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Havas Reports Strong Organic Growth, Beats Expectations — Havas, the Paris-based parent of MPG, Media Contacts, Euro RSCG and others, this morning reported first quarter 2007 revenues of 345 million euros, up from 321 million, with organic growth of 7.4%. The results, which beat analyst expectations, reflect a “significant increase in growth” across all of Havas’ North American operations, which posted an organic increase of 6.0% during the quarter. “This confirms the positive trend observed throughout 2007, underscores the validity of our business model based on integration with digital at the core and reflects our stronger position in key market,.” Fernando Rodés Vilà, CEO of the Havas Group, said in the statement.

Marchex Announces Local Content Partnerships — Marchex, a local online ad company and publisher of local content, will announce several partnerships today with providers including Yelp, Avvo, Frommer’s and Priceline. Under the separate agreements, Marchex will add more than 5 million reviews and ratings to its network, bringing the total number nationwide to more than 8 million. The content will be integrated into Marchex’s network, which attracts more than 26 million unique monthly users and features more than 150,000 local Web sites.

Apple To Open Virtual Stores — Apple may be planning to open a virtual-world shop, more sophisticated than those that already exist in virtual worlds such as Second Life, based on a technology patent. The patent application, entitled “Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere” and submitted in Sep 2006, has just been published by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Speculation that the project may lead to a virtual world environment is supported by some of the invention details. For instance, Apple says that “visitors to the site are represented by human-shaped icons” moving in a virtual retail store with a shopping cart. Users will be able to see other shoppers and to interact with them and with the sales staff. Items will also be represented by icons, along with other “realistic” details such as indicators of the season and the time of the day. The key point of Apple’s project is to let online shoppers know what other users on the site are doing - for instance which items they are looking at or buying. This is based on the idea that online shopping is at a disadvantage compared to physical shopping from not letting users interact with fellow shoppers and see their behaviour.

Microsoft Trials Web-Based Office-Apps — Microsoft is trialling a subscription-based service that will let users in the US update their Office applications, including Word, Excel and Powerpoint, online. The software giant has not released pricing details or a launch date for the offer, which is code-named Albany and is still in private beta. Microsoft already offers subscription-based Office services in emerging markets. The move is Microsoft’s latest effort to branch into web-based applications, or Software-as-a-Service. Players such as Google and Salesforce are increasingly putting pressure on Microsoft’s licensed software business model by offering online consumer and business applications, at low cost or for free. Last week, Salesforce said it would integrate Google Apps into its on-demand customer relationship management (CRM), allowing CRM and desktop applications to work together.

Bloomberg Encouraged To Buy NYT — “Top associates” of New York mayor Michael Bloomberg are encouraging him to buy The New York Times (NYT), says a report in Newsweek. The proponents reportedly argue that Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of the Bloomberg financial news agency, believe the businessman is best placed to help the NYT fight rising competition from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Responding to the report, however, Bloomberg said, quoted by Reuters: “I am not going to go into the newspaper business. I am not a newspaper person.” The WSJ is set to increasingly challenge the NYT following its acquisition by News Corp. News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has repeatedly expressed his intention to take on the NYT by making the WSJ more mainstream and more international. Questioned by Newsweek, Murdoch says he “wouldn’t look forward to going up against [Bloomberg]”, citing his “great respect for Bloomberg’s business abilities.”

CNET Partners With StrategyEye And Reuters For In-depth News Portal — US online media network CNET is partnering with news providers including StrategyEye, Reuters and Seeking Alpha to provide feeds for its new portal, BNET Industries. Launched on Apr 15, BNET offers in-depth news and information on some 9,000 companies across 11 sectors and will target business managers. The site is free to access and is supported by advertising, including from Adobe, Bank of America and Microsoft. The deal is the first global partnership for London-based StrategyEye, which launched in Apr 2006 and serves clients in Europe and the US. Both BNET and StrategyEye, which uses contextual meta-data to pull in and organise feeds on relevant companies and categories, help executives monitor their market, says Nick Gregg, CEO of StrategyEye. “Our value-chain mapping coupled with the accuracy of our article indexing will allow BNET users to quickly understand the context of any event and easily assess its broader strategic impact.”

Break Media Launches Online Video Industry Group — Break Media today plans to announce the launch of a new industry group seeking to promote the efficacy of online video advertising. Composed of online video companies, agencies and technology providers, the Online Video Advertising ROI Council aims to provide a forum for research, discussion and education centered on the emerging video ad category. In addition to Break Media, charter members include Ogilvy One, truTV, the National Geographic Channel, AT&T, Panache, Lotame, Visible Measures, Horizon Media and Initiative Media.

The ‘Gold Rush” For Ad Nets is On; But Crowded Space Brings An End To Remnants’ Low Prices — A prolonged economic downturn could turn out to be a upturn for advertising networks, at least in the short term. But, as the space gets more crowded with companies selling remnant, or unsold inventory, the fortunes for many such ad nets could change. As the NYT illustrates, many ad networks that focus on remnant ad space charge as little as $4 CPMs versus the average $40 CPMs commanded by portals like Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) or MSN. Meanwhile, the suddenly trendy vertical ad nets offered by major media publishers don’t offer the promise of cheap prices; instead, promising greater placement on top sites and like-minded affiliates. While the low price is the key for remnant ad nets, improved targeting has helped support their use. But as ad nets proliferate, expect low prices to rise, diminishing their primary selling point to advertisers. David Hallerman, an eMarketer senior analyst, tells NYT: “These are the gold rush days now for ad networks. And that kind of counters the appeal of ad networks for advertisers’ agencies, which was to simplify the purchase of ads. And that’s why it’s unlikely that a great number of ad networks will survive.”

