Citi Cuts Estimates on Google's Earnings, Click Growth [Silicon Alley Insider]

Citi analyst Mark Mahaney trimmed Google's (GOOG) Q1 and 2008 estimates: Q1 down to $4.50 per share from $4.65, and for the year down to $19.08 from $20. He also cut the earnings estimates of 2009 and 2010.

What to blame? What else? Lackluster paid-click growth, of course. Citing comScore and ChannelAdvisor, he says that Q1's click growth will be flat with Q4 and up 16% y/y. That's down from 4% growth sequentially and 20% y/y.

But Mark's not completely sold, it turns out. Citi's own research, he says, doesn't reflect this 'dramatic growth deceleration.' So he says he lowered estimates to 'cautiously err.' We'd rather Mark just go ahead and tell us what he really thinks, instead of hedging, but fine.

Either way, we expect to see more analysts coming to the same conclusions (and some contrarians refuting them).

peHUB First Read [PE HUB]

Some links to kick off your Monday: * Tom Perkins’ yacht can be yours, for just €115 million. He reportedly spent around $150 million building it just two years ago. * DealBook games out the Clear Channel lawsuits. Let me add another reason why the banks might have trouble: I’m told that there is an email discussing how the lenders planned to [...]

Twenty-Five Square Miles Surrounded by Reality [Feld Thoughts]

The New York Times Magazine had an outstanding article on Boulder today.  The photos paint an accurate picture and the article captures the essence of a place that I love.

I moved to Boulder in 1995.  Last year while fundraising, I was regularly asked "how did you end up in Boulder?"  Following is the short version of the story (which will sound familiar to anyone that has heard it - feel free to skip the indented paragraph.)

I moved to Boston from Dallas in 1983 to go to MIT.  I lived in Boston for a little over 12 years - that was 11 years and 364 days too many.  I liked Boston and wouldn't trade my experience at MIT for anything, but Boston was just never home for me.  I sold my first company in 1993 and told my wife Amy that by the time I turned 30 (12/1/95) we'd have! left Boston.  Two months before I turned 30, Amy told me she was moving to Boulder and I was welcome to join her if I wanted.  I figured that my worst case scenario was that we wouldn't like Boulder and we'd keep heading west to the bay area.  When we got to Boulder we knew one person; he moved away six months later.  So we were really starting from scratch.  Every day was better than the preceding one and after six months we bought a house in the mountains and knew that Boulder would be our home base for the balance of our time on this planet.

I have now lived in Boulder longer than I lived in Boston (and not quite as long as I lived in Dallas.)  Every day when I wake up in Boulder I fall in love with the place all over again.  I have houses in Keystone, Colorado and Homer, Alaska - which are also amazing places that I'm fortunate to spend time living in. Amy and I travel regularly (for work and pleasure) to a ! bunch of big cities that we love spending chunks of time in (New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Paris, London, and even Boston.)  However, coming back to Boulder and our place in Eldorado Springs is always magically grounding.

The article had a few inaccuracies and missed plenty of things.  I'd add a couple of quick ones that jumped out at me:

• Trustafarian - that's the local word for the "vestigal hippies and wannabes" that live in their "trophy shacks."  Boulder is a safe place for a trustafarian.
• Food - I'm bummed that the writer (Florence Williams) didn't say more about The Kitchen.  My friends Kimbal and Hugo (and their incredible staff) have created a phenomenal local institution that any visitor should have a meal at.
• Transplanted Silicon Valley millionaires: While dining at L'Atelier, the writer comments on being surrounded by a "mix of atmospheric scientists! and transplanted Silicon Valley millionaires."  While Boulder has its share of transplanted Silicon Valley millionaires, I'd bet that the ones at L'Atelier that night were mostly of the home grown variety (there are a lot more of those than the transplants) as well as some trustafarians who felt like a nice high end meal.

While Boulder certainly isn't for everyone, it's definitely for me and Amy.

Man Machine Failures Plague Heathrow Terminal Opening [Venture Chronicles]

Heathrow’s Terminal 5 opened yesterday with a resounding thud that left travelers and employees stranded and BAA and British Airways officials red faced and shamed. This is as much a failure of man as it is the systems that have been designed and implemented.

There is simply no excuse for employees not being able to log [...]

