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Yahoo and Musicmatch have signed a definitive agreement under which Yahoo will acquire Musicmatch for a purchase price of $160 million in cash.
The combination will substantially increase Yahoo’s music reach from 12.9 million to an estimated 23 million listeners . This extensive reach within an active and engaged music audience will make Yahoo! even more compelling for advertisers and record labels.
“Yahoo is committed to being a major player in digital music,” said Terry Semel, chairman and chief executive officer, Yahoo! Inc.
“This combination bolsters our strategy to capture the largest audience of consumers as they make the shift to digital music and supports Yahoo’s goal to give consumers the greatest choice, control and flexibility in how they interact with their music. This acquisition is one of several product innovations and new initiatives in which Yahoo will invest to build our music portfolio this year and in the future.”
Digital music sales are expected to grow rapidly in the near future, particularly with the increasing availability of broadband access. Music subscription sales are expected to grow from $113 million this year to $890 million in 2009, while digital downloads are anticipated to reach $803 million in 2009, compared to $158 million for 2004.
Yahoo is brining on an entire hoopla of music features to their network in this latest aquisition. MusicMatch’s assetts include Musicmatch Jukebox software, which allows consumers to play, burn, download, discover, and organize an entire music collection.
The online Musicmatch Radio network, which offers free and premium streaming access to more than 900,000 songs and more than 200 pre-programmed stations; and the Musicmatch Music Store a la carte song download service, which offers access to more than 700,000 tracks.
Most recently, the company introduced the Musicmatch On Demand streaming music subscription service, providing unlimited access to more than 700,000 songs from any computer as well as legal music sharing through its innovative “Send to a Friend” feature.
Source: Yahoo
Harris Interactive has acquired WirthlinWorldwide, a privately held opinion research and strategic consulting firm, headquartered in Reston, VA.
The deal was completed with a combination of stock and cash valued at $41.8 million, and will add $50 million in annual revenue and 300 new clients to Harris Interactive. The combined firm will have over 1,000 employees and is expected to generate $210 to $215 million in revenue this fiscal year.
"I’m excited about the deep, consultative and strategic relationships WirthlinWorldwide has built with their clients. By joining forces, we can now introduce the added benefits of online research to the executives of 300 more companies," commented Robert E. Knapp, CEO of Harris Interactive.
"This combination expands our portfolio of products and services and injects a significant amount of intellectual capital into our organization. We are well on our way to achieving our goal of becoming a $500 million strategic market research firm in the next five years," Knapp continued.
"For over 40 years, I have been passionate about helping our clients build measurable value. With this merger, we can now arm clients with a broader and more powerful suite of world class research tools. The entire WirthlinWorldwide team believes the combined firm will be a significant force in the marketplace," said Dr. Richard B. Wirthlin, founder of WirthlinWorldwide.
"We have been approached by many suitors through the years, but none rivaled the Harris Interactive combination of intellect and innovation. They are true world leaders in online research," Wirthlin concluded.
Source: Harris Interactive
Marketing technology and services firm ValueClick is making its first acquisition into the shopping comparison market, with the purchase of pan-European portal Pricerunner.
The company has today agreed to pay $29m (£16m) in cash and shares to the shareholders of Pricerunner. An additional $6m (£3.2m) will be paid if Pricerunner achieves certain performance milestones.
Pricerunner is the most popular comparison shopping site in Sweden and the third most popular site in the UK. The company also operates a site in France.
ValueClick's chairman and CEO James Zarley said that the group had been looking to add comparison shopping services as part of its strategic growth plan for some time.
'Comparison shopping is a strategic fit with our media, affiliate marketing and search offerings, we look forward to working with Pricerunner and helping them expand their presence in Europe,' he added.
The move comes at a time when competition in the European shopping comparison market, particularly the UK, is getting fierce.
In June, two of the large US players, PriceGrabber and NexTag, announced their entry into the UK, just several months after leading European player Kelkoo was snapped up by Yahoo!
Separately, ValueClick also announced a second quarter profit of $6.7m (£3.6m), before taxes and minority interest, up from $1.6m (£860,000) in the second quarter of 2003. Second quarter revenue rose 72% year-on-year to $34.6m (£19m).
Source: New Media Age
Yahoo has acquired FareChase, a small online travel company, to help broaden its Web search capabilities.
Yahoo purchased New York-based FareChase on July 2 for an undisclosed sum, company spokeswoman Nicki Dugan said late Friday. FareChase, founded in 1999, has 25 employees, the majority of which will relocate to Yahoo's headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.