24/7 Real Media To Launch Online Ad Network — 24/7 Real Media today is expected to announce partnerships with four major B2B publishers to launch BBN, a broad-reaching B2B online ad network. Cygnus Business Media, Nielsen Business Media, Reed Business Information and McGraw-Hill are joining 24/7’s network. Former CBS executive and MarketWatch co-founder Derek Reisfeld has been appointed Chairman of the new venture. 24/7’s digital media offering consists of over 1,500 sites serving ad impressions in countries around the world. 24/7 Real Media’s network reaches around 150 million unique viewers each month.

Google Looks To Wireless To Compete In China — Google may be trailing Chinese search leader Baidu.com by a wide margin, but the worldwide search leader is redoubling its efforts to compete in both China and Asia by focusing on the nascent mobile search market. Google expects to process more local Web search queries from mobile phone than computers in Asia by 2011. It’s a fast-growing and potentially huge market, said Google’s China President Lee Kai-Fu. “In some quarters, our mobile traffic will double, whereas it will take perhaps a year to double on the PC side,” he said. After gaining exclusive rights to process queries from China Mobile Ltd., the world’s biggest phone company by users, Google now leads Beijing-based Baidu.com in mobile search. However, overall, Google still earns less than half the ad revenue of Baidu.com in China. At last count, Baidu’s market share was 60 percent, up 2 percent from a year earlier, compared to Google, which had a market share of 26 percent, up 17 percent from the year before.

MySpace Tool Allows Marketers To Manage Their Own Profiles — A few months after opening its platform to outside application developers, the company plans to announce today that it will let advertisers directly manage, through a self-service tool, their branded profiles on MySpace. This is a vast change from the tightly controlled, often laborious process brands previously had to endure to have a presence on the social network. The idea is to eliminate much of the pain of using the social network, which should, of course, get more people to use it. Previously if a marketer wanted to launch a brand profile on MySpace, it had to go through a rather cumbersome process of sending all of its assets to MySpace designers, who would try to interpret the advertiser’s vision for the profile, send that interpretation back to the client, wait for it to send back additional revisions, and so on and so on. Now advertisers will have access to a self-service tool to upload assets and design profiles, allowing marketers to change up the content in that profile at any time.

GoFish Expands Ad Network — GoFish Corp., a youth entertainment and media network, has expanded its network with the addition of three entertainment sites: Urbaniacs and Cookie Jar Entertainment’s Doodlebops and Spider Riders. The addition of the new sites puts the GoFish measured audience at more than 20 million visitors, according to the company. As the exclusive advertising partner for these sites, GoFish will aggregate and distribute age-appropriate, blue-chip advertising across the sites to enhance users’ experiences and generate additional branded inventory that will support all forms of online advertising including rich media and video.

Yahoo! Inks Search Ad Deal With UK’s Media Corp — Yahoo! will provide search results and advertising to Media Corp as part of a partnership with the London-based media and ad firm. Under the deal, Yahoo!’s ads - mostly display and banner - as well as search function will be added to Media Corp’s publishing network, which includes Gambling.com, Onthebox.com, Flightcomparison.co.uk, Creditcardexpert.co.uk and Sport.co.uk. These attract more than 3m unique monthly users and generate more than 15m advertising impressions, mostly in the UK, says Media Corp. “Adding Yahoo!’s paid search and content match solutions to our in-house publishing network will enhance our users experience and drive new revenue to our bottom line,” says Media Corp CEO Justin Drummond. Also this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Yahoo! is close to outsourcing its search advertising to Google, after a first week of trialling the scheme delivered “positive results”. The search engine launched a two-week trial of Google AdSense platform for 3% of its searches last week, as it seeks ways to leverage its position vis-a-vis Microsoft.

WPP Digital Acquires Stake In HDT Holdings — WPP Group this morning said its digital investment arm, WPP Digital, has acquired a minority stake in rich media advertising and technology firm HDT Holdings Technologies Inc.

OLX Inc. Raised $13.5 Million In Second-Round — Craigslist clone that focuses on free online classifieds focused on markets outside the U.S., has raised $13.5 million in second-round funding. Backers include General Catalyst Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Founders Fund and DN Capital.

Cuill Raised $25 Million In Second-Round — Menlo Park, Calif.-based search startup, has raised $25 million in second-round funding. Madrone Capital Partners led the round, and follows an $8 million Series A round from Tugboat Ventures and Greylock Partners.

BuddyTV Corp. Raised $6 Million In Series B — Seattle-based operator of a social network for television fans, has raised $6 million in Series B funding from Madrona Venture Group.

Realtime Worlds Raised $50 Million In Series B — Dundee, Scotland-based video game developer, announced that it has raised $50 million in Series B funding. Maverick Capital led the round, and was joined by return backers WPP and New Enterprise Associates.

Imeem Raises Funds, Amount Undisclosed — Social music site, imeem has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Sequoia Capital.

Visible World Raises USD25m Series C — Video ad technology firm Visible World has won USD25m in a Series C round, led by new investors Adam Street Partners and AllianceBernstein. Return backers Comcast Interactive Capital, Dawntreader Ventures, Grey Ventures, Leucadia National, Marketing Services Risk Surety, Time Warner and Viacom also participated in the round.

App Developer Buddy Media Raises USD6.5m Series B — Facebook app developer Buddy Media has raised USD6.5m in a Series B funding round, led by Softbank Capital. Greycroft Partners, the European Founders Fund and 14 returning backers joined the round.

Collective Intellect Raised $6.6 Million In Series B — Boulder, Colo.-based provider of social media analytics, has raised $6.6 million in Series B funding. Grotech Capital Group led the round, and was joined by Crawley Hatfield Capital and return backers Appian Ventures and Croghan Investments.

