keeping the community informed…

This month our sponsor is ContextWeb, which has recently announced that the ADSDAQ Ad Exchange is open for trading.

ADSDAQ is a marketplace where site publishers and advertisers can set both a bid price and an ask price for advertising, creating in effect a scalable market for Internet advertising. Unlike either Yahoo! or Google alternatives, ADSDAQ enables advertisers to choose their own CPM rate and even the smallest of publishers to simply list their ad inventory. Advertisers get the opportunity to display ads on pages where the content is most relevant, making it ideal for the smaller publisher looking to reach a larger niche market such as blog readers for example.

With the arrival of the self service ADSDAQ Ad Exchange Selling Desk for small and medium size content publishers, pretty much everyone can start participating and discover why more than 1000 leading publishers (including more than 100 of the comScore 250's largest publishers) have been trading advertising impressions already.

When the ADSDAQ exchange cannot meet the publisher's AskPrice, it will serve ad tags from one or more back-up ad networks designated by the publisher. This ad trafficking and serving is provided for free as part of the ADSDAQ Selling Desk.

It's one big Madison Avenue, Wall Street, Main Street, Your Street mash-up!

ContextWeb reaches more than 54 million unique visitors monthly...

Please support our sponsors so we can continue supporting you!

usability tip of the month

There are two easy ways to quickly improve the way that DaniWeb responds to your needs for discussion and information: firstly, make sure you check out the Forum Tools dropdown menu (which you will find towards the top right hand side of every forum page) and use the 'subscribe to this forum' option. This enables you to then simply click in the Forum Highlights sidebar (which is on every page, the one that starts with posts since last visit) and obtain a listing of recent posts just within the forums to which you have subscribed. How cool is that? The answer is pretty cool, but not as cool as the new 'Show Solved Threads' link that appears towards the bottom of the listing of threads on forum pages and which turns DaniWeb into a true IT Knowledge Base application. This removes those postings for which solutions have not yet been posted from view, leaving you just with those threads that contain a question and the corresponding answer…

the ever expanding DaniWeb universe…

DaniWeb LLC has recently acquired ProgrammingForums.org which will be operated as a separate entity while getting a DaniWeb-inspired look and feel. Think of it as being a stripped down version of the DaniWeb software development forums, with very limited advertising and plain vanilla message boards aimed at the hardcore programmer and developer.

DaniWeb will remain the full-featured experience covering everything related to the IT world with forums, blogs, IT news, a code snippet library, tutorials, resources, social networking, and live chat. The advertising will also remain at DaniWeb, which enables us to offer this level of resource and community without charge. Of course, registered members can disable IntelliTXT adverts if they wish (although we ask that they don't in order to help us to continue helping you) and if you want to remove banner advertising this can be done with the simple donation of a few dollars a month to offset the revenue loss.

every month one member makes the DaniWeb hall of fame…

The latest entrant to the DaniWeb hall of fame is Crunchie who earns the much sought after 'Featured Poster' badge for his 6300+ postings since he joined us in February 2004. In this time our Australian friend has been a DaniWeb moderator, and remains one of our most valued assets as he answers your questions in the Viruses, Spyware and other Nasties forum. In fact, as we go to press, Crunchie has posted nearly 5700 responses in that forum alone! A proud member of the Alliance of Security Analysis Professionals he helps DaniWeb members at a time when they are feeling most vulnerable, when their computers are infected. His dedication to this role, and his devotion to DaniWeb, can be evidenced when he recently spent 10 days helping the son of a member to rid himself of a nasty infection. When asked if he would accept a financial payment for his help, Crunchie insisted the $50 donation be made to DaniWeb itself…

How old are you?

49

Where are you from?

Born in England and have been living in Australia since 1972.

What is your occupation?

I am a maintenance fitter working in the mining industry.

What brought you to DaniWeb?

I liked the layout of the site and also wanted to help a few people and learn something myself along the way.

What were your first impressions of DaniWeb, and have they changed during the time you have been with us?

First impressions were of a site that was well thought out and organised. I still think the same.

What makes you stay here?

For me, it's like slipping into a favourite pair of slippers . It was also one of the first sites I frequented and the first one I received moderator status from. Daniweb is definitely one of my favourite places to be.

You used to be a moderator, what made you stop?

I was approached and asked why I hadn't been around for a while, so I sat down and thought about it and found that I wasn't here as often as I had been and never gave the position the time it deserved and so agreed that the position may be better served by another of our valued members. On saying that, I notice there has still been no-one appointed to the position and would be willing to undertake the modship again sometime.

You spend most of your time on DaniWeb helping others sort out their computers when they have virus problems, a time consuming and complex job - why do you do it?

I love the challenge of being able to attempt to undo the work of these people who get a kick out of wrecking everyday users PC's. It can get frustrating, but I am blessed with a lot of patience.

What are your interests outside of IT and outside of DaniWeb?

Raising one of my daughters. Helping on the other side of this monitor by doing hands on fixing of people's PC's. Fishing, when I get the time and driving in the country.

Name the best thing about DaniWeb, and one thing you would change if it were in your power?

Best thing? I would have to say it is the membership. One thing I would get rid of are these little thumbshots that give the Opera browser problems.

How long do you spend, on average, on DaniWeb every day?

Probably an hour or two all up. Not bad considering that I work 12 hours a day.

And finally: Windows, Mac or Linux?

Windows! It has been my only exposure to operating systems.

by Brian.oco

It’s back.

