Welcome to the major leagues of debt. Collateralized debt obligations, almost always referred to as a CDOs, are horrendously complicated deals that often leave anyone without a MBA wondering what was put into these CDOs.

The first thing to understand about bonds, (aka debt) is that bonds are often backed by something else. Think about your home mortgage. If you don't pay your mortgage, the bank can take the house. You end up homeless, and the bank sells the house to pay off the rest of that mortgage. There is something "backing" that mortgage; something lender can fall back on, if you don't pay your bills like a good human being. That's called collateral.

CDOs are one flavor of an entire sector of investing called structured finance, and they are also backed. CDOs, in the simplest concept, are just bonds backed by something else. In most cases, a CDO is backed by a collection of various types of debt. CDOs can be home mortgages, or other types of debt like credit cards, auto loans, and personal loans. Most of these types of debt are usually considered a bit more risky and they don't have the backing that a home loan does. So, if you think it through, you can imagine that CDOs are usually considered a risky investment.

To take a step further, understand that CDOs have multiple flavors within each CDO. These flavors are called tranches. If you've taken French, you might recognize the word, it means "slice" or "portion." Each slice of that CDO you invest in is a little different and carries different amounts of risk.

You could invest in the lowest risk tranche of the CDO, which would provide you lower risk. But, you don't get a good return on that investment. Or, you can be the heroic adventurer of bonds and invest in the lowest-grade tranche of the CDO. You'll make an amazing return, but if the economy even looks at you wrong, you might lose the entire investment.

CDOs aren¿t easy, and are almost always invested in by mutual funds, insurance companies and hedge funds. As an individual investor, you will probably not come across a CDO you can participate in.

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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Omniture Increases Momentum in Search Marketing With New Agency and Customers in Germany

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Jun 24, 2008 (Hugin via COMTEX) ----Digital Agencies and Customers Use Omniture SearchCenter to Optimize Search Marketing Campaigns

HAMBURG, GERMANY--(Marketwire - June 24, 2008) - Omniture, Inc. (NASDAQ: OMTR), a leading provider of online business optimization software, today announced a cooperation agreement with the German digital agency Kupona GmbH, to manage their clients' search marketing campaigns and ad spend through Omniture SearchCenter. In addition, Ciao.de and Germanwings have selected SearchCenter to manage their search marketing initiatives.

"Omniture SearchCenter increases our productivity in paid and natural search on behalf of our clients and helps us further increase our return on ad spend," said Marco Brenn, senior search-specialist at Kupona GmbH. "By using Omniture SearchCenter, we are well-suited to provide our clients with a more complete picture of the results of their campaigns and better demonstrate the value we deliver as an agency."

Omniture SearchCenter is designed for interactive agencies and customers that participate in search engine marketing (SEM). The solution enables users to optimize their search marketing campaigns around the keywords that lead to the highest rate of conversion on a site rather than just reporting the number of click-throughs for a specific keyword from a specific search engine -- the traditional method for measuring search campaigns. This more complete view of conversion is a result of the native integration between Omniture SearchCenter and Omniture SiteCatalyst, Omniture's industry-leading Web analytics platform.

Interactive agencies and customers can benefit from using SearchCenter by:

-- Knowing if keywords are delivering real business impact; -- Reducing complexity and managing multiple clients with a single interface; -- Increasing productivity through automated keyword management; -- Increasing effectiveness using automated bid management; and -- Targeting SEM campaigns to clients' and customers' specific markets.

"The adoption of Omniture SearchCenter by agencies and customers in Germany is driven by the solutions' ability to effectively manage keyword investments and optimise advertising strategies," said Stefan Berger, Omniture country manager for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. "Omniture is empowering our agency partners and customers to better manage their search marketing campaigns online advertising spend."

For more information on Omniture SearchCenter, contact your Omniture account manager or visit http://www.omniture.com/en/products/search_marketing/searchcenter.

About Omniture

Omniture, Inc. is a leading provider of online business optimization software, enabling customers to manage and enhance online, offline and multi-channel business initiatives. Omniture's software, which it hosts and delivers to its customers as an on-demand subscription service and on-premise solution, enables customers to capture, store and analyze information generated by their Web sites and other sources and to gain critical business insights into the performance and efficiency of marketing and sales initiatives and other business processes. In addition, Omniture offers a range of professional services that complement its online services, including implementation, best practices, consulting, customer support and user training through Omniture University(TM). Omniture's 4,500 customers include eBay, AOL, Wal-Mart, Gannett, Microsoft, Neiman Marcus, Oracle, General Motors, Sony and HP. www.omniture.com

Copyright (c) 2008 Omniture, Inc. All rights reserved. Omniture(R) is a registered trademark of Omniture, Inc. in the United States, Japan, Canada, and the European Community. Omniture, Inc. owns other registered and unregistered trademarks throughout the world. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Note on Forward-looking Statements

Omniture Management believes that certain statements in this release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the abilities and expected benefits of our services to customers and strategic partners. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions regarding future events and business performance and involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including but not limited to, risks associated with our ability to ensure that our solutions address the specific requirements of our customers, the continued adoption by customers of our services, including Omniture SiteCatalyst, Omniture SearchCenter and other services, the significant capital requirements of our business model, our ability to develop or acquire new services and enhance existing service offerings, risks associated with our acquisition strategy and disruptions in our business and operations as a result of acquisitions, the continued growth of the market for on-demand, online business optimization services, changes in the competitive dynamics of our markets, errors, interruptions or delays in our services or other performance problems with our services, our ability to hire, retain and motivate our employees, the adoption of laws or regulations, or interpretations of existing law, that could limit our ability to collect and use Internet user information, expansion of our international operations; and such other risks described in Omniture's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended March 31, 2008, and from time to time in other reports filed by Omniture with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These reports are available on the Investor Relations section of our website at http://www.omtr.com. Omniture undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the company's expectations.

Omniture Press Contact Spencer Parkinson 801.932.7066 sparkinson@omniture.com

SOURCE: Omniture

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