Buddy Media Inc. Raised $6.5 Million In Series B — New York-based developer of Facebook applications, has raised $6.5 million in Series B funding. Softbank led the round, and was joined by European Founders Fund, GreyCroft Partners and Ron Conway.

Federated Media Publishing Completes $50 Million in 3rd Round — Federated Media Publishing, a provider of online conversational marketing communities for authors and their audiences, completed a $50 million round of financing led by Oak Investment Partners.

TripIt Raised $5.1 Million In Series B — San Francisco-based provider of an online travel organizer and social network, has raised $5.1 million in Series B funding. Participants included Sabre Holdings, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and European Founders Fund.

EQAL Raised $5 Million In VC Funding — “social entertainment” studio launched by the creators of Lonelygirl15, has raised $5 million in VC funding from Spark Capital and Marc Andreesen

GamerDNA Inc. (f.k.a. GuildCafe) Raised $3 Million In Series A — Cambridge, Mass.-based social media site for online gamers, has raised $3 million in Series A funding led by Flybridge Capital Partners.

Google Profits up 30%, Squashing Fears Of Online Ad Slowdown — Google says profits rose 30% to USD1.31bn in the first quarter this year, soothing market fears of an online advertising slump sparked by past analyst reports. The company reported revenues of USD5.19bn in the quarter, a 42% year-on-year increase and a 7% growth from Q4 2007. For the first time, overseas sales accounted for just about half of revenues, with Google blaming a slump in the value of the dollar for driving down US income. Google re-iterated the drop in the value of its paid-click search ads, which it says fell by more than 20% from the year before. The search giant says the drop was caused by a restructuring of its advertising systems to minimise the number of accidental clicks reported and by a cleaning out of low-quality advertising.

eBay CEO: Skype Could Be Sold If Synergies Fail — eBay CEO John Donahue has made his first comments directly addressing a possible sale of Skype, acquired by predecessor Meg Whitman for $2.6 billion in 2005. He told the FT that this would be the year of testing synergies between Skype and the core business and that “If the synergies are strong, we’ll keep it in our portfolio. If not, we’ll reassess it.” Of course, synergy between Skype and eBay’s other businesses-PayPal and auctions-was part of the original rationale for the deal, but that’s been slow in coming. Donahue: “What we know is, Skype is a great stand-alone business.” He predicted that Skype will do at least $500 million in revenue this year. That shouldn’t be tough to reach, since yesterday eBay reported quarterly Skype revenue of about $126 million. As for PayPal, Donahue said there’s no reason to sell the unit.

AOL Plans Site Geared Toward Younger Women — AOL is planning to launch a new women’s lifestyle site skewing toward a younger demographic than its existing AOL Living property. Expected to launch in the next two to three months, the site will serve as the women’s counterpart to AOL’s Maxim-like “Asylum” site for men, launched last December. As of March, Asylum had built an audience of 3.1 million, according to comScore. While AOL declined to comment, an ad the company is running on JournalismJobs.com for an editor for the planned site says it will cover topics including “style (fashion, makeup and home décor), pop culture, food, health, female-focused politics, bargain tips, relationship advice, sex, how-to and humor.” Many of the categories mirror those found on Asylum, which AOL described as “a fun, sarcastic, trendy and sexy site for men” in announcing its launch. The forthcoming lifestyle site will presumably use a similar editorial template, except tailored to women.

CBS Interactive Overhauls Management, Plans For Acquisitions — Under pressure to offset losses at its parent company, CBS Interactive on Thursday announced a broad management overhaul including the seating of Bryon Rubin as its new chief financial officer. First and foremost, the unit needs a better acquisition strategy, according to CBS Interactive president Quincy Smith. “This is the perfect team to figure out new acquisitions in the space,” Smith said. “We’d like to do more, and Bryon’s presence is going to help.” Rubin, who most recently served as senior executive of CBS’s corporate development and mergers & acquisitions group, has also been given the title of executive vice president at CBS Interactive.

Yahoo’s Open Platform Plans — According to several sources close to Yahoo, the company will outline in much more detail its open-platform strategy next week, in its efforts to keep its cred as a big supporter of openness and also show it has a clear path to reinvigorate itself despite current turmoil. Yahoo has been accelerating its open activities of late, mostly related to its search and ad infrastructure. But, in his appearance at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco next Thursday morning at a keynote speech titled “Yahoo and Open Platforms,” sources said Yahoo CTO Ari Balogh will sketch out a more significant broadening out of its open platform plans, which would touch consumers more directly.

Flip Video Maker Plans To Go Public — It might well be the “it” electronic device of the moment, and it’s not Apple’s iPhone or Amazon.com’s Kindle e-book reader. It’s a low-cost, easy-to-use camcorder for the YouTube age, made by an outfit called Pure Digital Technologies. The San Francisco-based company’s Flip Video camcorder has dominated the sales charts at Amazon (NasdaqGS:AMZN - News) since its debut last year. It’s also attracted a host of positive reviews and some competing product releases from the likes of Sony (NYSE:SNE - News). Pure Digital says it’s grabbed a 13% share of the camcorder market.

MySpace Officially Launches In India; COO Kapur: No Exclusivity With News Corp — Yesterday, MySpace CEO Cris DeWolfe launched the South Korean version of MySpace; today, COO Amit Kapur is in Mumbai officially launching MySpace India, which has been live since January. Unlike the Korean site, which is in Korean primarily and has been localized considerably in style, MySpace India so far looks like MySpace Anywhere. Nikhil Pahwa, editor of our ContentSutra site in India, interviewed Kapur and Tarun Tripathi, director of marketing and content for India, about the decision to expand in India-and to publish in English-among other topics. To get a sense of how economical expanding these sites can be, consider this: MySpace has a 5-person team in India right now and plans to expand to 20. The full interview is here.

