901am » Acquisition

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.

Disney Online acquires Kaboose web properties for $18 million

Cristina Ledesma — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:28:50 +0000

Disney Online, part of the Disney Interactive Media Group (DIMG), announced has signed an agreement to acquire Internet assets from Canadian-based Kaboose Inc. including Kaboose.com, Babyzone.com, AmazingMoms.com, Funschool.com and Zeeks.com.

The Kaboose assets will be integrated into Disney Online’s line-up of websites. The purchase price is approximately $18.4 million.

Tsavo Media acquires user-generated recipe site Open Source Food

Cristina Ledesma — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:01:13 +0000

Several hundred thousand palates can’t be wrong. With this, Tsavo Media announced that it has acquired Open Source Food (OSF) from Egg & Co., a venture of Tokyo-based web producer Jon Anthony Yongfook Cockle.

With the acquisition, OSF has been renamed NibbleDish and will join Tsavo’s new network of content sites for consumers, currently in development.

Yongfook will remain with the company. A serial web-app builder, Yongfook is also responsible for the popular lifestreaming software Sweetcron and analytics tool Gumtrail. From his base in Tokyo, he works with various Japanese companies as an outside consultant, building web apps and overseeing production.

Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.