Sony acquired digital media identification company Gracenote for about $260M
Sony has today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Gracenote for about $260M plus other contingent consideration.
Nice exit for Sphere.com
So it seems to be official already: AOL has acquired sphere.com. Despite financial terms of the deal were not disclosed the price was rumored to be in the $25M range that comes on top of Sphere's $3.5M total funding to date.
Pageflakes is acquired by Brad Greenspan's Live Universe
Pageflakes , an Ajax home page that once was a real competition to Netvibes , is being rumored to have been acquired by Live Universe for an undisclosed amount. Both companies refrain themselves from publicly announcing the deal nor made any comments on the technology blogs that mentioned about it, which tells us the deal is most likely in the very low-range not worth mentioning. What makes us think so?
Imeem confirms the acquisition of Snocap for reportedly less than $5M off more than $10M in venture capital taken by the company!
An acquisition that was announced in late February has today been confirmed. Imeem confirms the acquisition of Snocap . As we have then written Snocap has been in a long quest for a buyer (at least since Sept last year) and has gone through some massive layoffs, so it was clear the company had little to no options left but to sell off. Rumors have it that no other competitive buyers have ever shown up on the horizon and Imeem was the most logical buyer for Snocap.
An Israeli sync start-up acquired for reportedly $25M
BeInSync Ltd. , an Israeli-based provider of an all-in-one solution that allows users to backup, synchronize , share and access data online has been acquired by Phoenix Technologies for an undisclosed amount. However, Techcrunch has reported the company went for $25M.
Website Optimization company and CMS leader joined forces
An interesting deal happened a few months ago, announced in October 2007 and closed in November the same year. Interwoven , a public company traded on NASDAQ, has acquired the said website optimization pioneer Optimost.
What is the real reason Automattic bought Glavatar?
T We kept the news in our archive for quite long time trying to figure out ourselves what is the real motive behind the acquisition of Glavatar and since we came up to no particular synergy and reason we have decided today to simply write about.
22M uniques / mo site (Bebo) goes to AOL for $850M in all cash deal
A quick look into the numbers reveals that AOL paid roughly $22 per registered user in Bebo's acquisition. comScore reports for 22M unique visitors per month to bebo.com, which values each unique visitor at $39 . Quantcast reports for less than 2M American visitors per month to bebo's site but since the site appears to be not quantified we should not take these numbers for the correct ones.
Pluck acquired by Demand Media
Demand Media , a major buyer and operator of Internet domain name companies, has announced just a few days ago it has acquired the Austin-based social media company Pluck after about reportedly two months of negotiations. The price is $75M in all cash deal.
Taylor Nelson Sofres buys Compete.com
Compete, which started out in 2000 as an Idealab company, raised over $40M in funding to date, incurred $4.5M losses for the last year off $15M revenues and had hard time lately to compete with Quantcast has its exit day today. Compete has been acquired by the market research leader Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) for $75M plus another earn-out $75M through out 2008-2010 if certain conditions are met.
Snocap has been acquired by Imeem
Snocap was known to be searching for a new home for quite some time and it seems they have shopped themselves successfully as Imeem has bought them last month. Snocap is digital music wholesaler and Imeem is music streaming site so the synergy seems quite logical here. Terms were not disclosed publicly.
Stock photography and video footage leader sold out for $2.4B
Getty Images Inc. the world's leading creator and distributor of visual content and other digital media announced today that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to be acquired by affiliates of the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman LLC in a transaction valued at approximately $2.4 billion, including the assumption of existing debt.
Ancestry.com has been bought out by a private equity firm, preparing for an IPO
One of the few dot com success stories Ancestry.com and their parent company The Generations Network has entered into a private buyout , a couple of months ago, with the private equity firm Spectrum Equity Investors for a reportedly $300M acquisition deal. Private equity buyouts have been a serious, if not the only, alternative of IPOs these past years.
Revver, the video-revenue sharing site finally sells out, but the price is not hefty
The site best known as the first video site that started to split the ad revenue with publishers and video creators and producers on a 50/50 basis is being reported sold. The troubled video site Revver was bought by Brad Greenspan's LiveUniverse for what is rumored on several tech blogs to be under $5 million.
Yahoo makes an acquisition of its own – the online video platform Maven Networks
Undeterred by the threat of a hostile takeover Microsoft imposed over them a couple of weeks ago Yahoo seems to have completed an acquisition of its own Tuesday by buying online video service Maven Networks Inc. for $160 million. InfoSpace has sold its mobile unit for $135M to Motricity, the second prepares to go public
A couple of months ago Motricity , a mobile content solutions service, has acquired the mobile services business unit of InfoSpace for what is said to be $135M in an all cash transaction. From what we have found out it seems the acquisition is being funded largely by Carl Icahn and Advanced Equities since the company has then announced the completion of its $185M a round of funding, which was led by Advanced Equities, Inc., Carl Icahn and New Enterprise Associates, Inc.
An acquisition within the 3-D modeling space
While everybody is waiting to see what is going to happen between Microsoft and Yahoo, the first made yet another technology acquisition – bought the 3D modeling and animation software company called Caligari to further improve its Virtual Earth.
Yes, we were right Yahoo was seriously undervalued; Microsoft offers $44.6B for the company, a 62% premium over their value from yesterday
When a few days ago we conducted an in-depth research on Web and ran an analysis based on the information collected we came up to the logical conclusion that Yahoo! was seriously undervalued company. Today Microsoft proved us right by offering $44.6B for Yahoo!, which represents a 62% premium on Thursday's closing price. All major media are reporting on the deal.
The Washington Post Company acquired CourseAdvisor.com
The Washington Post Company ( NYSE: WPO ) has acquired the education site CourseAdvisor.com, which is an online lead generator serving the education industry. However, the financial details and terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
More deals in the storage space, Fabrik acquires G-Technology
Fabrik, a storage hardware and service provider, announced today that they have acquired G-Technology. Deal terms were not disclosed. G Technology sells external drives that focus on high performance for rich media.
Microsoft bets on enterprise search, offers to buy Fast.no for $1.2B
In what's Microsoft's second largest deal for the past 12 months the company offered to buy Fast Search & Transfer ASA, a leading provider of enterprise search solutions based in Norway.
After Last.fm, Wallstrip CBS has now acquired Dotspotter
Online gossip site Dotspotter has been acquired by CBS for $10 million. In Digg style Dotspotter lets users offer up celebrity news , video clips, images, articles and sightings for your leisurely enjoyment. You can vote up the ones you like and vote down the ones you hate.
Google bought Jaiku, instead of Twitter
Finnish short messaging and microblogging service Jaiku has been acquired by Google. Notable fact here is the fact that Google bought Jaiku instead of its competitor Twitter, a service founded by Blogger founder Evan Williams.
Two major acquisition deals within the online storage space
IBM today announced it has acquired XIV , a privately-held storage technology company based in Tel Aviv, Israel. XIV, its technologies and employees, will become part of the IBM System Storage business unit of the IBM Systems and Technology Group. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed but sources tell the price was $350M.
AOL‘s Platform-A gets the fourth ad company under its umbrella
AOL has finally completed the acquisition of online advertising company Quigo. Financial terms of the deal were not publicly disclosed, though we've found information on Web from different sources claiming the sale is said to be around $340 Million.
Some of the web's biggest acquisition deals during 2007
As the end of the year approaches us we would like to briefly sum up some of the web's biggest acquisition deals for the 2007, as we know them.
Naspers acquires yet another European company - Tradus
Simply put a fallen dot com star with eBay ambitious, once worth more than 2B British pound (around $4B) and collapsed down to £62M at the end of 2000 is now being basically said rescued by a South African media company that is spending money at breakneck pace. The offered price is £946M (more than $1.8B) based on just £60M annual revenues.