AOL Buys Contextual Blog Service Sphere — AOL has acquired blog search and display platform, Sphere, for an undisclosed amount. The deal, which TechCrunch estimates to be worth USD25m, establishes Sphere as a wholly-owned AOL subsidiary and part of AOL’s programming division. The deal builds on existing ties between the two companies. Sphere worked in the past with AOL to provide widget technology for AOL News and for personalised homepage site MyAOL. AOL’s COO Ron Grant says the deal will allow AOL to distribute content on Sphere’s third party network and gain advertising inventory. San Francisco-based Sphere was founded in 2005 as a blog search engine. With competition from similar rivals, including Google Blog Search, the company developed a widget which allows blogers and publishers to intelligently link to related blog sites. The firm raised USD3.75m in venture funding in May 2006 and claims its network has more than 50,000 content publishers and blogs.

Farecast Sold For USD75m To Microsoft — Airfare search engine Farecast has sold itself for more than USD75m, says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer quoting “a source with knowledge of the situation”. Farecast CEO Hugh Crean declined to comment on the matter. The buyer is not known, but a market insider quoted by the Seattle P.I suggests it could be rival Expedia. Expedia, however, refused to comment on “rumours and speculation”. Based in Seattle, Farecast secured USD12.1m last year in a round led by Sutter Hill Ventures, alongside return backers Greylock, Madrona and WRF Capital. If confirmed, the deal would mark the second major merger in the online travel sector in less than six months. Last Dec, market leader Kayak bought rival SideStep for an estimated USD200m. The takeover consolidated Kayak’s dominance of the online travel sector. According to comScore data from Jan, Kayak was the most popular travel site in the US with more than 4m unique users, while SideStep ranked third with nearly 2m. Farecast came in fourth with 966,000 unique users.

Radio One Acquires Community Connect — To more effectively reach African-American consumers, Urban radio broadcasting company Radio One has acquired social networking startup Community Connect for about $38 million dollars. Community Connect owns and operates a number of social-networking brands under its umbrella including BlackPlanet.com, MiGente.com, and AsianAve.com. With over 23 million members, CCI is a comScore Top 50 Social Networking Web publisher and category leader for building niche online communities/destinations for U.S. ethnic groups.

Live Universe Acquires PageFlakes (Rumor) –Online entertainment network, Live Universe, has acquired homepage customisation tool, PageFlakes, reports TechCrunch. Under the agreement, PageFlakes will stay based in its German and San Francisco offices and will report directly to Live Universe founder Brad Greenspan. Live Universe reportedly outbid RSS startup NewsGator to complete the deal, which was signed for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition is yet to be officially announced. Pageflakes is a free widget-based service that allows users to create customised homepages that can be published online. Users can take content from various websites and combine it onto one page. This can include news, email, music and videos. Pageflakes was founded in 2006 and took and undisclosed amount of Series A funding in May of that year.

Digital Marketer iCrossing Acquires 3GNet — US digital marketing company iCrossing has acquired competitor 3GNet, one of Germany’s longest-established digital marketing agencies. Financial details were not disclosed. The German company specialises in natural and paid search marketing. It also supplies affiliate marketing services to brands such as eBay, ESPRIT and O2 Germany. The deal marks iCrossing’s first acquisition in continental Europe, coming just over a year after it purchased Spannerworks, now iCrossing UK. 3GNet will be renamed iCrossing Germany. iCrossing’s global client base includes Coca-Cola and Toyota, among others. The deal brings iCrossing’s headcount to 620 employees across 15 offices in the US and Europe.

Buzznet Inc. Has Acquired Music Blog IdolatorFrom Gawker Media — Los Angeles-based social media community focused on music and pop culture, has acquired music blog Idolator from Gawker Media. No financial terms were disclosed. Buzzznet also recently acquired music blog Stereogum and social media company Qloud. It also reportedly raised $25 million in new VC funding from Interscope Records, Redpoint Ventures and Anthem Venture Partners.

SGN Beefs Up App Acquisitions Amid Fundraising — Casual applications network, Social Gaming Network (SGN), is ramping up its portfolio by acquiring Facebook apps Esgut, Free Gifts, Nicknames, Oregon Trail and Friend Block, for undisclosed sums. The network, which was spun off from web hosting firm Webs.com, is also rumoured to plan a funding round of roughly USD10m, according to various online reports. Buying applications allows SGN to boost its traffic and user base. The network’s 70-plus apps are installed by a total of 48.5m Facebook users, behind Slide (97.7m) and RockYou (72.6m), but above rival Zynga (34.7m). However Zynga, which is also creating a network of casual apps by buying Facebook games, claims 1.9m daily active users, above SGN’s 1.1m.

Dow Jones Acquires Business Networking Tool Generate — Dow Jones has started its acquisitions again, now as part of News Corp (NYSE: NWS). it has bought a much-talked about company in the business social networking space: the Boston-based Generate Inc. Financials of the deals were not disclosed. As part of the acquisition, DJ will form a new business unit called Business & Relationship Intelligence in its Enterprise Media Group (which is headed by Clare Hart) that will focus on bringing Generate-powered solutions to market in the enterprise sales and media segments. Generate co-founder Tom Aley will lead this new group as SVP and managing director, while co-founder Darr Aley will become VP, marketing and business development, of the new unit. All Generate employees will join Dow Jones.

IAC And HealthCentral Partner For New Ad Network — Barry Diller’s IAC and the HealthCentral Network, a collection of over 35 health and wellness sites, have partnered to launch an ad network for pharmaceutical and health-related marketers. The network’s reach combines the 45 million monthly unique visitors across IAC’s e-commerce sites—including Match.com, Evite and Ticketmaster–along with the 10 million monthly visitors across HealthCentral’s condition-specific sites.

