So, let's do some simple number-crunching with Vonage's second-quarter results. The company posted a loss of $74.6-million, largely due to $90.1-million of marketing costs (50% more than a year earlier) amid fierce competition from the cablecos, which makes attracting customers even more of a challenge. Assuming competition remains as intense and Vonage has to spend as much or more on marketing each quarter, the company's $597.7-million of cash will evaporate over the next eight quarters. Then what? Well, Vonage CEO Mike Snyder believes the company will generate "adjusted operating profits as early as the first quarter of 2008" (I wonder what adjusted operating profits are?) Of course, Vonage's efforts to become profitable aren't helped by the fact it spent more to acquire a customer ($239 vs. $236) in the second-quarter, while churn climbed to 2.3% from 2.1%. To put churn into perspective, Vonage attracted 377,005 new customers in the quarter but lost 121,069. Now, I'm not a financial wizard but these numbers don't pass the smell test. Granted, Vonage may 1.85 million customers but the rest of its financial metrics are going in the wrong direction. It explains why the stock is trading at $6.70 - compared with IPO price of $17.
Update: Jon Ogg has some good perspective on Vonage's numbers, while Om Malik also weighs into the Vonage fray. Meanwhile, the New York Times looks at how large carriers such as Verizon are losing local customers to cable rivals and VoIP service providers such as Vonage.

Forget about an IPO, let's just get YouTube sold right now. Fortunately, Russell Shaw has come up with a list of potential suitors. It includes (drumroll, please!): Adobe, Google, Sony, Time-Warner, News Corp. and Yahoo. I'm don't think Adobe or Sony should be on the list, while I'd be surprised if Time-Warner made such a bold move. As for Google, it's not one to make big, flashy deals. So that leaves Yahoo and Rupert Murdoch. If I was a betting man, I wouldn't be surprised for Rupert called YouTube CEO Chad Hurley for a chat soon. Before any kind of deal - or IPO - is consummated, YouTube will have to tackle is the sticky issue of copyright infringement given more content owners are asking for their content to be removed as YouTube gets more popular.
Update: The Guardian has a story that YouTube overtook MySpace as the most popular "new generation. According to Alexa, YouTube has 3.9% of global Internet visits each day compared with 3.35% for MySpace.

An interesting trend within the wireless industry that doesn't get much media attention is how GSM, which has more than two billion users in more than 200 countries, is increasingly becoming the global standard, while CDMA is beginning to lose its appeal. A good example of GSM's momentum is Cingular Wireless' controversial plan to charge its non-GSM subscribers, a $5 a month fee in an effort to encourage them to get new GSM phones. Meanwhile, Brazilian carriers Vivo said recently it will spend $492-million to overlay GSM on top of its existing CDMA network to stem market share losses. Before CDMA is counted out, it does have two large champions: Verizon and Sprint. As long as they are using the technology, handset makers have little choice but to develop cool new phones. This is good news for Canadian carriers Telus Mobility and Bell Mobility, which also use CDMA, while rival market leader Rogers Wireless uses GSM.
Update: In the name of fairness, Lucent CEO Patricia Russo talked about CDMA's prospects after the company's fiscal third-quarter results were posted last week. Here's an excerpt: