901am » Acquisition

Wal-Mart to Enter the VOD Market, Eyes Vudu Movie Service

Arnold Zafra — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:32:47 +0000

Wal-Mart has been in the DVD retailing business for quite some time now. And while this has been doing good for them, the company lacks one service which has been the the more popular way of bringing digitial movies to U.S. consumers – video-on-demand service.

But Wal-Mart may be preparing up to enter this arena soon, as New York Times is reporting that the video company is eyeing Vudu, an online movie service provider. Although the deal has not been confirmed yet by both companies,reports had it they have began informing Hollywood studios about the deal.

If the deal is indeed true, Wal-Mart maybe facing up stiff challenge against the likes of iTunes, Netflix and other online video-on-demand services. While Vudu for its part has been pretty much making some noise especially during the recent CES Event wherein the company managed to struck some deals with LCD TV manufacturers in putting Vudu services in their products.

Previously, Vudu has been advocating the use of a separate device that would connect to home TVs but could not manage to get some leverage. Since then, the company concentrated on delivering online movie service instead.

We’ll see whether this deal would make some headway in the coming days. It will be exciting to watch how Wal-Mart would put up a challenge against iTunes, Amazon, and other big names in the video-on-demand service. And whether which one will emerge as the households’ choice of VOD provider.

The Sad Fate of Friendster

Mike Abundo — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:29:03 +0000

Remember when LiveJournal was sold to some Russian company nobody’s ever heard of? The once-great blogging pioneer, which was among the first services of its kind to boast such cool features as comment threading and social networking, eventually failed to evolve and fell to the wayside. Now LiveJournal is nothing more than a mass online group therapy session for wrist-slashing emos.

History repeats itself with another pioneer that failed to adapt. If you’ve been into social networking for a while, then you would remember the Great Friending of 2003. That’s the year when Friendster introduced the concept of the online social networking service, when we all rushed to map out our social graphs online for the first time. Heck, Friendster even owns a patent for social relationships, a dubious patent to say the least.

Sadly, Friendster failed to capitalize on its initial success. Instead, like the proverbial hare in a race with the tortoise, the early starter rested on its laurels and failed to follow through on two very important things:

1) Scalablity. Friendster’s scalability problems started with cache replication errors here and there. Then they got worse. Dozens of friends would disappear at a time. Updates would fail to show up, a no-no in the realtime Web. Eventually, it got so bad that the whole site went down for four days without explanation last year. Friendster’s failure to scale gave MySpace the opportunity to rocket ahead in the social networking space.

2) Interoperability. Facebook introduced its application platform. MySpace introduced MySpaceID. Twitter’s rich APIs spawned hundreds of mashups. While all that was happening, Friendster remained… Friendster, the same old social information silo it always was. That’s how Facebook became the world’s top social network, with 350 million users using Facebook Connect 60 million times a month across the Web. That’s why over six thousand sites across the Internet — from huge sites like The New York Times to tiny sites like my own personal blog — now support Facebook Connect, and not Friendster Connect.

Friendster’s spin doctors would have you believe the site still rules Southeast Asia. That’s a lie. It’s the same kind of lie Carol Bartz tells about Yahoo: commercial strength among the unwashed and disengaged masses. I’m currently typing this post from the tropical paradise of the Philippines, surrounded by all its beautiful women — the most beautiful of whom are on Facebook and MySpace and Twitter. Around here, Friendster is considered the online hangout of the lower class. Think about the kind of people you see on MySpace, scaled down to the third world. You’ll get the picture. That’s why your next social network ad campaign to target Southeast Asia will probably be on Facebook, and not on Friendster.

I actually dread the thought of Friendster rolling out a federated identity service, something like Facebook Connect or MySpaceID or Twitter OAuth. Friendster is filled with moronic teenagers who type in mIzSpElT cAmElCaSe. God forbid Friendster Connect spread them across teh Intarwebz.

Even after all these years, Friendster still hasn’t figured out that it needs interoperability, that social information silos just won’t cut it in the age of the mashup, that it takes more than just fancy layouts and teenybopper marketingspeak to succeed in an interoperable medium like the Web. From its cutesy unreadable logo with vague cloud computing allusions to its Twitter-wannabe front page, Friendster’s new interface looks like a parody of Web 2.0 design motifs.

The most recent ad for Friendster even flies in the face of Metcalfe’s Law, actually mocking Facebook’s popularity and trumpeting Friendster’s status as a hopelessly insular, disconnected, geographically isolated information silo. Apparently, Friendster is only for Asian teenagers with no concept of data portability or people outside their little cliques — and they’d like it to stay that way, thank you very much. White/black/Hispanic people who’ve been spoiled on the power and reach of the Facebook platform aren’t welcome at Friendster’s little kiddie clubhouse.