AT&T, Vizible To Launch Firefox-Based Browser With Ads — AT&T has gone Pogo. The telecommunications giant has partnered with emerging tech firm Vizible to develop Pogo, a Web browser that adds a visual dimension to searching for and organizing info on the Web. Pogo is built on the Mozilla Firefox browser, and the free, potentially ad-supported application isn’t geared toward the tech-savvy digerati. AT&T is aiming for the everyday users of the Web with Pogo–a factor that pits it head-to-head with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. But according to executives from both AT&T and Vizible, the goal is not to start a browser war. “We’re trying to improve the way people find, collect, organize and manage info on the Web,” said Todd Finch, president and CEO of Toronto-based Vizible. “Humans are visual, and Pogo adds a visual layer to the browsing experience that’s intuitive to use.”

MySpaceTV’s Market Share Plummets As YouTube Soars Ahead — MySpaceTV’s share of US visits to top video sites was down 48% last month compared to Mar 2007 and now accounts for just 9.21% of visits, says Hitwise. It is a poor second behind top site YouTube which had 73.18% of visits, a 32% increase year-on-year. Google Video ranked third with 4.06% (down 52%). Overall, Hitwise found that the 68 video sites it analysed accounted for 1.09% of all US traffic in March 2008 - a 7% decline compared to Mar 2007.

AOL Launches In Hong Kong And Taiwan — AOL has launched local web services in Hong Kong, two days after rolling out in Taiwan. The beta versions of each website combine AOL’s email and AIM messaging services alongside regional content in Chinese. Each portal will also use partner content from United Daily News (udn.com) and Phoenix New Media, with AOL.hk also using China News content.Both country launches will include Chinese-language Google powered searches, a Truveo.com video search tool and AOL toolbar. The sites will also feature Hewlett Packard branding.The launches follow the introduction of a Mexican AOL portal in Feb and are the latest of 19 regionalised sites. By the end of 2008, AOL aims it will have expanded into 30 countries.

MindShare Restructures Into New Integrated Agency Model — In what North American CEO Scott Neslund termed a major worldwide “reinvention,” GroupM’s MindShare has been transformed from “the global media agency” into a “new model, full-service marketing agency powered by best-in-class media services.” As a result, MindShare Interaction, winner of OMMA magazine’s Silver Agency of the Year for 2007, will cease to exist–along with all the other agency units added in recent years to meet the demands of a changing media landscape.

Wall Street Journal To Relaunch Website — The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is relaunching its website in the next few weeks with a new design and navigation structure, reports paidContent. The company has reportedly spent millions of dollars on the changes with a New York design agency according to an unnamed source. The changes to WSJ.com include increased navigability to other Dow Jones sites such as Barrons.com and MarketWatch.com.Other changes, which have already been phased in, are a separate sports section and design tweaks to sections such as law and media. WSJ.com is also due to offer more content in non-subscription areas of the site, such as politics, food and travel, claims a separate report by Conde Nast’s Portfoio.com. It also claims that WSJ has been working on better search engine optimisation.

YouTube Users Earned More Than USD1m From Ad Revenue — YouTube claims to have paid out more than USD1m to users as part of its video payment scheme, barely five months after it first started. Launched in Dec last year, the scheme, called ‘partner program’, allows users whose videos reach a certain pageview to monetise them using ads, and sharing the revenue with YouTube. The scheme, available in North America and the UK, is now extending to users in Australia, Japan and Ireland. The Google-owned video-sharing site, however, does not break down revenues or reveal how many users have benefited from the initiative. Last Sep another video-sharing site, Revver, claimed to have given out USD1m to more than 25,000 of its user in a similar ad-revenue sharing scheme. However Revver, which splits revenues 50-50 with the video owners, took a year to reach the USD1m treshold.

Google To Target Mobile Web And Social Network Players In China — Google is looking at investments in Chinese social networking and mobile web companies, a senior executive tells The Wall Street Journal. Kai-Fu Lee, president of Google’s Greater China operations, says Google would like to become a top player in China’s internet search within five years. Lee would not give details on potential investments or targets. Google recently said it would revamp its web portal in China, where it competes with well-established market leader Baidu. Last Jul, it invested USD1m in social network technology provider Comsenz. It has also invested USD5m in video and game downloads portal Xunlei Network and owns an undisclosed stake in networking site Tianya.cn.

Disney’s SOAPnet Adds To The Ad Net Glut — Another day, another media company forms an ad network… Disney’s (NYSE: DIS) SOAPnet is the latest to start its own vertical ad net. Disney plans to announce Wednesday that the companion site for cable net SOAPnet has deals with 45 smaller, similar sites, which will run SOAPnet’s videos and news and allow it to sell ads for them as well, according to WSJ, which uses the news to highlight the ad net glut. Lehman Brothers analyst Doug Anmuth posited last week that media companies are making a smart decision in starting ad nets. Doing so enables them to take advantage of rising online ad spending. It also helps them extend the reach of their brands, though some, like WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive and ESPN have not felt the value as much and have backed off the ad net model. With that in mind, small publishers have little to lose by handing their ad inventory over to larger brands to sell on their behalf. However, the ever-rising number of ad nets - WSJ estimates there are 300 “majors” in operation—the overlap is becoming so great among various ad nets that some are selling the same ad slots. As a result of the crush, ad nets may be starting to experience reduced sales—which means consolidation is around the corner.