The Internet giant has made it a priority to build the largest, most comprehensive Internet search service to compete with market leader Google. With FareChase, which provides tools for consumers and travel agents to find information on hotels, cars and flights, Yahoo will be able to build more robust consumer travel services without tapping third parties.
"We're attracted to their travel expertise, and we feel that they will further our goal to create the most comprehensive and relevant travel experience on the Web," Dugan said.
She added that the acquisition will not imminently affect Yahoo Travel, Yahoo's consumer travel property. The Web portal is in an exclusive deal with Travelocity, which provides the underlying tools that let Yahoo visitors search for hotels, cars and flights. Yahoo has yet to disclose how it will incorporate FareChase into its Web site.
FareChase sells business-to-business software that lets travel agents and corporate booking offices search for flight times, car reservations and hotel vacancies in real time. It also lets consumers scout for the best travel deals from roughly 150 Web sites.
The Web log site Searchblog first reported the acquisition.
Source: C-Net News
America Online announced on Thursday that it had acquired Mailblocks Inc., a personal, Web-based email service that incorporates technology to block spam and provide a streamlined, efficient email user interface.
The Los Altos, Ca-based Mailblocks was founded in 2002 and was commercially launched in March 2003 as an email service for both home users and small businesses. It is perhaps best know for developing "challenge/response" technology to combat unwanted junk email and authenticate legitimate email senders.
Receiving positive reviews and comments by industry experts from The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, Mailblocks has also been recognized as PC Magazine's "Editor's Choice" and PC World's "2004 World Class Award." AOL will integrate some of Mailblocks' features for users who access their mail via the web, including a redesigned, streamlined user interface coupled with a faster, easier access to email.
AOL will also offer the patented, efficient Mailblocks "challenge/response" technology across the AOL service as an optional feature for users. A transition plan is also being developed by AOL, allowing current users of Mailblocks to continue using the full features and functionality of Mailblocks.
Source: The WHIR
Google’s acquisition of Picasa last week resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of visits to its website.
These statistics come from Hitwise, an online competitive intelligence service.
The company's software, which enables consumers to organise and share photographs online, complements Google's ongoing mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible.
When Google placed a link to Picasa on the Google UK homepage (www.google.co.uk) on July 16th, Picasa experienced a staggering 6,000% increase in visits among UK sites.
Key points
--- Picasa increased its rank among all sites from # 16,300 on July 9th to # 313 on July 16th.
--- On July 16th, Picasa was the 2nd most visited site within the Hitwise Photography category (up from # 152 the previous day), ahead of Jessops, Kodak and Canon.
--- On July 16th, Picasa received over 45% of visits from Google.co.uk (up from less than 10% a week earlier), with 25% originating from Google.com
Source: Net4NowT
Google has acquired the assets of a company called Picasa Inc. that produces management software for organizing digital photographs.
The photo management program runs a peer-to-peer network for sharing digital photos, Google announced on Tuesday.
A Google spokesman declined to say how or if Picasa's technology would be further integrated into Google's services. Financial details of the transaction weren't disclosed. In May, Picasa's technology was integrated into Google's Blogger service to simplify the publishing and sharing of digital pictures into Blogger messages.
The software for organizing digital photos is called, like the company, Picasa, and is now on version 1.6 and sells for $29, according to information on Picasa's Web site.
The peer-to-peer network for sharing photos is called Hello and its access software can be downloaded for free at http://www.hello.com. The network can be used with or without the Picasa photo management software.
Google, in Mountain View, California, runs the world's most widely used search engine, but it seems interested in broadening its horizons and building complementary Internet services around its search functionality.
For example, in April it announced plans to launch a free Web-based e-mail service. Called Gmail, the service is still under development, but some privacy watchdogs slammed it when it was revealed that Google would scan the text of e-mail messages to deliver ads based on their content.
There is a consensus among industry analysts that users are not very loyal to search engines and that search engine companies need to build a suite of services to hold on tighter to their users.
Analysts have said in the past that it is key to Google's survival to stop being a one-trick pony and build a broad suite of Internet services similar to those offered by rivals Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., with things such as instant messaging, e-mail, photo album and calendaring services.
Some analysts have speculated that the money Google stands to raise from its upcoming initial public offering will help the company accelerate the development, creation and acquisition of services it will need if it is to compete on equal footing with its rivals. No date has been set for Google's IPO, for which the company filed a government registration in April.