In a small acquisition Mobile Network mbuzzy snapped up by SendMe
In a recent deal SendMe Mobile, a mobile media company, has acquired a mobile social network called mbuzzy. Although financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, according to Russell Klein, SendMe's co-founder and CEO, the two companies had been in talks to work on joint projects for almost 8 or 9 months before the acquisition. 'There's a fair amount of overlap between our tech platforms and typical user demographics,' said Klein. 'And over time it became evident that the best way to partner was to join forces.'
MSNBC made its first acquisition in its 11-year history, acquired Newsvine
In a recent deal the citizen journalism startup Newsvine has been acquired by MSNBC, the Microsoft/NBC joint venture, for an undisclosed sum. Newsvine will continue operating independently, just as it has been since launching in March of 2006. The acquired company also indicated there would be little change in the features of the site.
SAP Germany makes its biggest deal ever - acquires Business Objects for 4.8B EURO
SAP , the world's largest maker of business software, has agreed to acquire Business Objects SA for €4.8 billion euros, which was around ~$6.8 billion at the time the acquisition deal was announced. The deal is amongst the largest for 2007 alongside with Oracle's Hyperion deal for over $3.3B and the Nokia's Navteq for over $8B.
Naspers Acquired Polish based IM Company Gadu Gadu (chit-chat)
South Africa's biggest media group Naspers Ltd offered to buy all outstanding shares in Polish Internet firm Gadu Gadu S.A. ( GADU.WA ), a Polish IM service, for 23.50 zlotys ($8.77) per share. The current majority shareholder of Gadu Gadu has agreed to tender its 55% shareholding in the public tender offer.
Rackspace jumps on the web acquisitions bandwagon -- snatches Webmail.us
During the past 2 years the Web's M&A market is very intensive. In what is known to be the RackSpace's first web acquisition the company has acquired Webmail.us, a business web email service provider for an undisclosed sum.
Microsoft acquires discount shopping search Jellyfish
A couple of months ago Microsoft did an interesting move. They acquired Jellyfish.com -- the Internet's first buying [search] engine, as they call themselves. Simply put: online discount shopping website that shares their fees earned from the merchants when you buy from them through cash back program.
Adobe Systems Acquires Buzzword, a web-based word processing software
So, is this an employment through acquisition? It could also be a well planned, funded and executed internal deal in the domain of the PR for Adobe in order to promote, proclaim and popularize its new products as Adobe Flex software, Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR, all trademarks owned by Adobe Systems Incorporated.
Interesting web buy for Dun & Bradstreet Corp
Today Dun & Bradstreet Corp., a major business information company, said it has bought AllBusiness.com for $55 million in all cash deal. Based on this the company subsequently raised its 2008 revenue outlook to account for the acquisition.
Microsoft Acquires WebFives, yet another multimedia sharing site
Microsoft has acquired yet another photo/video and audio sharing site called WebFives. The agreement has been reached during November 2007 and according it Microsoft has acquired all rights to WebFives technology, patents pending, trademarks, and software to incorporate into its products and services over time.
Intuit Acquires Homestead for $170m
Small business website creation service Homestead, started out in the web 1.0 era, announced tonight that it has been acquired by Intuit for $170m. In addition to Intuit's personal and small business accounting software, and the company's partnership with Google to integrate services like Maps listing and AdSense buys, Intuit customers will now presumably be able to put up websites quickly and easily with Homestead.
Nokia Buys Navteq For $8 Billion, Bets Big On Location-Based Services
Nokia (NOK), the Finnish mobile phone giant with nearly a third of the global handset market, has decided to bet big on location based services (LBS), and is buying Chicago-based digital map company NAVTEQ (NVT) for $8.1 billion. That works out to about $78 a share. This is one of Nokia's largest purchases to date -- the Finnish mobile giant has a mixed track record when it comes to acquisitions. This is also the second megabillion dollar buyout in the maps (LBS) space. Earlier this year, Dutch GPS device maker TomTom bought Tele Atlas for $2.8 billion.
BBC Worldwide Acquires Lonely Planet
BBC Worldwide, the international arm of BBC, has acquired Lonely Planet , the Australia-based travel information group. The amount of the deal was not disclosed, but Lonely Planet founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler get to keep a 25% share in the company.
Microsoft Bets On Facebook Stake And Web Ad Boom
Microsoft Corp.'s $240 million investment in Facebook Inc. -- a three-year-old company with more promise than profit - represents a huge bet that the online advertising boom will continue and the popular social networking site will be among the biggest beneficiaries. The software giant said yesterday that it will buy a 1.6% stake in Facebook, beating out Google Inc. after intense lobbying.
Google Buys Zingku, Mobile Social Network
Google's plans to extend in the mobile space could include the launch of a mobile phone . For now, Google bought another mobile social network: Zingku. 'We've entered into an agreement to have Google acquire our Zingku service,' informs us Zingku.com.
Sugar Publishing Acquires ShopStyle
San Francisco based Sugar Publishing, a social network and group of women-focused blogs that we've covered since late 2006, is announcing the acquisition of ShopStyle, an ecommerce site, this evening. The price is not being disclosed. Sugar says they will integrate shopping into editorial via widgets that allow readers to buy items directly. Combined, the company's claim 5 million unique monthly visitors.
GameTrust sold for less than $50M, after raising $20M over 3 rounds
Paid Content reported today that GameTrust sold for less than $50M, after raising $20M over 3 rounds, over the past 5 years. That does not seem like a healthy exit for the numerous VCs, which include: TWJ Capital, NJTC Venture Fund, Patriot Capital, CSK Ventures, Topspin Partners, Silicon Alley Venture Partners, Draper Associates and investor Elon Musk.
EchoStar Acquires Sling Media for $380M
EchoStar Communications Corporation, the parent company for DISH Network, has announced its agreement to acquire Sling Media, creator of the Sling suite, which lets you do things like control your television shows at any time, from their computers or mobile phones, or record and watch TV on your PC or Windows-based mobile phone. The acquisition is for $380 million.
Online Backup Startup Mozy Acquired By EMC For $76 million
Online storage startup Mozy, headquartered in Utah, has been acquired by EMC Corporation, a public storage company with a nearly $40 billion market cap. EMC paid $76 million for the company, according to two sources close to the deal.
ProfileBuilder Acquires ZingFu.com
Online identity management platform company ProfileBuilder has acquired ZingFu.com, a social-networking resource site with 600,000 registered members. Milwaukee based ZingFu.com provides 'zany content,' with products including Zing, a photo manipulation tool, Pets, a 'tomgatchi style toy,' and Zany Cards, pretty much as the title suggests.
Yahoo Acquires Zimbra For $350 million in Cash
Yahoo will announce the acquisition of open source online/offline office suite Zimbra this evening, we just heard through a very solid source. The price: $350 million, in cash, confirmed. Our coverage of Zimbra goes back to 2005. They gained wide exposure at the 2005 Web 2.0 Conference. Recently they launched offline functionality.
IAC/InterActiveCorp Takes Game Designer Stake
IAC/InterActiveCorp today plans to announce it has taken a majority stake in game developer GarageGames.com Inc. to anchor a soon-to-be launched gaming site, InstantAction. IAC is hoping the company will help it develop a type of gaming still in its infancy: three-dimensional games users can play in their Web browsers. Unlike other sophisticated games, users don't need large software downloads or special consoles.
Nokia To Acquire Mobile Advertising Firm Enpocket
Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Enpocket. Boston based Enpocket provides technology and services centered on mobile advertising. Enpocket's platform delivers mobile advertising across multiple formats including SMS, MMS, mobile Internet advertising, and video. Nokia said in a statement that the acquisition will allow it to accelerate the scaling of its mobile advertising business by leveraging Enpocket's platform and strong partnerships with advertisers, publishers and operators.
