Articles of the Day
Yahoo/Right Media Gets Green Light, Leaving GoogleClick As ‘Last Deal Standing’ - While Yahoo joined WPP and Microsoft in getting FTC clearance or major ad-related acquisitions, Google’s deal for DoubleClick remains under antitrust scrutiny.
Court Nixes Stay For Sunday’s ‘Death’ of Web Radio - A federal court rejected a stay of execution, so higher royalty rates are set to take effect on Sunday. DiMA, SaveNetRadio and webcasters appealed to listeners to appeal to Congress for overriding legislation.
Apple Bites Into comScore World Metrix Top 10 - In May, a month before the release of iPhone, Apple saw a 5% increase in worldwide Web visitors, jumping to 120 million unique visitors and entering comScore’s worldwide Top 1Properties list at number 10.
Ringtone Growth Headed For Slowdown: iSuppli - The market intelligence firm said ringtone sales in the U.S. will be down by more than 20% by 2011, a sharp drop from 2007’s $700 million in sales.
Vertical Search Picks Up Google Slack - Big Search may belong to Google, future competition will come from vertical search providers. For example, GlobalSpec.com, a search-engine for engineers, has already established itself as the best way to find information about anything related to engineering. “They own that market,” says Charlene Li of Forrester Research. Indeed, GlobalSpec has some 3.5 million registered users, adding them at a rate of 20,000 per week.
Pirated Music Helps Terrestrial Radio - Record labels and artists might think they’re going to recoup some of the revenue lost to music piracy thanks to higher online royalty rates, but Web radio may die in the wake of a recent court decision. And piracy isn’t going away, either.
Jupitermedia Raises $115 Million in Credit Line - Jupitermedia, the tech media, events and images company, has closed a $115 million senior credit facility, arranged by KeyBanc Capital Markets. It has initially borrowed $75 million of this amount to repay a previous credit facility with JPMorgan Securities and to fund future acquisitions. The company has made a slew of small to mid size acquisitions in the B2B images and music licensing business over the last two years.
Fortune iMeme: Facebook Will Make Over $100 Million Revenues This Year; Media Company Or Not? - That was from Jim Breyer, from Accel Partners, the main investment firm invested into Facebook, speaking at Fortune iMeme conference, covered here by Eric. He was asked about whether Facebook would be sold: “The company will do well over $100 million in revenue, and profitable, and significant EBITDA positive this year. Right now our job is to build out the company as significantly as possible.
CNBC, FT Consider Sharing Some News Resources Online: Report - Last month, GE and Pearson were exploring the heady notion of a joint bid for Dow Jones, ultimately a no go. Now the WSJ is reporting that GE’s CNBC and Pearson’s Financial Times Group are talking about a much lower-level collaboration: sharing some news resources to “bolster” their online operations. One option, according to the Journal, would give ft.com access to CNBC video clips, while CNBC would have access to FT articles for cnbc.com.
Internet Brands Acquires Real Estate Community Site ApartmentRatings - Just a week after its acquisition of Welsh message board provider Jelsoft, Internet Brands, the Los Angeles-based operator of websites such as CarsDirect and BBOnline, has bought real estate social net ApartmentRatings. The purchase of ApartmentRatings is designed to buttress the online services of Internet Brands’ home buyers and sellers site RealEstateABC.com and mortgage lending information provider Loan.com.
Multi-platform Gamer PopCap Buys Retro64 - Casual gaming developer PopCap Games has acquired Retro64, a site that provides downloads of old-style arcade games. Retro64, which is headquartered in Chicago, also markets a series of action and puzzle games, which Seattle-based PopCap feels will round out its product line. The merger, the terms of which were undisclosed, followed PopCap’s publishing of Retro64’s Venice game, which lets players search for underwater treasure while navigating a gondola in a computerized version of the Italian city.
Level 3 Buys Video Delivery Firm Servecast For $45 Million - Fiber optic network operator Level 3 has acquired Servecast, an Irish online and mobile video delivery and webcasting company, for about $45 million in cash. The deal follows a series of acquisitions by Level 3, which has a large metro fiber network, in an effort to expand into the media delivery business, reports Reuters. In January, Level 3 closed its $135 million acquisition of the content delivery network assets of Savvis.
Online Information Resource GolfLink Buys Instructional Video Site GolfSpan - GolfLink, a site that offers news and tips about golf, has bought instructional site GolfSpan for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition gives GolfLink, which currently runs a daily video feature on its home page, access to GolfSpan’s existing video library of more than 1,400 instructional golf tips. Started in 1995, GolfLink says it has more than 100,000 registered members and claims to be the third most popular golf site behind PGAtour.com and Golf.com.
Online Entertainment Distributor DMGI Merges With Rival The Orchard; Will Keep Orchard Name - Online music and video distributor Digital Music Group Inc. and New York-based indie music download service The Orchard have agreed to merge. While the merged entity will retain DMGI’s Nasdaq listing, it will be controlled by Orchard and it will market its services under The Orchard’s name.The deal calls for Sacramento-based DMGI to issue 9 million shares of common stock and 4.4 million shares of convertible preferred stock to The Orchard’s shareholders, who would own 60 percent of the combined company.
