Articles of the Day
Yahoo/News Corp. Deal a Real Possibility - Two sources tell the blog that News Corp. and Yahoo are discussing some kind of transaction (”or at least the appearance of one”). It’s unclear how serious the negotiations are. News Corp. has repeatedly stated that it’s not interested in buying Yahoo, so a possible deal may include News Corp. giving Yahoo MySpace or all of Fox Interactive plus cash in exchange for a major stake in the company. His estimate: News Corp. sells FIM for $6 billion (a P/E of roughly 30 times operating profit) plus another $9 billion in cash from itself and a private equity firm in exchange for a one-third equity stake in Yahoo.
Mystery Buyer Buys Bebo for $1 Billion - Rumors circulated the blogosphere last week that Bebo, the Web’s No. 3 social network with a 1.18 percent market share according to Hitwise, was in talks to be acquired for around $1 billion by a mystery buyer. Google was said to be the most likely candidate, although the rumor was never confirmed. Now, Bebo has indeed been purchased for the rumored price of $1 billion–although the buyer remains a mystery.
Report: EU To Curb Search Engines - European authorities are reportedly poised to impose new limits on how long search engines can retain data tying users to search queries.
FTC: Data Security Is Top Concern - Security of consumer data is “of the greatest and highest concern in our enforcement work,” according to Eileen Harrington, the deputy director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, speaking at the Direct Marketing Association’s Email Evolution conference in San Diego on Tuesday.
Omnicom Buys Stake In New Zealand Digital Consultant Shift - Omnicom Group has taken a stake in New Zealand’s Shift, a digital marketing and web design company. Terms were not disclosed.
Answers.com Bid For Lexico Nixed; Stock Sale Is Pulled - As we had suspected all along, this one did not go through: Answers Corp.’s (NSDQ: ANSW) uphill battle to acquire Dictionary.com parent Lexico has failed, as the company’s last-ditch $100 million stock sale has been pulled.
Google Cools On Yahoo Ad Pact - WSJ is reporting that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is losing interest in an ad-pact with Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO). The idea of outsourcing search ads to Google had been floated as a possible alternative for Yahoo to doing a deal with Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), since it might give the company a quick revenue jolt. But Google, having more fully studied the regulatory implications, has pulled back.
US marketing on branded content grows 14.7% in 2007 - US spending on branded entertainment marketing, such as product placement in video content or videogames, grew by 14.7% in 2007, hitting a record-breaking USD22.3bn, according to media research firm, PQ Media.
Increased Competition With Paid Search Leads Marketers To SEO - Janet Meiners corrals data from MarketingSherpa’s 5th Annual ad:tech Year-End Survey into a few concise nuggets of insight–with one being the fact that 57% of marketers surveyed said that SEO delivered “great ROI” and “outperformed other tactics,” including paid search, e-mail and contextual ads.