Currently, most of Google's revenue comes from online advertising, particularly the type of "sponsored search" ads that are served based on the context of a user's keyword search.
However, competition in this space is heating up, as Yahoo, Microsoft and others are investing heavily in the search market.
In October 2003, Yahoo acquired Overture, a seller of sponsored search ads, and it is continually enhancing its own Internet search technology and integrating it with its other Web-based services.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has declared the search market a priority and is developing its own search technology, which Microsoft hopes will reach information not only on the Internet but also in other data repositories, such as proprietary databases and users' desktops.
Source: InfoWorld
There is more signs of consolidation in the search engine marketing industry.
Integrated digital marketing products seller Digital Impact Inc. of San Mateo, says it is acquiring Marketleap, a San Francisco-based Internet marketing firm specializing in search engine marketing services, for $1.5 million in cash and 1.25 million of Digital Impact's shares and options.
The acquisition will enable Digital Impact to enhance its product lines by offering clients search engine optimization, paid inclusion and pay-for-placement solutions, it says.
Under the terms of the agreement, there's additional contingent consideration of up to 200,000 common shares of Digital Impact stock issuable at the end of Digital Impact's 2005 fiscal year if certain revenue milestones are met.
Source: Silicon Valley Business Journal
America Online, a unit of Time Warner, said it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Advertising.com, a provider of interactive marketing services, in a $435 million all-cash transaction.
Advertising.com operates the industry's largest third-party advertising network, reaching more than 110 million visitors monthly and over 70 percent of all U.S. Web visitors, according to comScore Media Metrix in May 2004.
The company's revenues increased almost 80 percent in 2003 to reach $132 million, and 2003 income from operations was $12.1 million.
Advertising.com will remain in Baltimore and will be managed as a separate company reporting to Michael J. Kelly, president of AOL Media Networks. The company has more than 300 employees and operates principally in the United States, with operations in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
America Online expects to close the transaction in late summer 2004, subject to regulatory approvals.
Advertising.com works with more than 800 advertisers to optimize the performance of their online marketing campaigns through proprietary ad delivery and optimization tools.
Advertising.com also works with more than 1,500 online publishers by providing a large and consistent customer base for their available advertising inventory and by licensing its ad serving technologies.
Jonathan Miller, chairman and CEO of America Online, said, "Advertising.com has built a profitable, scalable and highly attractive business. This acquisition is a strategic move that will bolster AOL's advertising business, building on the strides made in the past year."
Source: Forbes.com
Traffix today announces that it has signed an agreement to purchase all of the assets of SendTraffic.com, a search engine marketing company.
Formed in 1999 by Messrs. Greg Byrnes and Craig Handleman, SendTraffic has been recognized as one of the top search engine marketing firms.
SendTraffic provides full service search engine marketing solutions to over 100 clients. During its five year operating history, SendTraffic has established strong working relationships with the major search engines and portals, including Google, MSN, Overture, FindWhat, Yahoo, AOL, Ask Jeeves and LookSmart.
SendTraffic maintains a "Certified Ambassador" status with Overture, and is a member of the Google Research Board.
Traffix reported that it expects SendTraffic to generate approximately $10 million in revenue and $1 million of EBITDA (1) in the next twelve months. In calendar 2003, SendTraffic generated revenue of approximately $5 million and an adjusted EBITDA of approximately $300,000.
Traffix expects to close the transaction on or about July 1, 2004. Traffix believes that the acquisition will be immediately accretive to Traffix's future earnings per share.
The Company also noted that after the closing of the SendTraffic transaction, it will still have cash and marketable securities on its balance sheet of over $33 million.
Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, dated June 9th, 2004, Traffix will purchase all of the assets (including net working capital of approximately $500,000) of SendTraffic at the closing for $5.43 million, comprised of $1.68 million in Traffix common stock, and $3.75 million in cash.
In addition, Traffix agreed to pay SendTraffic a contingent earnout of $2.5 million if SendTraffic generates EBITDA of $3.75 million in the first year following the closing, an additional $2.5 million if SendTraffic generates EBITDA of $4.75 million in the second year following the closing, and an additional $2.5 million if SendTraffic generates EBITDA of $5.75 million in the third year following the closing.
If SendTraffic generates certain lower agreed upon annual EBITDA benchmarks, Traffix will pay a portion of the contingent earnout payments. The contingent payments, if any are earned, may be paid 50% in cash and 50% in stock, with the share price determined on or about the time of their issuance.