For all these reasons and more, Friendster has met a fate similar to that of LiveJournal years before: sold off to some Malaysian company nobody’s ever heard of, all for the piddling sum of $110 million. Oh yeah, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is just quivering in his boots. After all, Facebook is only worth $15 billion.

Even Zynga, maker of the popular Facebook game Farmville, makes only $250 million per year. Oh yeah, Zynga founder Mark Pincus is just itching to drop Facebook in favor of Friendster. To quote the new Friendster ad, whoop dee doo.

Let the sad fate of Friendster serve as a lesson to founder Jonathan Abrams, and all pioneers who whine about their supposed entitlements while smart competitors leave them in the dust. Nobody cares if you were the first to do social networking, or blogging, or sliced bread, or fire, or the frickin’ wheel. Seniority does not equal relevance. Evolve or perish.

(Image by Paolo Marinduque.)

5 Content Companies Ripe For A Take Over

David Krug — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:19:58 +0000

Looking for possible future acquisitions? Here’s a list of 5 companies that would be a great fit for a traditional media empire looking to grow its business by embracing a new media company that is on a growth path.

Here at 901am, we’ve take the time to evaluate these 5 companies and their possible homes if they were acquired. These are mere speculations, and opinions. Any conflicts of interest are merely by accident. We hold no vested interest in any of these companies.

1. Breaking News Online
Paid Content recently highlighted Breaking News Online. I personally agree with Rafat Ali’s notion about this small company. It would be a great pickup for any news organization. However if I was the CEO of NPR. I would dig deep and find the money to buy this startup. Likewise a mid size city would be wise to pick up this news startup.

2. Celebrity Gossip Rags
The Superficial, Jossip, PopCrunch all come to mind as great ideas on which to build on. Numerous small and large companies should be reaching for the phone to try and pick up one or all of these celebrity gossip sites. Some prime examples of where a gossip rag would be fit would be Huffington Post which could use one of these sites as a strong base to create an entertainment division. Another company that would be wise to pick up one of these up and coming celebrity sites is

3. AllTop Aggregator
The Alltop Aggregator is just awesome enough to warrant a takeover. It would make a nice solid starting point for any established news entity looking to embrace new media. Some likely landing points for this company would be a traditional news agency like a mid sized newspaper looking to gain new readers, and reach out to those used to consuming news through new media.

4. b5Media
B5Media, is an online media publishing company located in Toronto. A great landing spot for this company would be an advertising agency looking to increase profits by owning their own sites. The AOL ad networks come to mind who could use a few of these sites to bolster their own brands. B5Media has some strong brands including ProBlogger, & Digital Photography School two very strong brands that would be very valuable to a company who knows how to monetize this type of content well.

5. Bleacher Report
The Bleacher Report is a quiet yet AMAZING success seeing growth that is unheard of in such a short period of time. It’s ripe for a takeover. It’s partnered with CBS Interactive and I think that’s a likely landing spot for this company, unless Yahoo Sports picks it up which to me seems like a great fit even though Yahoo said it’s shedding companies that don’t fit it’s new strategy. The Bleacher Report fits its’ strategy well and I think would be in goods hands at Yahoo.

Bloomberg Buys Business Week

David Krug — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:27:02 +0000

In an era where takeovers, and acquisitions are a daily occurrence in the media publishing industry this one comes as no surprise to me, however the buyer is a bit of a surprise to industry insiders.

Bloomberg LP, the global financial data and news empire created by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, is the winning bidder for BusinessWeek.

Terms of the offer will not be disclosed by Bloomberg and BusinessWeek parent McGraw-Hill Cos. But knowledgeable sources say that Bloomberg’s cash offer is in the $2 million to $5 million range and that it has agreed to assume liabilities, including potential severance payments. It remains to be seen how much of the magazine’s 400-plus staff Bloomberg plans to cut, but reports of a planned scorched earth campaign are overblown, say sources.

Source: Business Week

Nokia acquires Dopplr mobile travel service

Andy Merrett — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:31:50 +0000

Nokia has announced another acquisition in its push to deploy useful mobile services for its cellphone users.

Dopplr is a service that allows travellers to share their personal and business travel plans privately with selected networks, as well as gleaning information about good places to stay, eat and explore in various worldwide cities.

Though the press announcement is shortened to-the-point, this is no doubt a useful service that could tie in well with other services such as Maps, Plazes and Navteq.

