News appeared yesterday that Ziff Davis Holdings will not be making interest payments on its approximately $390 million of debt. This reminds me of my attempt through Jupitermedia to buy the whole company in the summer of 2005. I offered ZDH to buy all operations for no cash and the assumption of debt. I was laughed out of the room. The ZDH price was $850 million and assumption of debt! Of course this was a bail out price for Willis Stein Partners who had laid out $750 million for the ZD assets in 2000 (I wrote an article for Business 2.0 [September 26 issue of 2000] stating that Willis Stein had made a huge miscalculation). I guess my deal in the summer of 2005 would have been a good deal for ZDH?

This memory makes me also reflect on this article dealing with the theory that traditional media companies are falling all over themselves in their rush to purchase Web media properties.

Back in 1999-2001 when our company was heavily involved in VC work our premise was that in coming years all traditional media companies would be buyers of Web properties. This was a hard sell back then because VC investors wanted to do venture deals that would lead to IPOs. It was obvious to me that the IPO boom could not be sustained. I did not see the Internet crash that was developing, but did see the trend we have today.

We were able to raise close to $100 million for our three VC funds. But alas the larger investors, particularly the JP Morgan Private Client group, panicked in 2002 and forced us to close down our funds.

And while I am throwing stones here, I realize that our company has not been a stellar performer on the stock market. However we keep evolving and we have terrific assets and solid EBITDA. Jupitermedia is like the Union in the American Civil War. We have won some battles and lost some battles, but we are getting it together. Right now we should be equated with 1864 about the time U.S. Grant took command of the Union Armies. By April of 1865 the Union was victorious.