In connection with the acquisition by Traffix, both of the founders of SendTraffic, Greg Byrnes and Craig Handleman, have agreed to enter into five-year employment contracts.
Commenting on the transaction, Mr. Jeffrey Schwartz, Chairman and CEO of Traffix stated, "Management has spent a lot of time trying to identify a meaningful acquisition that can add value to Traffix. We believe that SendTraffic fits that profile for a number of reasons.
First of all, the founders of SendTraffic, Greg Byrnes and Craig Handleman, built this company from their own hard labor with no third party capital. They are some of the most knowledgeable operators that we have met in the search engine marketing industry.
We interviewed a number of their competitors, clients and vendors and their reputation was stellar. Second, we believe there is a lot of potential synergy between the companies, since many of Traffix's current clients would likely use the SendTraffic services, and many of SendTraffic's clients may use Traffix's customer acquisition programs.
Interestingly, there is virtually no overlap in our respective client bases. Equally as important, SendTraffic should be able to enhance the growth of many of Traffix's current web properties through increased search engine traffic.
For example, SendTraffic and Traffix are currently collaborating on programs that will capitalize on some of the huge volumes of unsold search engine inventory. Finally, we believe that the purchase price and earnout formula represent fair and reasonable consideration for this business, and are not based on aggressive valuation multiples."
Commenting on the potential of the SendTraffic business, Mr. Schwartz stated, "We believe that SendTraffic has tremendous growth potential to add new clients from the thousands of businesses that have not begun to tap into the use of search engines for marketing.
Virtually any company can benefit from using search engine marketing if they are aligned with an industry expert such as SendTraffic. Furthermore, this type of growth is not capital intensive."
Mr. Greg Byrnes, co-founder and co-owner of SendTraffic, stated, "It was not an easy decision for Craig and me to sell the business. Frankly, we feel that by merging it with Traffix, we will be able to tap their tremendous resources and marketing expertise so that we can take this business to the next level.
We are very excited because we see so many opportunities to grow our business with Traffix. These guys have proven themselves with over 10 years of profitable operations in all forms of direct marketing media."
He added, "Collectively, we see the search engine industry as one of the most effective direct marketing media created to date. Overall, we are thrilled to be joining the Traffix family."
Mr. Joshua B. Gillon, Executive Vice President of Traffix added, "Traffix seeks to expand its business through sales of products and services sold directly to consumers, and through media properties that we use to generate sales and leads for our clients.
The acquisition of SendTraffic represents an important extension of our on-line media reach. Traffix will continue to seek other acquisition opportunities while it works to organically grow its current business."
Source: Personal Computer World
Ask Jeeves has acquired all of the assets of Tukaroo Inc., a San Jose-based desktop search technology company.
"Since the 2001 acquisition of the Teoma search engine, Ask Jeeves' strategy has been to build or acquire differentiated, next-generation, and best-in-class products or technologies," said Steve Berkowitz, CEO of Ask Jeeves Inc.
"We expect that Tukaroo's desktop search and information management capabilities will enable Ask Jeeves to deliver a seamless, end-to-end search experience across the desktop and the Internet."
Tukaroo Inc., founded in 2003 in San Jose, California, is a privately held corporation.
Its unique desktop search and file management software enables consumers to access, view and manage their information in real time.
Source: Yahoo Finance
Needham-based TripAdvisor Inc. is being purchased by InterActiveCorp, the Internet conglomerate controlled by media mogul Barry Diller. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
TripAdvisor manages an online travel search engine and directory, with clients including American Airlines, Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Orbitz, and Travelocity.
In December it was called the seventh most-visited travel web site in the world by comScore Networks, with 5.2 million unique visitors monthly.
"Trip Advisor is a fine addition to both our extensive travel service offerings and our local group of services connecting customers to consumers with targeted information and offers," Diller said in a statement.
"We now have more than 80,000 merchant customers, a number that continues to grow significantly, and believe that the consolidation of these efforts across all our brands will only increase the value to all our marketing partners."
Formerly known as USA Interactive, IAC has accumulated several top web brands in the past 15 months, including Expedia Inc., Hotels.com, Hotwire, Ticketmaster, and Lending Tree.
TripAdvisor was founded in 2000 and received $3.3 million in funding from Cambridge-based Flagship Ventures and private investors. CEO Stephen Kaufer last year forecast $15 million in revenue in 2003. The company said it achieved profitability in the third quarter of 2002.
InterActiveCorp had revenue of $6.33 billion last year.
Source: Yahoo News