Complex Media Expands To Create Dedicated Digital Unit — Buoyed by the tremendous growth of its vertical ad network, Complex Media is launching a dedicated business unit for digital advertising and content. The young men’s lifestyle brand (parent company of Complex magazine) has brought in Mike Golden, former CEO and president of Home Décor Products, to help lead the expansion, in addition to making key hires in the technology, content development and digital production divisions. Golden, whose experience includes entrepreneurial and leadership positions at Organic (prior to the Omnicom acquisition) and Global Sports Interactive (now GSI Commerce), will share the title of co-CEO with Complex Publisher Rich Antoniello.

Washingtonpost.com Deploys Apture’s Text Link Technology — Washingtonpost.com has rolled out a new text link platform called Apture on two of its blogs. When readers mouse over the Apture links, a window containing related videos, images and articles appears, and they can browse the info without leaving the original page. The links can currently be found on the political blog “The Fix,” as well as “Celebritology,” an entertainment column. Washingtonpost.com plans to deploy San Mateo, Calif.-based Apture’s technology throughout its entire roster of blogs, articles and databases in the coming months.

BigString Unveils Self-Destructing IM Service — In the interest of privacy and safety, BigString Corp. today is set to unveil a self-destructing instant messenger service. The patent-pending technology leaves no trail or copy of the IM on any server once the message self destructs. Target users are anyone who uses IM as a real time communication, especially those who worry about confidential information, said BigString CEO Darin Myman. That includes employees at financial institutions, colleagues exchanging information or everyday casual conversation. The time for self-destruction is set by the sender, and can range fromf seconds to an hour. The sender can also choose a number of visual effects for the self-destruction, and will literally see the message disappear in real time.

WorldNow Taps KickApps For Niche Social Web Sites — Technology and sales company WorldNow has tapped white-label widget maker KickApps in an effort drum up new online revenue opportunities for local TV stations. Per the deal, WorldNow will create and help manage custom deployments of KickApps social media applications for its over 320 media clients, including ABC, Cox Enterprises, Time Warner Cable, and TribuTribune. “The creation of niche social media Web sites offers an opportunity for local TV stations to tap into a broad group of advertisers that may or may not already be advertising on TV,” said KickApps CEO Alex Blum.

Naspers To Exit Greek pay-TV Business For USD760m — South African media group Naspers has reached a conditional deal to sell its Greek and Cypriot pay-TV business, NetMed, for USD760m. Greece’s second-largest broadband operator, Forthnet, will acquire the company, which owns digital satellite platform Nova. The deal hinges on Forthnet’s ability to raise EUR60m (USD95m) in debt funding and on shareholders’ approval to fund part of the sale. Forthnet may use the acquisition to extend into triple-play services to fend off increasing competition from Vivodi and On Telecoms. These broke Forthnet’s monopoly on pay-TV last year by launching IPTV services, with incumbent OTE expected to follow suit, says ScreenDigest. The research firm says competition is likely to heat up as the digital terrestrial TV sector gains pace. Forthnet has approximately 200,000 broadband customers, while Nova’s satellite service claims about 340,000 subscribers. Greece does not have cable TV.

Yellow Book Network, Google Are Tops, Per ComScore And Nielsen — Yellow Book Network was the fastest-growing Web property in March–increasing traffic 54% to 13.5 million visitors, according to comScore. The Internet Yellow Pages services got a lift from a new partnership with business look-up service Addresses.com. With the start of the baseball season, fans also flocked to MLB.com, driving up traffic 50% to 9.8 million visitors. Bankrate.com and its affiliated sites enjoyed a 46% gain to 5 million through the addition of InsureMe.com in early March. Among video sites, Break Media grabbed the spotlight as its audience increased 35% to 7.9 million.

Tremor Unveils New Video Ad Platform At NAB — Tremor Media will let Web publishers deliver in-stream and overlay video ads from multiple sources in a single dashboard through the latest version of its video ad platform, unveiled Monday night at the annual National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas. Sites in Tremor’s network of 800 mostly mid-tier properties, therefore, will be able to run ads sold not only through Tremor, but by their own sales forces and other ad networks.

YouTorrent Looks For Buyers — BitTorrent meta-search engine YouTorrent is trying to sell itself only four months after the launch. The startup, which lets users search for ‘torrents’ across the web, has now restricted its service to sites hosting legal torrents and officially put itself on sale. “The YouTorrent project has grown very quickly and, unfortunately, is not in line with the owning companies core business,” one of the startup managers named merely as ‘Patrick’ told blog TorrentFreak. “We have had some interest to buy from some parties. On that basis, we have presented the site to other parties in the space to see if there is interest there also.”

Blinkx In Video Deal With The Guardian — Blinkx will show video reports from The Guardian website, as part of an ad deal with the London-based newspaper. Under the agreement, Blinkx will use its Adhoc platform to serve relevant ads along with the videos, with the partners sharing revenues from advertising. The Guardian’s commercial director Adam Freeman expects revenue from the service to be small, but says this is only one of many deals the newspaper is signing for its content. The Guardian already has an agreement to show its video news on online TV service Joost. Guardian.co.uk launched its video section last Sep and now claims to produce 25 original video packages each week. For Blinkx, the deal follows content agreements with the BBC, Fox News and CNN.

WPP Unveils USD8.1m Minority Stake In Realtime Worlds — Advertising giant WPP says it acquired a minority stake in Realtime Worlds for USD8.1m, as part of a USD50m investment round in the Scottish game developer, first disclosed last month. WPP was not named among the round’s investors in initial reports. Maverick Capital led the funding and was accompanied by return backer New Enterprise Associates, which led a USD31m investment in Dec 2006. Founded in Dundee in 2002, Realtime has worked on popular games titles such as ‘Crackdown’, ‘Lemmings’ and ‘Grand Theft Auto’. It employs more than 200 staff, including those in its Colorado offices. WPP says the investment “builds on the new online advertising formats and content.” It is also an investor in ad-supported game network WildTangent.

