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BNET Daily Dispatch: Coca-Cola, Facebook, Gap, and Google
By
Andrew Hines
May 25th, 2007 @ 6:52 am
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Categories: General
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- Coke last night agreed to pay $4.1 billion for Glaceau, bottler of the Vitaminwater brand of non-carbonated drinks. The acquisition is by far the largest in Coke’s history, and represents a big move to compete against Pepsi in the fast-growing non-carbonated beverage market. Coke’s soft drink sales volume fell 1.2 percent last year.
- Facebook, the second-largest social networking Web site, announced yesterday a new strategy to become the “social operating system” of the Internet. Facebook invited thousands of tech companies and programmers to contribute features to its services, offering them a chance to generate revenue and saying it wouldn’t take a cut. Facebook has 24 million active users and is headed by 23-year-old Mark Zuckerberg.
- Gap yesterday announced a new product and marketing strategy, along with a 26 percent drop in first-quarter profit. The struggling retailer’s new strategy focuses on consumers in their late-20s, differentiating the store from teen-centric clothiers Abercrombie & Fitch and Urban Outfitters. Interim chief executive, Robert Fischer, said “the focus on the late-20s customer is going to allow us much [a] more focused product assortment, [and] much stronger marketing messages.”
- Google received a letter in Paris today warning that the company could be violating EU privacy laws. The notice comes specifically from the Article 29 working party and says that Google’s policy of retaining users’ query data for two years is too long. Google responded by emphasizing its commitment to engage in a “constructive dialogue with privacy stakeholders.”
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