Signals Interest in <b>...</b>
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, signaling an interest in the education sector, has hired Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor. News Corporation announced Mr. Klein's hiring shortly after it was reported that he was ...
eric seiger
Good <b>news</b>: State seizes newborn baby after mom eats poppy seed <b>...</b>
Hey, heard a few days ago on the news that they(they meaning either health officials here in PA or it was HHS) were going to start screening all new mothers for depression several times each year. Mandatory screenings for depression. ...
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
In Hiring Joel Klein, <b>News</b> Corporation Signals Interest in <b>...</b>
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, signaling an interest in the education sector, has hired Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor. News Corporation announced Mr. Klein's hiring shortly after it was reported that he was ...
eric seiger
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