Comcast Acquires TV Community BuddyTV
BuddyTV, the community that's founded around pop culture television, is being acquired by Comcast. The cable network provider plans to incorporate BuddyTV into its recently launched Fancast website, and Fandango. Both are services that revolve around finding programming and purchasing movie tickets online. BuddyTV's community should be a welcome addition to Comcast's growing collection of online resources, especially as the Fancast could stand to benefit from a more involved community of users.
Intel Snaps Up Havok
The world's largest computer chip manufacturer Intel has announced the upcoming purchase of Havok , the middleware software manufacturer that creates physics engines used in games and virtual worlds like Second Life. Intel have been experimenting with the uses of 3D spaces for serious applications for some time, and see Havok becoming 'a key element of Intel's visual computing and graphics efforts.'
Odeo (Formerly SonicMountain) Acquires FireAnt
The company built up a cult following in 2005 and 2006 as the podcast directory and player, and competed head on with Evan Williams' Odeo for mindshare and users. FireAnt's assets were acquired by Odeo for $400,000, they companies will announce today. Not the old Odeo, but Sonic Mountain, which renamed itself Odeo after acquiring it earlier this year. For less than $2 million, Sonic Mountain has now put two of the more well know podcasting brands together under one roof.
Yahoo Makes Tiny Acquisition: BuzzTracker
Yahoo has acquired news site BuzzTracker, a tiny news aggregation site, for somewhere between $2 - $5 million. Alan Warms, CEO of parent company Participate Media, will join Yahoo as Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo News...
Hulu Makes First Acquisition; Chinese Video Startup To Form Backbone Of New Service
We haven't heard much about Bejing-based startup Mojiti before this week. They popped up in the TechCrunch Forums in January and are notable because the founder, Eric Feng, was previously at Microsoft Research Asia. Nothing other than that, and they do not appear to have many users. But they sure are in the spotlight now: a source with knowledge of the deal indicates that the $1 billion News Corp./NBC online video joint venture Hulu has acquired the company and is using its platform for the basis of the upcoming Hulu service.
Yahoo! Announces Agreement to Acquire BlueLithium
Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire BlueLithium, one of the largest and fastest growing online global ad networks that offers an array of direct response products and capabilities for advertisers and publishers. Under the terms of the agreement, Yahoo! will acquire BlueLithium for approximately $300 million in cash.
Joost Acquires OnTheToob
Back in July we wrote about the phenomenon of independent developers contributing much-needed features to Joost, such as a frequently updated programming guide and a browser-based interface built in Flash. Well, one such project, Hal Schechner's OnTheTube - the programming guide that helps Joost beta testers create customized channels and RSS feeds out of Joost's some 238 channels and 10,298 programs - has been acquired by Joost, according to the blog JoostTeam (which is not affiliated with Joost, the company).
German YouTube Clone Acquired by TV Station
Germany's biggest television broadcaster, ProSiebenSat1 Media, has bought a 70% stake in German video-sharing network MyVideo.de for $26 million. The broadcasting network already owned 30% of MyVideo.de, so this last investment was more of a completion for a buyout than anything else. The German YouTube clone launched last year, and has gained significant traction even before the initial investment from ProSiebenSat1 Media.
VersionTracker Acquired by CNET
VersionTracker, an online publication for software updates, has been acquired by CNET. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. With this integration deal, VersionTracker and its sister sites iPhone Atlas and MacFixIt will be incorporated into the CNET family as well. This gives VersionTracker a larger audience and access to more resources, while CNET expands its niche sites and grows its offerings of Mac information on the web.
Microsoft Acquires Enterprise Group Chat Company Parlano
Microsoft has announced that it has agreed to acquire Chicago-based Parlano, the maker of the enterprise group chat platform MindAlign. Microsoft said that it would use Parlano's group chat functionality to improve Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator.
The New York Times to Acquire Freakanomics Blog, and More
The New York Times is acquiring the popular Freakanomics blog, which was launched as a sort of spin-off to the success of the book, keeping up with its momentum. This will be the first blog that the New York Times acquires and adds to its larger media family, but there's word that the newspaper plans to acquire even more blogs in the not-too-distant future. Seems like blogs are getting acquired left and right these days, which is good for the creators, writers and publishers of these blogs, and good for the economics surrounding the blogosphere.
TheFind.com Acquires Glimpse
Shopping search engine startup TheFind has acquired the high-fashion shopping site Glimpse.com for an undisclosed amount. It's an early deal for Glimpse, which just launched this year. TheFind is a comparison shopping search engine that crawls many shopping sites across the internet (190 million products at over 500,000 stores).
Maya's Mom Acquired by BabyCenter
Maya's Mom, the social networking site for mothers, has been acquired by BabyCenter, the mom-centric parenting network, making this its first acquisition. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed. According to the deal, Maya's Mom will remain a standalone product, and its back-end software will be utilized across BabyCenter's network of global websites.
Fotolog Acquired by Hi Media, French Ad Network
EXCLUSIVE: We had previously speculated that New York-based Fotolog would be the next one to get acquired. And we were right. It has been acquired by Hi Media, a Paris-based interactive media company for roughly $90 million - a combination of cash and stock, according to well-placed sources. The announcement is likely to be made later today.
DivX Acquires Veatros to Create Enhanced Video Search & Discovery for the Home
DivX has acquired Veatros, creators of a video identification technology, for $4.25 million. The acquisition of Veatros will be used for DivX to create an improved video search and discovery service on the DivX Connected platform, incorporating metadata like cover art, information on videos' directors and actors, and titles.
StreetBee Acquires JamJunky; Rebrands as GetYourGrooveOn
StreetBee has acquired JamJunky, a music composition review service. CN reviewed the service when it launched three months ago and JamJunky added a Facebook application in July. CN described JamJunky as, 'Basically JamJunky is a way for you to upload your own authored music and get feedback from your friends and other song writers to help perfect your songs.'
Google reveals stake in Chinese social Web site
Google revealed on Monday that it had acquired a stake in Chinese community Web site Tianya.cn, indicating a foray by the global search leader into social networking in the world's second-largest Internet market.
TripAdvisor Reportedly Acquires Where I’ve Been for $3 Million
In what is by far the largest Facebook application acquisition to date, travel company TripAdvisor has reportedly acquired Where I've Been from Craig Ulliott for $3 million. The acquisition marks the first major successful exit of a Facebook application since the Platform launched just under three months ago. With 2.3 million users, Where I've Been established itself as by far the biggest travel application on Facebook, leading #2 Cities I've Visited (also TripAdvisor owned) by over 1 million users.
MTVN Acquires Another LGBT Network
MTV Networks has acquired DowneLink, a multicultural, LGBTQ (Lesbian / Gay / Bisexual / Transgender / Questioning) social networking site. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed. DowneLink has a reported 400,000 members, more than 72% of which are African-American, Asian or Latino, making it a good buy for MTVN, which seems to be broadening its scope of LGBT sites and demographics.
YFonGlobal Acquiring Splinternet Holdings
YFonGlobal, the turn key, white label solution for social networks and their necessary platforms, has begun the process of acquiring Splinternet Holdings, the developer of Internet telephony products and services. The financials of the deal were not disclosed, but the deal is scheduled to close within the next two months.
CyclingTV Acquired by JumpTV
JumpTV, an online video aggregator, has acquired CyclingTV for around $4.95 million, which is broken down into $2.21 million in cash, and $2.74 million in common stock, to be issued later this year.
Pay Per Call Company VoiceStar Acquired by Marchex
Pay per call advertising service VoiceStar has been acquired by local advertising company Marchex. Marchex total anticipated investment to acquire VoiceStar will be $28 million, consisting of approximately $20 million in transaction consideration and $8 million in company investment.
