m&a

eBay confirms StumbleUpon acquisition

eBay released a statement on Wednesday afternoon confirming that, as speculated, it has acquired Web site discovery service StumbleUpon. The price, according to eBay, is approximately $75 million.

eBay's most famous acquisition is arguably Internet telephony service Skype, which it purchased in 2005.

"StumbleUpon is a great fit within our goal of pioneering new communities based on commerce and sustained by trust," eBay's senior director Michael Buhr said in a statement. "StumbleUpon's downloadable toolbar provides an engaging and unique experience to its users, but it is the similarities in our approaches to the concept … Read more

Photobucket CEO sounds off on Fox acquisition

Earlier today it was made official, after much speculation, that Photobucket had been acquired by Fox Interactive Media, a division of News Corp. CNET News.com spoke with Photobucket CEO and co-founder Alex Welch on Wednesday morning to hash out some of the rumors and talk about what's in store for the popular image-sharing site.

According to Welch, the company put itself up for sale in order to accelerate growth beyond its current membership base of approximately 42 million. "When we look at Fox, it was really a natural choice for Photobucket because we really want to grow … Read more

Fox unit confirms Photobucket, Flektor buys

It's official: MySpace.com parent company Fox Interactive Media has formally announced its agreements to acquire image-sharing site Photobucket and slide show mashup creator Flektor. Financial terms of the purchases were not disclosed by Fox Interactive Media, which is a division of media giant News Corp.

Both acquisitions had been rumored for some time. The Photobucket deal, originally reported earlier this month, is inarguably the more significant of the two: Photobucket, after all, is the 34th most visited site on the Web, with over 42 million users and 17 million monthly visitors. Its history with Fox Interactive Media hasn'… Read more

Wallstrip's Lindzon confirms CBS buy

Wallstrip founder and blogger Howard Lindzon confirmed late Monday night in a blog post that the finance-themed Web video show had been purchased by CBS. Rumors had begun to circulate about this buy earlier this month.

Specific financial terms haven't been disclosed (though Lindzon notes that $600,000 has been invested in Wallstrip to date), but it appears that host Lindsay Campbell and producers Adam Elend and Jeff Marks will become full employees of CBS.

It was originally reported that CBS News would be the CBS division to acquire Wallstrip, but Lindzon's blog post makes no mention of … Read more

Rumor from across the pond: Yahoo wants Bebo

Acquisition gossip season rolls on. The U.K.-based newspaper The Telegraph reported Sunday that Yahoo is rumored to be eyeing social networking site Bebo for as much as $1 billion. (Compare that to the $580 million that News. Corp forked over for MySpace in 2005.)

Bebo's huge in the U.K., but here in the States it's still dwarfed by MySpace, despite seemingly constant predictions that it's the next big thing.

Yahoo offered up a similar offer for Facebook last year, which Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg famously turned down. The longtime Web presence already has a … Read more

Sony rumored to be marching after Club Penguin

Several blogs, including PaidContent, reported today that Sony is in "advanced talks" to buy ClubPenguin a social networking and online game site geared toward kids that was launched in October 2005. The price is reported as in the ballpark of $450 million.

The subscription-based (six dollars per month) ClubPenguin takes the form of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), where children play games, amass virtual goods, and interact with each other, all while participating as penguin avatars. According to PaidContent, the site rakes in about $60 million in revenues and is already profitable despite being fewer than … Read more

Rumor: MySpace to acquire Flektor?

TechCrunch is claiming that two unnamed sources are pointing to a MySpace acquisition of Flektor, a recently launched site for creating multimedia widgets that incorporate photos, videos, and text. The widgets can then be embedded in blogs or on MySpace profiles.

Earlier this month, it was reported that MySpace had acquired image-sharing site Photobucket after a widget-related skirmish between the two. Neither company has formally confirmed that acquisition, but sources set its financial terms at about $250 million.

For obvious reasons, the rumored Flektor acquisition is said to be much smaller--between $10 and $20 million. According to TechCrunch, MySpace has … Read more

Report: CBS News buys Wallstrip?

TechCrunch is reporting that Jossip is reporting (in other words, it's still a rumor) that the web video show Wallstrip has been acquired by CBS News for $5 million.

According to Jossip, which says that an official announcement will likely come from CBS on Monday, "part of the deal involves host Lindsay Campbell being the next Amanda Congdon: frontin' for CBS' web initiatives." Congdon, former host of the video blog Rocketboom, now works as a correspondent for ABC News. If the CBS News acquisition rumor is true, however, it'd be a different scenario; Congdon resigned from … Read more