MySpace Commissions Producers Of Bebo’s Kate Modern — News Corp-owned MySpace has ordered an original drama from the makers of Bebo’s Kate Modern, London-based Big Balls Films, reports Brand Republic. Called ‘I Love Chieftown’, the show will consist of 60 episodes, each between four and five minutes long. The move appears as an attempt to replicate the success of ‘Kate Modern’, the popular online series which launched on Bebo last Apr. Five advertising partners - Paramount, Disney’s Buena Vista, Orange, Microsoft and Proctor & Gamble - each paid at least GBP250,000 (USD497,000) to have their brands featured in the series, says the report. Bebo - now owned by AOL - recently teamed up with the BBC’s Radio1 to produce an episode of the show.

Carl Icahn Steps In After Circuit City Rejects Blockbuster’s USD1bn Bid — Blockbuster shareholder Carl Icahn says he will finance the company’s bid for Circuit City Stores personally, after the electronics retailers rejected the USD1bn-plus cash offer unveiled yesterday. Icahn, who owns 16% of Blockbuster class A shares, says he is willing to back up the offer as a guarantee of financial security for the deal. His comments come after Circuit City rejected the buyout offer, citing doubts that Blockbuster would be able to finance the deal. The electronics chain did not say how Icahn’s intervention would impact its decision, but says it will continue to consider the offer. Video rental chain Blockbuster first submitted its unsolicited bid for Circuit City two months ago, but decided to make it public on Apr 14 to win over shareholders’ support. The cash offer, at USD6 to USD8-per-share, is a significant premium on City Circuit stock, which closed at USD3.9 last Friday.

AOL And Verizon In Exclusive Online Ad Deal — AOL has signed with Verizon as its exclusive online ad partner, responsible for all of the mobile operator’s online ads, reports Reuters. The deal marks a boost for AOL’s Platform-A advertising unit, at a time when AOL is due to be broken into two separate business units. The move, which is yet to be officially confirmed, comes a week after Verizon launched a lawsuit against AOL’s parent company, Time Warner over competition issues to do with each firm’s cable TV operations. The agreement reportedly covers all of Verizon’s online ad inventory, as well as most of Verizon Wireless’ web catalogue. The deal, agreed for an undisclosed price, lets AOL represent all Verizon ad space. The deal comes at a time when AOL has been subject to constant rumours that it may come to a merger agreement with Yahoo!. In an effort to avoid Microsoft’s USD44.6bn hostile takeover, Yahoo! has said it is looking for strategic alternatives to the deal, with reports last week that it is close to signing with AOL.

Adobe TV Signs Content Deal With Splash Media — Adobe has signed a partnership deal with Splash Media to produce content for Adobe TV, a free online video resource which launched this week. Dallas-based Splash Media will produces training videos and tutorials for the Adobe TV platform, designed to teach users how to use Adobe software, such as Photoshop. More than 100 training segments have been licensed to Splash Media to appear on the Adobe TV platform. These will be created by xTrain, a Splash Media business unit. The original series tiles include ‘Dr. Brown’s Photoshop Laboratory’, web design guide ‘Taming the Web’ and Flash media instruction ‘Flash in a Flash’.

Mozilla Releases Mobile Firefox Prototype — Mozilla is looking to put Firefox on handheld devices after unveiling a mobile prototype of the web browser, code-named ‘Fennec’. The pre-Alpha software, targeted towards developers, can be downloaded now from Mozilla’s website. The prototype is built on the same core as Firefox 3. The browser is designed for use on Nokia N810 mobiles and is reportedly six times faster than the device’s native browser. Future mobile Firefox users can look forward to a variety of innovative features, including touchscreen support, improvements in URL entry and navigation between multiple pages. Mozilla plans to collect developer feedback before committing to an alpha version of the software.

Rubicon Project Takes On Google For Free Ad Serving — Google dipped its toe into the free ad-serving market when it rolled out the DoubleClick-backed Google Ad Manager service in March, but the giant is far from the leader in what is an increasingly crowded space. Companies like Exponential Interactive and OpenX already offer free ad serving, tracking and reporting, and now there’s a newcomer that aims to take on Google: The Rubicon Project. Los Angeles-based Rubicon’s new Ad Network Ad Server is compatible with more than 300 ad networks–including Google’s AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, as well as networks with CPC, CPM and CPA-based pricing. The platform offers publishers the ability to serve and track ads across multiple networks, with a point-and-click dashboard interface that allows them to pull performance reports from each network.

MSN To Consider Domain Age of Inbound Links — Bill Slawski digs into a new patent application from Microsoft that aims to include the age of the domains that link to a given Web site as part of the site’s overall ranking criteria.The patent, called “Ranking Domains Using Domain Maturity” was published last week (but filed in late 2006), and assumes that newer domains have a higher likelihood of being spam and/or being part of a link farm–and should be judged accordingly. Thus, sites with a high influx of links from older domains would ultimately be ranked higher than sites with a host of links from newer domains.

Salesforce.com Becomes Sales Channel, Showcase For Google Software Applications — Salesforce.com Inc.’s online software service is becoming a showcase for Google Inc.’s e-mail and other widely used applications, deepening a relationship that has spurred speculation Google eventually will buy its smaller partner. Besides selling Google’s programs to its 41,000 business customers, Salesforce.com will integrate the suite of applications into its own service, which helps companies track and identify customers’ needs.The agreement to be announced Monday builds upon several years of collaboration between Salesforce.com and Google, which are trying to persuade more businesses to subscribe to software services over Internet connections instead of buying programs that must be installed on individual computers.