Blockbuster Desperate To Do Something, Buys A Loser
Blockbuster announced the acquisition of movie download site Movielink this evening. The price is not being disclosed (meaning it isn't 'material' to Blockbuster's shareholders), although the Wall Street Journal says it was less than $20 million.
Pickle Purchased For $4.1 Million
Photo and video-sharing site Pickle.com has been purchased by Scripps Networks for a reported $4.1 million. Scripps is the company behind many lifestyles brands like DIY, the Food Network, HGTV, and Great American Country. This is their second web purchase after Recipezaar last month.
Kaboodle Acquired by Hearst Magazines
Kaboodle, the social shopping site that looked like a better fit for eBay than a media conglomerate, has been acquired by Hearst Corporation for an undisclosed amount. Kaboodle had taken $5 million in first round funding from 10 investors including Ron Conway.
Acquisition for Clipmarks
New York based Clipmarks, a del.icio.us-like social bookmarking service, may have been acquired by Forbes. We have no information on the size of the transaction, but my guess is that it was on the very low side. The service allows users to bookmark all or a portion of a web page and annotate it.
Insightful Corporation Sells InFact
Insightful Corporation (NASDAQ: IFUL), announced today the sale of its InFact search technology and associated intellectual property rights to Hypertext Solutions Inc. for $3.65 million in cash. Hypertext is a Seattle-based startup company focused on making information on the web more 'intelligent'. The transaction closed today.
College Boy Stalwart eBaum's World Bought For $17.5M
Today San Francisco-based HandHeld Entertainment says it is acquiring Rochester, NY-based eBaum's World. HandHeld said it will pay $17.5M for eBaum's World ($15M in cash, $2.5M in stock, and $2.5M in stock with a one-year hold back.) The company also said that it may pay up to $32.5M in earnouts over three years to the owner's of eBaum's world.
SEM Firm iCrossing Buys Web Builder Proxicom
Arizona-based SEM giant iCrossing has acquired Proxicom for an un-disclosed amount from Gores Technology. The deal was financed by a funding round last week by iCrossing where it raised $62M from Goldman Sachs and some VC firms.
Disney Acquires Club Penguin For Up To $700 million
Club Penguin, a social network/virtual world that has been on the market for some time, was acquired by The Walt Disney Company and announced today. An earlier deal with Sony fell apart over valuation and Club Penguin's policy of donating a substantial portion of profits to charity. The company, which launched in October 2005, has 700,000 current paid subscribers and 12 million activated users, primarily in the U.S. and Canada.
Discovery Acquires TreeHugger.com For $10million
Discovery Communications has announced the acquisition of TreeHugger.com for what is believed to be $10 million. TreeHugger.com started as an environmentally focused blog in 2004 and grew to include forums, green guides and other related features. The site sits in the Top 20 blogs worldwide according to Technorati and is said to have 1.4 million unique visitors a month. Alexa ranks the site at 5,395.
MediaWhiz Buys AuctionAds
Performance marketing company MediaWhiz has snatched up eBay affiliate marketing service AuctionAds, which launched back in March. The price was not disclosed. AuctionAds is an advertising widget that serves contextually relevant eBay auctions based on tags supplied by the publisher.
Wikia Acquires Grub from Looksmart
As part of their ongoing quest to create an open, people-powered search platform, Wikia has acquired Grub, a ditributed web crawling technology, from Looksmart, Wikia co-founder Jimmy Wales announced this morning during his keynote address at the at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in Portland, Oregon.
Microsoft Acquires Advertising Exchange Platform AdECN
Microsoft announced today that it had agreed to acquire AdECN, an advertising exchange platform company based near Santa Barbara. AdECN offers a real-time, auction-based, neutral exchange for online display advertising that works in a similar way to stock exchanges. A member of the AdECN exchange buys on the exchange for its advertisers and sells on the exchange for its publishers.
Business.com Sells for $350 Million
Business.com has closed another chapter in its long journey from a $7.5 million million domain name bought on a hope and a prayer, selling to RH Donnelley for $350 million (WSJ reporting up to $360 million). RH Donnelley beat out Dow Jones and the New York Times during the bidding.
AOL Gets Its Ad Network
We hear that AOL will announce the acquisition of New York-based Tacoda this morning, a behavior targeting advertising company that was founded in 2001. The deal size, which we haven't had confirmed, is likely far smaller than Microsoft's $6 billion for aQuantive , Yahoo's $680 million for RightMedia , or Google's $3.1 billion for DoubleClick . The price might be low enough that it isn't being disclosed at all.
UGO Acquired By Hearst, Should Be Announced Today
We got a tip earlier this evening that Hearst acquired New-York based UGO and will announce the deal tomorrow. It sounds like Forbes got a tip as well, and a better one: they're saying the price should be around $100 million. UGO is a popular new media site that was founded in 1997 and, according to Forbes, is generating around $30 million/year in revenue.
Nokia acquires Twango
Nokia and Twango today announced that Nokia has acquired substantially all assets of Twango (www.twango.com). Twango provides a comprehensive media sharing solution for organizing and sharing photos, videos and other personal media. By acquiring Twango, Nokia will be able to offer people an easy way to share multimedia content through their desktop and mobile devices.
HP Acquires Opsware For $1.6 billion
HP has acquired IT Automation company Opsware for $1.6 billion. Whilst any acquisition of this size is interesting in itself, the back story to Opsware is even more so; Opsware was originally LoudCloud, a Web 1.0 company that took $350 million in funding during the Web 1.0 boom.
Google Acquires Image America for Aerial Imaging Tech
Google's acquisition spree continued today with the announcement that they've purchased Image America, a company that builds 'high resolution cameras for the collection of aerial imagery'. The Clayton, MO-based company provided high resolution black and white imagery of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and supplied imagery to Google Maps and Google Earth.
FaceBook's First Acquisition: Parakey
Their first acquisition: Facebook has bought Parakey, the yet-to-launch 'web operating system' created by Firefox co-founders Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt. The price isn't being disclosed, but Facebook should be issuing a press release this afternoon.
Recipezaar Acquired by Scripps
PaidContent is reporting that Scripps has acquired recipes portal Recipezaar. John Cook notes the price at ~$25 million. Started in 1999 as CookPoint, Recipezaar reported 2.3 million pageviews in June 2007.
Jupitermedia Corporation buys Mediabistro.com
Laurel Touby turned her popular cocktail parties into a high-traffic Web site for job-seeking media and creative professionals. Yesterday, she sold Mediabistro.com, the company that sprang from those mixers, for $23 million. The Jupitermedia Corporation, an Internet research company that also sells photos and art, agreed to pay $20 million in cash and an additional $3 million over two years for the company, which is based in New York City.
Google to Buy Web Security Company for $625M
Google on Monday acquired e-mail security company Postini for $625 million, a move intended to attract more large businesses to Google Apps. More than 1,000 small businesses and universities currently use Google Apps, but 'there has been a significant amount of interest from large businesses,' Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google Enterprise, said in a Monday teleconference.
ValueClick Acquires Comparison Shopping Operator MeziMedia For Up To $352million
ValueClick has acquired MeziMedia for up to $352 million, in a deal consisting of $100million in upfront in cash, with an additional sum of up to $252 million to be paid depending on MeziMedia's revenue and earnings performance through to 2009.
Answers.com has purchased Dictionary.com
Question and answer reference site Answers.com has acquired Dictionary.com's parent company, Lexico Publishing, for $100 million in cash. Lexico can really serve all your lexical needs because it also owns Thesaurus.com and Reference.com. The deal is expected to close later this fall.
Brad Greenspan Acquires Partnership Stake in Chinese Video-Sharing Sites
Brad Greenspan, proclaimed MySpace founder, has announced that his company, BroadWebAsia, has acquired Partnership stakes in Mofile and Hubotv, two quickly growing online video sites in China. With a combined 48 million unique visitors per month, it's not difficult to see why Greenspan is interested in the two companies.
