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. More →

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.

More →

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. More →

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. More →

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, 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.

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.

HealthCentral, the website that collects online condition-specific consumer health and wellness experiences, has acquired Wellsphere, a health technology company, adding nearly four million monthly unique visitors to HealthCentral’s audience.

The acquisition combines HealthCentral’s high-quality, condition-specific interactive experiences, content and audience with Wellsphere’s aggregation of over 1,500 health and wellness bloggers and unique Health Knowledge Engine technology that deciphers highly specific health information. HealthCentral also will leverage Wellsphere’s health community enterprise technology which powers Stanford University’s BeWell@Stanford to deliver valuable health information and wellness tools for Stanford employees. The deal raises HealthCentral’s audience of its owned properties to ten million unique visitors per month, and makes the company the largest organic aggregation of online health and wellness communities.

Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The Knot Inc. announced the acquisition of WedSnap, developer of Weddingbook, the wedding application on Facebook Platform. Weddingbook will join The Knot Wedding Network’s suite of leading wedding websites– TheKnot.com and WeddingChannel.com.

“For 12 years, the success of The Knot has been fueled by the robust growth of our community,” said David Liu, CEO of The Knot Inc. “With this acquisition, The Knot community broadens by branching into the fastest-growing social network of brides on Facebook, while Weddingbook members will have access to our extensive repertoire of tools, content, and vendor directories.”

Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Widget network Clearspring Technologies announced the acquisition of AddThis, the bookmarking and content sharing service on the Internet. Together, Clearspring and AddThis will serve over 20 billion views per month and reach more than 200 million unique visitors, creating the most widely used set of content sharing services on the Web.

“The Internet is becoming the backbone for digital communications – an essential part of our everyday lives,” said Ted Leonsis, chairman of the board at Clearspring. “With the acquisition of AddThis, Clearspring is now at the forefront of that evolution, connecting digital content publishers and consumers via a single set of universally recognizable tools that enable people to easily communicate with content.”

Clearspring and AddThis enable people to easily share content with trusted friends and social groups across popular sites like Facebook, MySpace, iGoogle, Twitter and Digg. Compelling content often shared includes Web pages, videos, movie trailers, news, sports updates, trivia quizzes, games, music, and more, and can be shared across more than 80 social networking, blogging and bookmarking services.

Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.