Nokia insists that the current experience for Dopplr users won’t change. I expect there’ll be some interesting ongoing development to get Dopplr functionality into Nokia phone software. It could see the expansion of the seven-strong London/Helsinki-based company.

Official: T-Mobile and Orange plan to merge, forming UK’s largest mobile operator

Andy Merrett — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:53:51 +0000

The speculation is over as two of the UK’s mobile phone network operators have announced their intention to merge.

If the application from T-Mobile and Orange is approved, it would make the combined company the largest operator in the UK, with a 37% market share, propelling it past O2.

The deal is due to be completed by November, with the two companies unsurprisingly speaking of the “substantial benefits to UK customers” the merger would bring.

The proposal has to get past competition regulators first.

Changes would be fairly slow, with the brands remaining separate for a year-and-a-half after the deal was completed. Would Orange become a little pink after that? We’ll have to wait and see.

The UK’s mobile landscape would then be made up of the big three — T-Mobile/Orange, O2 and Vodafone — controlling some 90% of the UK market.

9rules sells up to Splashpress Media

Andy Merrett — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:22:15 +0000

In a post titled 9rules welcomes its new overlords, Paul Scrivens has announced that the network has been sold to Splashpress Media (owner of 901am):

Over the past couple of months the Triad has been considering what to do with 9rules. If you have followed us over the years you know that we have no problems making big changes to our site and community with the chance of making it better. However, we came to the point where the ideas stopped flowing and we were stuck.

…we have decided to reach out to a company that knows a thing or two about blogs and could bring in a fresh new team of talent to take 9rules even further. Enter Splashpress Media. Why Splashpress? Because not only do they have the people that have a passion for publishing online content, but they also have the resources to make things happen without being too large as to forget the core of what makes 9rules special, the community.

Comments on that blog entry were closed and the Twitterati are rather quiet on the acquisition at present. Darren Rowse suggests that 9rules and SPM are a bizarre match. We’ll see what happens, but it’s a match indeed.

Here’s Blog Herald’s coverage.

Facebook acquires FriendFeed

Andy Merrett — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:43:04 +0000

The big social network news of the day is Facebook’s acquisition of FriendFeed.

FriendFeeds’ cofounder Bret Taylor spoke of the two networks’ “common vision of giving people tools to share and connect with their friends”, while Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg spoke of how he “admired their team for creating such a simple and elegant service for people to share information” ever since he first used FriendFeed.

For the moment, FriendFeed will continue to run as a standalone service, while all FriendFeed’s staff will work for Facebook and its directors will take new senior positions.

The new combined team will look at how FriendFeed functionality, as well as new ideas, will fit in to Facebook to enhance communication and user experience.

“We can’t wait to join the team and bring many of the innovations we’ve developed at FriendFeed to Facebook’s 250 million users around the world,” said Taylor.

It’s great news for Facebook. Though I don’t use FriendFeed, I’d expect a number of its users are hoping that FF doesn’t disappear as separate product. After all, Facebook certainly isn’t for everyone.

ITV sells Friends Reunited for £25m; just 14% of purchase price

Andy Merrett — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:29:59 +0000

Troubled British commercial broadcaster ITV has sold the Friends Reunited social networking site for £25m, about one-seventh of what it paid for it in 2005.

Though ITV reckons the site is still profitable, losses in other parts of its broadcasting business prompted the sale.

Friends Reunited, a site initially started from a bedroom in North London by Steve and Julie Pankhurst in 2000 as a way for people to find their old school friends, has seen its market share overtaken by the likes of Facebook.

The site arguably shot itself in the foot by choosing to charge members for “advanced” features such as being able to contact one another via private message — something that Facebook and other social networks subsequently offered gratis. FR later dropped the charge.

The site has been bought by Brightsolid. The company seems keen to differentiate its online services from other networks by offering UK-centric genealogy and census information.

Match.com acquires People Media for $80 million cash

Minic Rivera — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:45:43 +0000

IAC’s Match.com has signed an agreement to acquire People Media, operator of targeted dating sites, from American Capital Ltd for $80 million in cash.

The acquisition of People Media will expand and strengthen Match.com’s position in the online dating space. People Media operates 27 websites including BlackPeopleMeet.com, SingleParentMeet.com, SeniorPeopleMeet.com, BBPeopleMeet.com and LDSPlanet.com.

Greg Blatt, CEO of Match.com, said:

People Media’s momentum will continue, and that the combination of Match.com and People Media can accelerate each business’ current growth trends in a variety of ways, including through the sharing of product development and online marketing expertise and the ability to market a broader array of services to the combined customer base, thereby improving customer acquisition economics for both companies.