Business Issues > Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments
Apr. 15, 2008 at 12:26pm by Barry Schwartz
AOL Acquires Sphere & Creates Search Interface For iPhone
Sphere, software that connects contextually relevant content to your content, has been purchased by AOL. The Sphere Blog confirms the acquisition, and TechCrunch suggests the purchase price was at about $25 million. Sphere initially launched as a blog search engine but then adapted into a "related content engine," with clients...
See Related Stories In: AOL: General, AOL: Mobile, Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments
Apr. 9, 2008 at 9:39pm by Barry Schwartz
Report: Yahoo & AOL Approaching A Deal
Yahoo, AOL Close In on Tie-Up Deal from the Wall Street Journal reports that Yahoo and AOL are close on finalizing a deal that would combine parts of both companies. The deal would bridge Timer Warner's Internet operations with Yahoo by folding the AOL unit into Yahoo. In return, Time...
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Mar. 31, 2008 at 8:58am by Barry Schwartz
SEO Company, Fathom Online, Acquired By Geary Interactive
Geary Interactive has announced acquiring Fathom Online, an SEO company. Fathom was formed in 2002 and is based in San Francisco. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Geary is a full service digital marketing agency based in San Diego. Some of Fathom's employees are now working out of...
See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, SEM Industry: Outsourcing
Mar. 3, 2008 at 10:51am by Barry Schwartz
Compete Sold For $75 Million To Taylor Nelson Sofres
Andrew Girdwood notes that Compete.com was purchased by Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) for $75 million. TNS's release reports that Compete.com's 2007 revenue was "$14.9 million, over 50 per cent higher than in the previous year." TNS will pay in deferred cash payments throughout now and 2010, up to a maximum...
See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, Stats: Compete
Feb. 4, 2008 at 12:58pm by Vanessa Fox
Yahoo! Addresses The Troops (And So Does Microsoft)
With all the furor about Microsoft's potential acquisition of Yahoo!, how do the Yahoo! employees feel about the possibility? Top Yahoo! execs addressed employees on Friday and followed it up with a company-wide email. The email emphasizes that the bid was unsolicited, that no decisions have been made, and...
See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, Microsoft & Yahoo Merger, Microsoft: Employees, Yahoo: Employees
Feb. 4, 2008 at 11:07am by Greg Sterling
Microsoft's Prize: Big Yahoo CPMs, Largest Display Share
On Friday comScore put out ad publisher site rankings. Unsurprisingly, Yahoo ranked as the top site with just under 19 percent of US online display advertising. MediaPost took this data and further analyzed it, finding that Yahoo enjoys the industry's highest CPM rates at $12.65, more than $4 higher than...
See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, Microsoft & Yahoo Merger, Search Engines: Answer Search Engines, Yahoo: Display Ads
Dec. 13, 2007 at 10:42am by Searcharazzi
Searcharazzi: Fathom SEO Acquisition Details
The industry has been buzzing for awhile about private equity buyers that just might be interested in picking up some search firms. Here are the details on the acquisition of Fathom SEO by PromiseONE, a private equity buyer. Exclusive advisor Agile Equity gives these details * Fathom SEO sold to...
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Dec. 13, 2007 at 8:03am by Greg Sterling
CallGenie Buys Mobile "Ad Exchange" PhoneSpots
Voice services provider CallGenie announced the acquisition of mobile content provider and ad exchange PhoneSpots. The mostly stock transaction was valued at $5.75 million and provides a range of new client relationships and capabilities to Canada-based CallGenie....
See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, Search Ads: Pay Per Call, Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines
Nov. 8, 2007 at 4:23pm by Barry Schwartz
LookSmart Reports Poor Earnings & Sells FindArticles To CNET
Gary Price reports that LookSmart has sold off FindArticles to CNET Networks for $20.5 million. LookSmart published a press release that details the sale is in cash, not in stock. Neil Ashe, CEO of CNET Networks, said:...
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Nov. 6, 2007 at 9:38am by Greg Sterling
Report: AOL To Acquire Quigo For $300 Million
There are rumors and reports circulating that AOL is about to add Quigo to its now pretty full roster of online ad networks and technologies, which includes Tacoda, Advertising.com, Third Screen Media, Lightningcast, and AdTech. These entities are the backbone of AOL's "Platform A" integrated online (and mobile) advertising, er,...