The dot.com bubble, that is. And with it comes a new wave of venture capitalists that are pouring money not just into Internet companies, but in life sciences companies, as well.
And in increasingly larger numbers.

An October article in The New York Times says it all. “Internet companies with funny names, little revenue and few customers are commanding high prices. And investors, having seemingly forgotten the pain of the first dot-com bust, are displaying symptoms of the disorder known as irrational exuberance.”

While The Times focuses more on technology companies like Facebook, Yahoo and Google, the evidence points to a burgeoning number of venture capitalists snapping open their checkbooks and waving them in the direction of biotechnology companies.

According to Healthcare Corporate Finance News, health care technology firms garnered roughly $2.5 billion of venture capital funding during the third quarter of 2007. That’s up 10% from the same period in 2006 in terms of new venture deals, and up 14% in terms of revenues pouring into health care companies.

The life sciences sector comprises the lion’s share of the new deals (see chart below)

Health Care Venture Capital Investments, Third Quarter Ended June 30, 2007

Sector Number of Deals Dollar Amount, in millions

Medical Devices 34 $622.65
Services & Other 8 $503.00
Biopharmaceuticals 20 $472.54
Pharmaceuticals 21 $390.50
Biotechnology 26 $358.15
e-Health 12 $106.30
Total 121 $2,453.14

In a study of venture fund activity throughout the first three quarters of 2007, Healthcare Corporate Finance reports that the medical device technology sector topped the list of life sciences companies gaining the most venture funding, with 25% of the quarterly dollar total for all sectors combined. “The second-largest deal of the quarter, a $110 million Series E financing for Globus Medical, a developer of spinal implant systems and biomaterials, was led by Clarus Ventures. Neuromed Pharmaceuticals, a biopharma developing drugs for chronic pain, announced the largest deal among pharma, biopharma and biotech companies, with a $53.3 million Series E financing led by MPM Capital.”, says the report.

In the entire health care technology field, the busiest companies were not attracting single venture investors, but sometimes four or five of them. That’s a telling sign. A rule of thumb on Wall Street is that if more than one venture firm is knocking on your door, then the investment purse strings are really loosening. That has to be considered good news in the technology sector, particularly for smaller start-up companies who should most benefit from a pumped-up venture funding climate. The evidence backs that theory up. Seed money into smaller companies accounted for 29% of all venture investments in the first quarter of 2007, up from 26% during the same quarter in 2006.

The life sciences sector hasn’t seen this big a pipeline since the 2001, when venture firms turned away from internet companies and toward biopharm companies in a desperate bid to stem the losses incurred when vast armies of dot.com dinosaurs went belly-up. The fact that, as The Times points out, the rise in venture funding in the life sciences market this year coincides with the rise in venture funding in the Internet market, is somewhat worrisome. After all, it was only six or seven years ago when an estimated $1.5 billion was lost by venture capital firms. Shouldn’t they be worried about history repeating itself?

Maybe not. One reason for optimism is that in those last seven years, the baby boomers have gotten seven years older. In the mind of many Wall Street mavens, that means more consumer demand for the kinds of disease-fighting and life-enhancing products pouring out of life sciences companies these days. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that as the Boomers advance in age, the market for health-related technologies will grow along with them. In addition, the Boomers are sitting on some pretty fat wallets, and are only too willing to pay to stay fit and healthy.

Another reason for the expanded financial pipelines is that Wall Street has noticed that the biopharm sector has, by and large, increased its research and development capacities.
According to the Journal of Life Sciences, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector is now the largest market in terms of research and development investment, leapfrogging over the technology hardware and equipment sector last year. It’s only fair to mention that the big boys are amping up the R&D machines, with Pfizer setting the tone with total research & development investment of $7.6 billion, an increase of 2.1 percent over the previous year. Others are gearing up R&D investment, as well. Among the biopharm firms among the list of the top 50 R&D investors that demonstrated big spikes in R&D spending last year were Merck (up 24.3 percent from the previous year), AstraZeneca (15.5 percent), Roche (15.5 percent), Johnson & Johnson (12.9 percent), Novartis (10.7 percent), and GlaxoSmithKline (10 percent). Worldwide, investment in R&D rose 10 percent over 2005.

Traditionally, research and development has been a sore spot for Wall Street investors, which pushes and pulls money in and out of life sciences in a reactionary fashion. If biotech companies demonstrate that they’re serious about creating new vaccines and treatments then, as the saying goes, the money will follow. And, increasingly, the benchmark that investors use to gauge the seriousness of biopharm companies is research and development funding.

The increase in biopharm funding might be also be tied to some ulterior motives on the part of venture investors. We’re in an age of major merger and acquisition activity in the life sciences market. Venture capitalists seem willing to pour more money into promising biopharm firms to hopefully catch the eye of a big pharma company on the prowl for new M&A opportunities. Much like a homeowner sprucing up the joint before putting his house on the market, venture investors are earmarking more funds for things like mid-stage clinical trials of experimental drugs to make potential suitors sit up and take notice.

So where is all this new money coming from - - and will it continue to flow? The New York Times article says it’s a combination of Wall Street and academia, particularly endowment funds groaning under the weight of new investment money and from hedge funds looking for new profit opportunities.

That’s another good sign for technology companies looking for new investors. For the reasons mentioned above, investor’s eyes have turned to the biotech sector. There’s something in the air, and it all points to a financially flush venture funding environment heading into 2008.

Let’s just hope that, as far as bubbles go, history doesn’t repeat it self.