I didn’t realize The New York Times Company had a stake in a major league baseball team. Wonders never cease. But, as Silicon Alley Insider reports, the Boston Red Sox stake may turn out to be one of the more rewarding assets on the newspaper company’s books right now.

It turns out that The New York Times Company is looking for buyers for its 17.5 percent stake in the entity that owns the Red Sox. A price of $150-$200 million or so seems likely.

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Silicon Alley Insider reports that due to the stock market crash, Mark Zuckerberg - the founder and owner of 20 to 30 percent of Facebook - is no longer a billionaire.

His stake is now worth a mere $400-600 million. It must be tough…

Source: Henry Blodget, “Youngest Billionaire In History (Mark Zuckerberg) Not A Billionaire Anymore,” Silicon Alley Insider, December 16, 2008

Silicon Alley Insider doesn’t put it too nicely. According to Henry Blodget, “eBay’s core business continues to fall apart.”

Blodget attributes eBay’s declining traffic and revenues to the worsening economy. The rest of, however, is due to: “competition, overpricing, and the deterioration of eBay’s value proposition.”

According to Nielsen, October 2008 saw eBay attract 10 percent fewer unique visitors, 33 percent fewer page impressions and 19 percent less time per user than in October 2007.

Here’s the breakdown:

October 2007

• Unique visitors: 54,498,000
• Page impressions: 13,562,920,000
• Average time per user (hr:min:sec): 2:12:51

October 2008:

• Unique visitors: 49,213,000
• Page impressions: 9,139,905,000
• Average time per user: 1:47:26

A similar story of ongoing decline is painted by Google Trends for Websites. (And I used to think eBay was unbeatable…)

Source: Henry Blodget, “eBay Traffic Plummeting (EBAY)”, Silicon Alley Insider, November 25, 2008

Let this be a lesson to all of you who make millions online and then decide to start a hedge fund. Don’t take on too much debt!

Just ask PayPal founder Peter Thiel, whose hedge fund firm Clarium Capital Management LLC, has seen its Clarium LP fund incurring a 40 percent loss in the three months to October 2008.

Clarium’s approach has essentially been to borrow money in order to invest it. This can give investors huge returns when times are good… but when times aren’t so good, it can be disastrous. As at October 31, Clarium had $4.40 in borrowings for every $1 in equity capital. Apparently, the fund is still in good health, but investors are understandably becoming nervous…

Peter Thiel started Clarium after selling PayPal to EBay Inc. for $1.5 billion in 2002.

Source: Henry Blodget, “PayPal Founder Peter Thiel’s Hedge Fund Blows Up,” Silicon Alley Insider, November 6, 2008

Writing in Silicon Alley Insider, Henry Blodget makes the point that if Google and Yahoo go forward with their search partnership, they’ll have to sign a consent decree.

Among other things, this means Google will need to let government officials inspect its books and business practices. Apparently, the idea of revealing how it really does business is enough to cause Google to nix the deal!

Source: Henry Blodget, “Google Threatens To Stick Fork In Yahoo Deal”, Silicon Alley Insider, October 30, 2008

Yahoo is expected to announce that it will lay off several thousand staff this week.

At this stage, no-one outside the Yahoo inner circle knows where Yahoo intends to make cuts (location, department, etc) , nor the exact number. Silicon Alley Insider reckons Yahoo needs to cut 3,000 employees, but Yahoo has said it will only cut 1,500.

Either way, Yahoo is probably not a particularly fun place to be right now…

Source: Henry Blodget, “Yahoo To Announce Mass Firings This Week”, Silicon Alley Insider, October 19, 2008