Alleskar Acquires German Twitter Clone Dukudu
Allesklar, the German media company, has acquired the German micro-blogging community, dukudu. The Twitter clone had been posted on eBay last week, with the highest bid going to allesklar for €43,000.
Google To Acquire GrandCentral
Google is in acquisition discussions with telephone management startup GrandCentral, we've learned, and we have a high degree of confidence that the deal has actually been closed. We are trying to nail down the acquisition price.
Yahoo Acquires Rivals for $100 million
Yahoo has acquired college sports site Rivals.com, says the Associated Press in a story that may have been accidentally published early. The price is not being disclosed, although the rumor is that the deal was closed for around $100 million. Rumors of talks first surfaced in April.
Google Acquires Zenter - Web Office Suite Now 99% Complete
Today Google announced it has acquired the assets of Zenter, 'a company that provides software for creating online slide presentations.' This technology will be added to Tonic Systems, a technology for presentation creation and document conversion. Tonic Systems was acquired in April by Google.
Rifftrax Acquires Cuts
About four months since launch, web video editor Cuts.com has been acquired by Rifftrax, a site featuring DVD commentary by Michael J. Nelson of MST3K. No word on the price. The online video editing space has become increasingly competitive. Click.tv recently joined the deadpool, with plans to reorganize.
ESPN acquires Cricinfo website
Leading cricket website Cricinfo has been acquired by ESPN as part of the US broadcaster's push to grow its global presence in online sports reporting. The site, much loved by statistics-obsessed cricket fans across the world, has been bought from The Wisden Group, publishers of the sport's 'bible' the annual Wisden Cricketers Almanac, for an undisclosed fee.
Amazon May Be Looking To Acquire Netflix
Netflix stock jumped up 5.66% today on rumors that the company may be in acquisition talks with by Amazon. The funny thing about public company rumors: when they affect stock prices, it becomes AP-reported news...
PeakStream Trail Leads To Google
Google's acquisitions are usually pretty smooth deals; at most, a 'welcome, Google!' statement shows up on the lucky company's homepage. Now, a report indicates that PeakStream has been bought by Google, yet the company no longer even has a front page - the whole site is gone.
It's Official: Google Buys Feedburner
Last week's rumored acquisition of Feedburner by Google has been confirmed. Feedburner CEO Dick Costolo announced the acquisition with his usual flare and humor proclaiming, 'FeedBurner has been acquired by Google. The local weather forecast calls for general euphoria with intermittent periods of off-the-rails delight.'
Google agrees to acquire Panoramio
We are very (and we mean very) happy to announce that Panoramio will be acquired by Google. The integration of photos from Panoramio in Google Earth has been so successful since John Hanke suggested it that we see the acquisition of Panoramio as a natural consequence.
CBS to buy social network Last.fm
It is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. CBS Corp. is buying a popular social networking website organized around musical tastes for $280 million, combining a traditional broadcast giant with an early leader in online radio. CBS is expected to announce today that it has acquired London-based Last.fm, which claims more than 15 million monthly users, including more than 4 million in the U.S.
Google Acquires GreenBorder - First Step Towards Google Antivirus?
Google's acquisition spree shows no signs of stopping: now the company has acquired Mountain View-based GreenBorder, which creates security software. It's an interesting idea: the software creates a kind of sandbox for your web browsing, so that any viruses, spyware and trojans you pick up during your session are deleted as soon as the browser is closed.
$100 Million Payday For Feedburner - This Deal Is Confirmed
Rumors about Google acquiring RSS management company Feedburner from last week, started by ex-TechCrunch UK editor Sam Sethi, are accurate and are now confirmed according to a source close to the deal. Feedburner is in the closing stages of being acquired by Google for around $100 million. The deal is all cash and mostly upfront, according to our source, although the founders will be locked in for a couple of years.
Confirmed: CBS Acquires Wallstrip
Wallstrip founder Howard Lindzon confirmed the deal on his blog on Monday - presenter Lindsay Campbell and producers Adam Elend and Jeff Marks will become full-time employees of CBS, says Gigaom . The show had raised $600,000 from angels and friends, including Fred Wilson and Brad Feld. It's a great exit for Wallstrip, and may give hope to other videoblogs that want to make the leap.
Second Life Acquires Winward Mark for More Realistic Game Play
Linden Lab, parent company of Second Life, announced today its acquisition of graphics technology from Windward Mark Interactive, for an undisclosed amount. From the deal, Linden Lab will acquire WindLight, an atmospheric-rendering technology, Nimble, a 3D cloud simulator, and associated intellectual property and interests.
The Travel Channel Acquires Travel Blog for Editorial Content
The online component for the Travel Channel announces today that it has acquired World Hum, an online travel magazine blog, for an undisclosed amount. As part of the deal, Travel Channel visitors will be able to access exclusive content from World Hum's editors and contributors.
Microsoft to buy Web ad firm aQuantive for $6 bln
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. said on Friday it would acquire aQuantive Inc. for about $6 billion, or $66.50 a share, an 85 percent premium to the online advertising company's closing price on Thursday. Shares of aQuantive shot to $63.95 in pre-opening trade, following news of the deal. The all-cash deal tops a dramatic one-month consolidation spree across the online advertising market sparked when Google Inc. agreed to buy DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.
WPP Acquires 24/7 Real Media for $649m
Online advertising services firm 24/7 Real Media is to be acquired by the WPP group for $649 million. The old time internet advertising firm had its origins serving ads for Yahoo! and Netscape in 1994 and was formerly founded the following year as Real Media. After numerous acquisitions it took its current name and grew to have 20 offices in 12 countries, serving over 200 billion advertising impressions every month.
Club Penguin In Acquisition Talks With Sony For $500+ million
It's been rumored for a while that Montgomery & Co. is representing virtual world Club Penguin in a sale transaction. It looks like the company is locked in talks, possibly exclusive, with Sony, and the price is 'at least half a billion' says a source close to the deal.
AOL Acquires ADTECH AG
AOL announced today that it has acquired a controlling interest in ADTECH AG, a leading international online ad-serving company based in Frankfurt, Germany. The acquisition provides AOL with an advanced ad-serving platform that includes an array of ad management and delivery applications enabling website publishers to manage, traffic and report on their online advertising campaigns.
MySpace To Acquire Flektor
MySpace will acquire Flektor, a just-launched service that allows users to create widgets from photos, video and text, according to two sources with knowledge of the deal. This comes right after the news of MySpace's pending acquisition of Photobucket last week for $250-$300 million. This will be a much smaller deal, in the $10-$20 million range, possibly with an earnout.
IMified Acquires Real-Time Feed Alerts Leader Feedcrier.com
We're very happy to finally announce the acquisition of Feedcrier.com, the leading provider of IM based feed alerts. This one has been in the making for some time now, and we officially welcome Adam Kalsey and the Feedcrier community to IMified.
Cork'd Acquired by Wine Library Vlogger
Cork'd , the social networking site for wine lovers, is being acquired by a team led by Gary Vaynerchuck of Wine Library , and includes Erik Kastner of Rails, for an undisclosed amount. Cork'd has a reported 20,000 members, and provides a space for you to rate and review wines you've tasted. You can make a wine wish list of sorts, and track those you'd like to try as well as purchase.
Amazon Acquires dpreview.com
Amazon have announced the acquisition of the digital camera information and review site dpreview.com. UK based dpreview.com was founded in 1998 by Phil Askey as a site that publishes 'unbiased reviews and original content regarding the latest in digital cameras, and offers a host of features and forums designed to make it easy for consumers to find the camera that's right for them'.