Apply To TechStars Now [Feld Thoughts]

You've got three more days - the application deadline closes on 3/31 at midnight!  If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at www.techstars.org or some of the past posts I've written about TechStars.  TechStars 2007 produced some cool companies, including several that have been making plenty of noise lately such as SocialThing, Intense Debate, and Filtrbox.  Apply now to be a part of TechStars 2008.

Sex Workers Turned To Twitter, iPhones, Tumblr During Spitzer Scandal [Silicon Alley Insider]

Twitter, iPhones, Tumblr, and other new communications tools were indispensable during the the Eliot Spitzer Ashley Alexandra Dupre scandal, sex workers say. Spokespeople for the profession organized a media blitz using these and other technologies. Wired's Regina Lynn reports.

[Former sex worker and Desiree Alliance founder Melissa] Gira was attending the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, when she found herself thrust into the media spotlight during the Spitzer meltdown. (She was covering the conference for Valleywag.)

"The only way to survive the barrage of reporters and questions from the sex-worker organizations was to buy an iPhone," she says. "South by Southwest was so horrible for iPhone peer pressure -- I was hardly the only person to leave with one."

Activists developed a list of current and former sex workers willing to talk about the escort industry, along with what types of media they could and couldn't do, and whether they would give out their real names.

"Lots of people were at South by Southwest [when the Spitzer story broke] and didn't have time to check e-mail every five minutes," says Amber Rhea, organizer of the upcoming Sex 2.0 conference in Atlanta. "It didn't matter. They used Twitter, text messaging -- they did interviews with hardly any advance notice."

Sex worker adoption aside, South by Southwest does appear to have been a watershed event for Twitter, which now appears on the verge of going mainstream.

Face Time with the Blue Monster (In Canada) [The Post Money Value]

Those wild and crazy kids at Microsoft Canada have put together an award/contest called Blue Sky -ISV Innovation Awards. What is the Blue Sky Award? "The Blue Sky Award represents an exceptional opportunity for you to showcase your great idea. If you think your application...

Ventrus Bio Strikes Licensing Deal for Iferanserin [Colorado Life Science Deal Flow]

Ventrus Biosciences, a specialty pharmaceutical company based in Greenwood Village, focused on the late-stage development and commercialization of gastrointestinal products, and Sam Amer & Co. (who I need to dig up some additional info on â€" a simple google search yields nada…) announced an agreement granting Ventrus exclusive world wide rights to develop and commercialize Iferanserin (VEN309) a Phase III topical ointment for the treatment of hemorrhoids. Under the terms of the agreement Ventrus has been grant! ed exclusive world-wide development and marketing rights in exchange of up-front payments on the execution of the license followed by potential milestone and royalty payments if VEN309 is successfully developed and commercialized. Iferanserin ointment has an active IND submission file at the FDA. Based on a February 2008 meeting with the FDA, Ventrus is preparing a special protocol assessment request, and plans to initiate the first Phase III trials for iferanserin ointment early in 4Q08.

Ventrus concentrates on licensing late-stage gastrointestinal products in areas of unmet need. The development strategy for each asset is based on the most efficient path to regulatory approval, with the full potential of each asset achieved by means of additional post-marketing indications.

For more info on the Ventrus model be certain to take a look at the beautiful new website that President & CEO Thom Rowland recently launched...take a look (here).

*NOTE* Feel the power of the Colorado BioScience Association (HERE)!
*NOTE* Take a look at the new Boulder Biotech Company Tree (HERE)!
*NOTE* Read the new eBook CLSDF 2007 - What's In A Year? (HERE)!

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GTA IV Trailer [Venture Chronicles]

Video game trailers are so much better than movie trailers… too bad this one isn’t embeddable, they are missing a huge viral opportunity.

Waiting For HD DVD Fire Sale? S.O.L. [Silicon Alley Insider]

Hopeing to get an HD DVD version of "Anchorman" for a low, low price? Best Buy (BBY) isn't going to give you the chance.

The giant electronics chain has yanked its remaining HD DVD titles from its shelves, rather than trying to extract a few more dollars out of the would-be next-gen DVD format. The store had been offering a 30% discount on HD DVD titles, but at about $21 per movie. But that's still a lot to pay for a dead medium.

Circuit City (CC) locations are also reportedly sending back titles to distributorss. But, if you did buy a player from Circuit City, you can trade it in for store credit (as long as you bought in the last 80 days). And if you bought one from Best Buy, you can get a $50 gift card, provided that you purchased it before Feb. 23.