See Related Stories In: AOL: General, AOL: Search Marketplace, Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments
Nov. 2, 2007 at 1:37pm by Vanessa Fox
Changes At Natural Language Search Company Powerset
Big management changes are going on at Powerset, which has received much attention for its potential in using natural language processing for search. Barney Pell, who has been CEO at Powerset, posted today in his blog that he is transitioning to CTO, that Steve Newcomb, who had been COO, is...
See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, Search Features: Natural Language
Oct. 24, 2007 at 8:57am by Barry Schwartz
Report: Microsoft & Google Compete To Own Stake In Facebook
Online Faceoff from NY Post reports Google is in a heated battle with Microsoft to own a stake in Facebook. The two companies would like to own a 5 percent and 10 percent stake in Facebook to leverage the huge opportunity of advertising revenue from the site amongst other opportunities...
See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, Google: Business Issues, Microsoft: Business Issues, Search Engines: Facebook
Oct. 18, 2007 at 1:36pm by Searcharazzi
Searcharazzi Alert: Interwoven to Acquire Optimost
Just a few weeks after Offermatica was picked up by Omniture, TechCrunch reports that Interwoven has agreed to buy Optimost for $52 million in cash. While we were pretty sure that AKQA would get the deal, it looks like the CMS won out. The Interwoven website is now serving...
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Oct. 9, 2007 at 9:06am by Greg Sterling
SEM Firm ReachLocal Closes Massive Funding Round
ReachLocal, an SEM firm offering simplified Internet and local search services directly and indirectly to the small business market, has closed a massive $55 million round of funding. This adds to previous rounds raised by the company. Reach is building out sales offices in cities across the U.S. and a...
See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, SEM Industry: Outsourcing, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing
Sep. 20, 2007 at 9:51am by Greg Sterling
Zillow Grabs Another Big Round Of Cash
As the Wall Street Journal reported this morning, real estate and local search site Zillow announced another round of investment -- this time a whopping $30 million. That means the company has raised roughly $90 million since launching in early 2006. Among other intended uses of the money, the site...
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Sep. 17, 2007 at 7:30am by Greg Sterling
Superpages Parent To Acquire InfoSpace Directory Sites
Recently Superpages has been putting out a press release a day, and today is no exception. The company just announced that it would be buying the directory assets of Infospace -- the only one explicitly named is Switchboard.com -- for $225 million (mixture of cash and debt). Infospace.com itself is...
See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines
Aug. 24, 2007 at 12:30pm by Barry Schwartz
Accoona's IPO Backfires, Again
Web search IPO stalls on underwriter doubts from CNN Money reports that Accoona's expected $80.5 million IPO has failed due to their underwriter backing out. Maxim Group, their underwriter, backed out after completing an in-depth review of the company. The New York Times reported Edward L. Rose, the firm’s vice...
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Jul. 27, 2007 at 9:11am by Searcharazzi
Searcharazzi: False Starts; iCrossing's $62M
It was about to be one spicy Friday, as Searcharazzi received a call on Thursday from a recruiter looking to replace a top editor in the search space. The conversation went something like this: Recruiter: “Our client is looking to replace the top spot at [name of publication].” Searcharazzi:...
See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, Business Issues: General, SEM Industry: Acquisitions, SEM Industry: General, SEM Industry: Outsourcing, Searcharazzi
Jul. 20, 2007 at 8:21am by Barry Schwartz
German-Backed Search Project, Theseus, Given $165 Million Grant
EU OKs German Online Search-Engine Grant from Forbes reports Theseus, a German search research project, has received a $165 million grant from the European Union. Theseus aims to develop an advanced multimedia search engine. The EU will allow German subsidy of the project through 2011. We covered news in the...
See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, Search Engines: Outside USA, Search Engines: Video Search Engines
Jul. 19, 2007 at 1:08pm by Greg Sterling
Local.com Acquires B2B Local Search Provider PremierGuide
Local search destination Local.com, which recently announced two local and mobile search patents, has acquired PremierGuide for approximately $2 million. PremierGuide is a white label provider of local search functionality and listings to third party publisher sites (newspapers and local TV affiliates) and has a large roster of clients. I...
See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines
Jul. 16, 2007 at 5:29pm by Barry Schwartz
Answers.com To Buy Dictionary.com For $100 Million
Answers Corp has reached an agreement to buy Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com from Lexico Publishing Group, LLC for $100 million. These properties attracted 11.5 million unique monthly users in the U.S. during the month of June 2007 according to comScore. They generated revenues of $7 million, EBITDA of $2.9 million...