CBS Acquires WallStrip for $5 million
Jossip is reporting that corporate focused video blog WallStrip has been acquired by CBS News for $5 million. The report states that an announcement is expected early this week and involves WallStrip host Lindsay Campbell being the next Amanda Congdon for CBS, fronting online shows. I spoke to some one close to the deal who confirmed Jossip's story. He told me that New York based Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson, who had previously invested $500,000 in WallStrip, negotiated and sealed the deal. The deal is said to be focused on signing Lindsay Campbell. CBS was keen to have Campbell on board and a cast iron contract meant that acquiring WallStrip was the only way they could get to her.
Odeo Acquired By SonicMountain
Details are just coming out, but New York based SonicMountain, a new startup, has acquired Evan Williams' Odeo. The announcement will come sometime tomorrow. The price is not being disclosed but is in excess of $1 million, and the deal was all cash. Odeo was publicly put on sale last February. The company was bought back from investors late last year.
eBay Close to Acquiring StumbleUpon
First reported here at TechCrunch on April 18, eBay is now said to be close to finalizing its deal to acquire StumbleUpon for $75 million, according to a new online report from the Wall Street Journal. The high flying startup has been rumored to be in acquisition talks since November . The Wall Street Journal report quotes an insider saying that no final agreement has been reached and that talks could still fail.
Photobucket goes to Myspace (Acquired)
Like a squabbling couple finally realizing they can't live without eachother -- or a parasite fusing with its host -- Photobucket has concluded terms of a sale to Myspace, News Corporation's social network. The photo sharing service, which had a quarrelsome but symbiotic relationship with Myspace, may announce the deal as early as this morning. After final negotiations at the end of last week, Photobucket has called an all-hands staff meeting for 10am PST this morning. We don't have the financial details of the acquisition, but Photobucket, and its bankers Lehman Brothers, were looking for at least $300m.
About.com Takes ConsumerSearch for $33M
About.com , a leading resource for everyday advice on a wide array of topics, has reportedly bought ConsumerSearch for $33 million in cash. ConsumerSearch is a product meta-reviews site, aggregating reviews from across the web and in printed publications, to offer a systematic 'review of reviews' for consumers.
Microsoft Acquiring ScreenTonic for Mobile Ad Platform
Microsoft is acquiring ScreenTonic, a local-based ads delivery platform for mobile devices, for an undisclosed amount. Paris-based ScreenTonic was founded in 2001, and has created the Stamp platform to deliver text or banner links on portals, text message ads and mobile web page ads, that vary depending on the recipients geographical location.
eBay Gets Stake in Turkish Auction Market
eBay announced yesterday that it has acquired a minority stake in Turkish-based GittiGidiyor.com, an online marketplace structured in a similar manner to eBay. GittiGidiyor reportedly has more than 400,000 listings and 17 million users, which is a considerable percentage of the Turkish population. With the stake in GittiGidiyor, eBay now has the opportunity to enter the Turkish market via a system that's already similar to theirs in functionality and purpose. eBay is already present in over six countries, including Spain, China, France, Australia and Austria. They are also in the process of buying StumbleUpon, the bookmarking and site discovery site.
Yahoo! Announces Agreement to Acquire Right Media, Largest Emerging Online Advertising Exchange
Key Step in Executing Yahoo!'s Long-Term Strategy to Transform How Online Advertisers Connect to and Engage With Their Customers - Both On and Off the Yahoo! Network SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO - News ), a leading global Internet company, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Right Media Inc., creator of the Right Media Exchange. The acquisition of Right Media will build upon Yahoo!'s leadership in online advertising and is a key step towards executing the Company's long-term strategy to transform how online advertisers connect to and engage with their customers - both on and off the Yahoo! network. Under the terms of the agreement, which follows Yahoo!'s 20 percent strategic investment in Right Media in October 2006, Yahoo! will acquire the remaining equity interest in Right Media for approximately $680 million.
NBC Universal Acquires RMail
Great news for founder Randy Charles Morin, but a bit of a head scratcher for us: NBC Universal has acquired RMail, Randy's startup that allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds via email. The site has more than 50,000 users, 100,000 subscriptions and sends over 50,000 emails per day - not huge numbers compared to the likes of Feedburner and Feedblitz. What are NBC Universal's aspirations in the RSS space, and how does this buy fit in? Nonetheless, congrats to Randy on a big coup for the company.
Stockpickr Acquired By TheStreet.com
In January StockPickr announced an investment stake and partnership deal with TheStreet.com. It looks like both sides liked the deal; this evening TheStreet.com announced that they acquired the company. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
PayPerPost Acquires Zookoda
Controversial startup PayPerPost will announce the acquisition of Zookoda , an Australian blog-to-email service, tomorrow. We wrote about Zookoda last year, and the company put the product up for sale last September. There were reportedly a number of offers for the service when it was originally put up for sale, but the asking price of US$500,000 was too rich to close a deal. Now, nearly seven months later, PayPerPost has stepped in to acquire the company. PayPerPost is not disclosing what they paid for Zookoda, although CEO Ted Murphy did tell me it was a cash deal.
Blog Ad Network CrispAds Acquired by Intela
You'll remember we mentioned that CrispAds , the blog ad network, had been acquired by an unknown buyer. That buyer has now come forward: it's Intela LLC , a Boulder, Colorado-based affiliate marketing and lead generation company. They will offer the blog ad network to those clients who want to 'expand beyond straight affiliate marketing and those that are not well served in that arena', CEO Jim Mansfield says. The deal will be announced at the San Fran Ad Tech show on Tuesday, and a release will go out the same day
Hitwise Acquired by Experian
Hitwise, the company that performs analysis of log files from 25 million worldwide ISP accounts to provide relative market share graphs for web properties, has been acquired by Experian for $240 million [via Dave McClure and Marketing Pilgrim...]
Google Acquires Marratech; Gets Into WebEx Territory
After reporting a monster fiscal quarter (the company has close to $12 billion in cash sitting around now and has hired nearly 2,000 new employees this year), Google made a quiet announcement on its corporate blog tonight - they've acquired Swedish startup Marratech for an undisclosed price. This is the first I've heard of Marratech, which is broadly in the e-meeting space and certainly competes with WebEx (recently acquired by Cisco for $3.2 billion). Users are able to communicate via text chat, VOIP and video, and share applications in a virtual meeting.
Mobile Social Networking Patent Sells for $2.6 Million
The patent embedded below is extremely valuable: it just sold for $2.6 million. At 3pm on Thursday, this US patent (number 6,618,593) sold at the Union League Club of Chicago, and that price made it one of the biggest bids recorded for intellectual property during a live auction. The patent covers mobile social networking - set to be one of the hottest tech markets this year.
eBay Acquiring StumbleUpon
High-flying startup StumbleUpon has been rumored to be in acquisition discussions since at least last November. Recently we've heard that talks have heated up again, with Google, AOL and eBay as potential suitors. A source with knowledge of the deal now says the company has signed a term sheet with eBay to be acquired. The price is somewhere between $40 - $75 million. (update: GigaOm is now reporting the price at a $40 - $45 million).
DoubleClick Acquired by Google For $3.1 Billion In Cash
Google reached an agreement today to acquire DoubleClick, the online advertising company, from two private equity firms for $3.1 billion in cash, the companies announced, an amount that was almost double the $1.65 billion in stock that Google paid for YouTube late last year.
Sun Microsystems to buy SavaJe assets
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) - Server and software maker Sun Microsystems, Inc. said Thursday it will buy the intellectual property assets of privately-held SavaJe Technologies, which makes an operating platform for wireless networks. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sun Microsystems said it expects the acquisition to close during the fourth quarter of its 2007 fiscal year, which began on April 2. Sun Microsystems shares closed unchanged at $5.90 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Payday for Red Swoosh: $15 million from Akamai
Akamai has acquired Red Swoosh for $15 million in a stock for stock transaction. We covered Red Swoosh last year when they launched a free, ad supported version of its file serving technology. Red Swoosh uses bittorent-like technology to quickly transfer files using peer to peer technology. Some companies are starting to use bittorent directly for file sharing, however, which questions the need for something like Red Swoosh. See this post on the BBC's useage of Zudeo and bittorent to deliver files to users. Pando, another startup, also overlaps a bit with Red Swoosh.
Commentful Acquired by Blogflux
Remember Commentful, the service that tracks your comments across multiple sites? They've been acquired by the blog tools provider Blogflux, the company told us today. The app has been rewritten and much improved, they say. The new version is at commentful.blogflux.com. The acquisition took place quietly in January.
$200+ Million For Fandango
We're triangulating information from a couple of sources who have information about the size of the Comcast/Fandango deal . It sounds like Comcast paid $200 million, or perhaps a bit more. We're also hearing Fandango revenue is in the $50m/year range, split roughly evenly between ticket sales and advertising. This isn't firm yet - our sources are in the same ballpark but they aren't agreeing on an exact number.
Technorati Acquires Personal Bee
As we reported in March, Technorati has acquired Personal Bee. We pretty much concluded this after the Personal Bee founder gave us a playful 'no comment!' in response to inquiries.
An icon of old web tech is sold... Tom's hardware goes for $15-20 million
Raise your hand if you have been to Tom's Hardware. Yep, we all have at one time or another. I remember using that site bigtime back in the mid to late 90s. It (along with Anand) was the best for tech help and finding out if the latest processor was a hit or a miss. I am not sure if it because I left the early-adopter, hardcore pc builder segment, or if new sites cropped up and were less overwhelmed with ads, but I don't find myself visiting Tom's that much anymore. I am not even sure if I have been there in 2007.
Google Takes Partial Ownership Of Maxthon Browser
Multiple sources are confirming that the Chinese/Israeli startup behind the Maxthon Browser has sold a minority stake to Google. The total investment size is rumored to be around $1 million. We are also hearing that this investment is part of a 'much larger strategic deal' between the two companies.
Synapse Life Sells for $60K
The latest eBayquisition : SynapseLife , a suite of web-based applications that are available on your mobile phone, sold for $60K on eBay in the last few hours. The founders are now switching their focus to Down2Night , a much sexier social app that will soon have integration with MySpace.
Why Microsoft should buy DoubleClick
NEW YORK (AP) -- Google Inc., expanding its efforts at providing software that helps users create and post their own materials on the Internet, has acquired a California startup that develops online collaboration tools known as wikis.
Xing Acquires eConozco, Prepares for Spanish Invasion
Xing operator Open Business Club AG has acquired eConozco, a fairly large social network for professionals in Spain, it was announced today. The amount was not disclosed. Webwag Acquires Mobease
A scoop over on Mashable France : startpage provider Webwag has acquired Mobease , a widget platform for mobile phones. Launched in 2006, Mobease provides Mobidgets for putting widgets on your phone, and Mobifindit, a search engine that indexes the contents of your mobile handset.
HP to Acquire Tabblo, Aims to Make Printing from Web Easier
HP today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tabblo Inc., a privately-held developer of web-based software located in Cambridge, Mass.
HP goes web 2.0, buys Tabblo
Now this is one Web 2.0 acquisition that makes sense! Hewlett-Packard has acquired Tabblo, Massachusetts-based company that makes it easier for consumers to upload and printing their photos from the web. Think of Tabblo as iPhoto rest of us - allowing folks to print their photos as calendars or albums, layered with all sorts of social web features.
HP Acquires Tabblo
HP announced the acquisition of Cambridge, Massachusetts based Photo printing site Tabblo this morning. The price is not being disclosed.
Disney Buys Chinese Mobile Content Provider Enorbus; For Around $20 Million
Disney has bought Chinese mobile gaming company Enorbus , for around $20 million, MocoNews.net has learned. Financial backers in the company included Carlyle and Qualcomm Ventures.
CBS Acquires High School Sports Site
CBS announced the acquisition of MaxPreps, the largest high school sports site, earlier today.The acquisition price was not disclosed, but we're digging. We're hearing that the company was asking for $20+ million.
Google Acquires Gapminder's Trendalyzer
An interesting Google buy today: they just snapped up the Trendalyzer software created by Sweden-based stats company Gapminder. What does it do? Well, it plots data in pretty animations like the one pictured below. Or as Gapminder themselves describe it, Trendalyzer 'unveils the beauty of statistics by converting boring numbers into enjoyable interactive animations.' The Trendalyzer team will of course be joining Google: always good to get more stat heads aboard.
Let the passion continue! We're (Google) acquiring Adscape
Asteroids, Space Invaders, Centipede and Tetris-remember when you could only play these games at an arcade? I would line up behind at least 6 people for my chance at Asteroids. Time warp-now it's 2007. Games can be played anywhere and at anytime. In this mobile world, games have evolved to become a part of our lives. Unlike television, gamers can make games their own - customizing their experience in new ways-and we are helping them do that big time.
Cisco Announces Agreement to Acquire WebEx
Cisco (NasdaqGS: CSCO - News ) and WebEx today announced a definitive agreement for Cisco to acquire WebEx. WebEx is a market leader in on-demand collaboration applications, and its network-based solution for delivering business-to-business collaboration extends Cisco's vision for Unified Communications, particularly within the Small to Medium Business (SMB) segment.
Cisco Buys WebEx for $3.2 Billion
News is just breaking that Cisco has agreed to aquire WebEx for $3.2 billion in cash. In 2006, WebEx generated nearly $50 million in profit on $380 million in revenue. They have $300 million or so in cash on hand, so the net deal value is $2.9 billion.
Microsoft to Acquire Tellme Networks
Microsoft Corp. today announced it will acquire Tellme Networks, Inc., a leading provider of voice services for everyday life, including nationwide directory assistance, enterprise customer service and voice-enabled mobile search. Microsoft and Tellme share a vision around the potential of speech as a way to enable access to information, locate other people and enhance business processes, any time and from any device. Combining Tellme's talented people and expertise in high-volume voice services with Microsoft's platform, resources and worldwide customer reach will inspire new and innovative solutions.
Mojungle Acquired by Peak Performance Solutions
Mojungle, a MySpace widget that's been trying to sell itself for some time, has been acquired in its entirety by Ohio-based Peak Performance Solutions, the company told Mashable today.
Mojungle, finally sold
Mojungle, the media sharing site that had put itself up for sale on eBay, only to withdraw the listing because of zero-bids has been sold to Peak Performance Solutions of Columbus, Ohio.
Tribe Gets Acquired, For Real This Time
Last year was a turbulent one for Silicon Valley based Tribe.net. Founding CEO Mark Pincus was ousted, in April 2005 and then returned in August 2006. While Pincus was gone rumors swirled that the company had been acquired by NBC, but the deal was never consummated.
Wizzard Media acquires Libsyn
An announcement was made by Wizzard Media that will impact thousands of podcasters like us MobileTechRoundupers. The company announced it has acquired Liberated Syndication, known to podcasters as Libsyn.
Troubled Insider Pages Acquired By CitySearch
The Insider Pages acquisition rumors that we posted on last week were accurate - later today Citysearch, a division of InterActive Corp., will announce that they have acquired the company.
Microsoft Acquires Health Search Engine, Medstory - The Continued Rise of Vertical Search
Microsoft has acquired Medstory , a vertical search engine for health information. This is an interesting development in a few ways - but in terms of Web tech trends, because it's another sign of the rise of vertical search engines.
Insider Pages Acquisition May Be Announced Next Week
Fox Interactive Acquires Ad Optimization Company
Fox Interactive Media announced this morning that it has acquired the thrillingly named Strategic Data Corporation
Talkr Sold - New Owners Plan To Make Money Via Audio Advertising
Talkr has just been acquired - by a company who found out it was for sale via Read/WriteWeb!
Google to Buy Adscape for $23 Million
After some rumors of a deal earlier this month, Google has expanded it's advertising reach by moving into video game advertising with their $23 million acquisition of Adscape.
Quepasa Acquires Corazones.com
A smart acquisition for the Hispanic social network Quespasa: they've just snapped up Corazones.com, a Hispanic dating site. We're not sure whether they held back the announcement for Valentine's Day, but it seems like good timing.
Fabrik Acquires SimpleTech's Consumer Business for $43 million
Fabrik, Inc., a privately owned company, today announced that it has acquired the consumer product business of SimpleTech, Inc., based in Santa Ana, Calif., the No. 3 U.S. provider of hard disk drive-based external, portable and network storage solutions for consumers and small business users.
EA Acquires Karaoke Site SingShot
Electronic Arts announced today that it has acquired San Francisco based online karaoke site SingShot for an undisclosed sum. Kareoke sites are real crowd pleasers and this is the third in a year to be acquired. Fox Interactive Media acquired kSolo in April, then Yahoo! scooped up Bix in November.
Bolt gets its exit: $30M from GoFish
Bolt, an online video startup that's been made an example of by Universal Music Group, is selling out to publicly traded online video company GoFish for $30 million in stock.
Cisco buys into social-networking fray
Cisco Systems is making its first move toward courting big media companies with the acquisition of a small San Francisco social-networking company.
Video Site Putfile Sells for $7.1M
HandHeld Entertainment, a small consumer electronics firm that is buying up web content sites, has acquired video and photo upload site Putfile for $7.1 million in cash and stock, the company announced today.
Network Solutions Acquired By General Atlantic
We're just getting news that domain name registrar (the original one) Network Solutions has been acquired by General Atlantic, a private equity firm. The price hasn't been disclosed, but it will be leaking soon.
FanNation Acquired by Sports Illustrated
Today, Sports Illustrated is announcing the acquisition of FanNation, albeit at a less ridiculous price: “at least” $20 million for both FanNation and an investment in parent company STI.
AOL to Acquire TradeDoubler for $900 million
We first heard about the AOL-TradeDoubler rumors in a comment to a blog post, and it looks like it’s happening. AOL is acquiring Sweden-based TradeDoubler, a performance marketing company, for €695 million in cash, or about US$900 million.
eBay is Buying StubHub For $310 million
It looks like the rumors forced eBay’s hand and they are announcing the deal earlier than expected - they are acquiring San Francisco-based StubHub for $285 million plus the cash on StubHub’s books, which is about $25 million.
German Facebook Clone (Studivz) Sells for €100 million
German Facebook clone Studivz has been sold to one of its investors, Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH, a German publishing group, for €100 million (about $132 million). Other investors of Studivz include the Samwer brothers, founders of ringtone company Jamba (sold for €270M) and Alando (sold to eBay for €43M in 1999).
PayPerPost To Acquire Performancing
PayPerPost, the controversial startup that pays bloggers to write about advertisers’ products, will be in the news again tomorrow. They will be announcing the acquisition of blogging tools and services company Performancing (see our earlier coverage of Performancing).
AT&T Acquires InFreeDA, Gets Into Free 411 Business
The massive success of Jingle’s 800-Free-411 service, which allows people to get 411 information without the outrageous fees charged by cell phone carriers and other telephone companies (up to $3.50 per call), has finally caught the attention of at least one of the big guys. AT&T acquired InFreeDA, a competitor to Jingle and operator of the 800-411-Metro service, for an undisclosed amount, and announced a free 411 service.
Google Acquires Euro Mapping Company
Google announced the acquisition of part of a business called Endoxon, an Internet mapping company located in Switzerland.
Wikia To Buy ArmchairGM for $2 million
Wikia will announce the acquisition of ArmchairGM sometime this week, according to a source close to the transaction. The company was bought for $2 million in cash and Wikia stock.
Mojungle, for sale now on eBay
Mojungle, a mobile media-sharing startup, is the latest company to put itself 2 up for sale on eBay, with the bid starting at $60,000.
Vendio acquires Andale, an online sales management company
Andale, a Sunnyvale company that helps vendors put their listings on eBay and then manage transactions, has been acquired by San Mateo company, Vendio , for an undisclosed amount.
Akamai Loads Up On Software
Akamai Technologies , which dominates the Web content delivery market, said Monday it has acquired media-focused software company Nine Systems for about $160 million in cash and stock. Akamai's shares closed Monday at $50.37, up 2.27%.
Bix.com Acquired by Yahoo!
Online karaoke and contest site Bix has signed an agreement to be acquired by Yahoo! Bix CEO Mike Speiser will continue running Bix but will also take on responsibility for product management for Yahoo! Groups, 360, and Photos under the title VP of Community.
MyBlogLog Acquired by Yahoo for $10M
In the second social media acquisition by Yahoo! story in the last 12 hours, news has emerged that Yahoo! has agreed to acquire MyBlogLog . MyBlogLog is a blog community and analytics tool used here on TechCrunch (see sidebar) and many other blogs around the web.
BubbleShare bought by News Corp
Today Techcrunch reported that the Toronto-based photo sharing site BubbleShare , which they've followed since its December 2005 launch, has been involved in aquisition talks with News Corp., the parent company to MySpace, according to a source close to the deal. News Corp. would not comment on the rumor.
Relegence sold for $65M
AOL, the Internet division of Time Warner Inc., on Wednesday said it had purchased Relegence, a company specializing in financial news and information search technology.Privately held Relegence offers subscription services that provide readers with real-time notification and delivery of financial information to their desktop computers. The company was founded in 1999 and has 60 employees in offices in New York, London and Tel Aviv.
Reddit.com Acquired by Condé Nast/Wired
Pretty neat site called Reddit.com -- very similar to Digg.com -- having Alexa ranking below 1000 has just been acquired by Condé Nast / Wired for undisclosed price… What we know is that Condé Nast / Wired operates a site named Lipstick which is much or less a clone of Reddit.com but way below the popularity of Reddit. One can see that their attempt to duplicate the original site did not work things out and they decided to buy the original.
Google bought YouTube for $1.65B!
That's it, despite all the arguments against this deal and although many experts and analysts stated such a deal is impossible it is fact and has just been confirmed. It represents $1.65B paid all in stock deal.
News Corp bought another jobs site
News Corp. bought U.K. jobs Web site...News Corp. on Monday said it has agreed to buy a U.K. jobs recruitment site for an undisclosed sum to reach a younger audience. Financial terms of the deal was not disclosed. One source familiar with the deal said News International, the U.K. unit of the company, paid about 20 million pounds ($37.74 million) for the site, Milkround Online. Userplane purchased by AOL
Web messaging services company Userplane has been acquired by AOL , it was was announced this morning. This company powers the interactive features (chat, video chat, video profiles, etc.) on most online dating and many social networking sites.
Google bought Jotspot
Google has acquired wiki service JotSpot (see news story .) Jotspot is one of a few wikis that's easier to write in than the first generation of wikis. Early wikis required you to write your links and formatting in wiki code, which is quite straightforward, but also quite different from standard HTML and from working with a WYSIWYG word processor, like Word or Google Docs. $375 million to buy IncesiveMedia
Incisive Media, owner of network of different web sites including several popular ones such as Search Engine Watch and the Search Engine Strategies Conferences agreed to a $375Million (USD) buyout deal with Apex Partners on last Thursday.
Google acquires wiki startup
NEW YORK (AP) -- Google Inc., expanding its efforts at providing software that helps users create and post their own materials on the Internet, has acquired a California startup that develops online collaboration tools known as wikis. |