Nets Looking To Extract More Money From Online Video — Broadcasters are still playing the waiting game with online video. The major networks–NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox–have extended their professionally produced shows to the Web, but audiences are still small. According to comScore Media Metrix, ABC.com led the pack in February with 8.5 million unique views of its online video lineup, followed by NBC.com with 7.9 million. By comparison, a popular TV show like CBS’s “CSI” regularly reaches twice as many people in a single episode. In the meantime, the challenge for broadcasters is to make online video advertising as effective as it can be without cannibalizing on the real moneymakers, traditional TV ratings and DVD sales. But at the same time, they’re focused on extracting more money from each online user. Online video ads are interactive, offer better measurement and can lead directly to sales or conversions; because of this, the networks have started charging more per thousand online views (between $35 and $50 according to The Associated Press) than over the airwaves, where the average CPM is $25.

Jingle Seeks To Sell Itself For USD175m (Rumor) — Ad-supported free director provider Jingle Networks is seeking to sell itself for USD175m, according to an unconfirmed report on tech blog ValleyWag. Google, Microsoft and AT&T - which all own directory services - are said to be preparing bids. A source, however, adds that by the look of Jingle’s numbers, its worth maybe closer to USD90m. Launched in California in 2005, Jingle has already raised as much as USD73m in four rounds of funding. The 1-800-Free-411 directory makes revenue by placing targeted ads within phone-calls. It became profitable in Mar this year, according to a report on VentureBeat. ValleyWag, however, says the company is believed to have spent all the funding and is in debt.

Former AKQA Execs Raise USD30m To Launch Digital Ad Shop — Two former senior execs of interactive marketing firm AKQA, J. Pereira and Andrew O’Dell, have raised USD30m in a first funding round to launch a new ad agency that will offer both traditional and digital services. The pair says it may raise an additional USD70m from Brazilian investment fund ABC International, which led the first round according to some reports. Based in San Francisco with 15 employees, Pereira O’Dell plans to grow by acquisitions to create a “network of creative shops”, reports The Wall Street Journal. Targets could include PR and production companies including Anomaly, which, they say, “has a model we like”. The founders, however, are not interested in becoming an ad network, and do not intend to follow in the footsteps of aQuantive in acquiring tech firms.

Kenshoo Raised VC Funding — Israel-based provider of search marketing automated solutions, has raised an undisclosed amount of VC funding from Arts Alliance.

Covestor Raised $6.5 Million In Series A — The social networking company focused on personal investing, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding. Backers include Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures, Amadeus Capital, Howard Lindzon and John Borthwick.

Better World Books Raised $4.5 Million In Series A — Mishawaka, Ind.-based online bookseller that uses some of its profits to help fund global literacy initiatives, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding. Good Capital LLC led the round with a $2.5 million investment, while angels provided the remainder.

RichRelevance Raised $4.2 Million In Series B — San Francisco-based provider of personalized ecommerce recommendations, has raised $4.2 million in Series B funding. Greylock Partners and Tugboat Ventures were joined by return backers DFJ and Draper Richards.

TeachStreet Raises $ 2.3 Million In Series A Round — Madrona Venture Group led a $2.3 million Series A round of financing for TeachStreet, a developer of an online marketplace for teaching and coaching services.

UStream.TV Raised $11.1 Million In Series A — Los Altos, Calif.-based provider of an interactive video broadcast platform, has raised $11.1 million in Series A funding, according to VentureWire. DCM Capital led the round, and was joined by seed backer Band of Angels.

Gridstone Research Raised $10 Million In Series B — San Mateo, Calif.-based provider of an online research platform for buy-side investment managers, has raised $10 million in Series B funding. Helion Venture Partners led the round, and was joined by return backers Charles River Ventures and Maverick Capital.

iBloks Raised $2.05 Million In Series C — San Francisco-based rich media ad developer, has raised $2.05 million in Series C funding led by return backer Maveron.

Jaxtr Inc. Raised Around $6.4 Million in Series B — Palo Alto, Calif.-based provider of VoIP services for social networks and blogs, has raised around $6.4 million in Series B funding led by Lehman Brothers Venture Partners. The company had previously raised $10 million from August Capital, Draper Richards, Mayfield, Founders Fund, Ron Conway and Reid Hoffman.

Uber Inc. Raised $5.5 Million Of A $7.6 Million Series B — Beverly Hills, Calif.-based social networking startup run by former Friendster and NBC exec Scott Sassa, has called down $5.5 million of a $7.6 million Series B round. Shareholders include Universal Music Group and Sterling Stamos Co-Investors Fund.

AOL Launches Technology Hub — As part of a larger effort to align its disparate Web assets, AOL has launched a technology hub encompassing its popular Engadget network, along with related blogs from its Weblogs network. AOL’s new Technology Network will offer a resource to gather information about technology news and products, and perhaps more importantly, enable advertisers to more easily integrate ad campaigns across related AOL properties.

Blockbuster To Bring Streaming To TV sets –Blockbuster is about to launch a set-top box for streaming online movies directly on TV sets, says The Hollywood Reporter. The home video giant may launch the service as early as this month. The firm, however, would only say it is “talking to numerous companies” to provide “access to media content across multiple channels”. If confirmed, the move would mark Blockbuster’s expansion into the VoD sector, where it would compete with the likes of Apple TV, Vudu and NetFlix, which will debut in partnership with LG. Blockbuster’s move is likely to be linked to its acquisition of movie download service, Movielink, last summer. At the time, Blockbuster said it would use Movielink’s assets to expand into the “digital download business”.

Lyris Plans Ad:Tech Launch Of Interactive Marketing Portal — Lyris, provider of an integrated technology platform for online marketers, will announce the launch of www.LyrisHQ.com at the ad:tech conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. The interactive marketing portal will offer online marketing best practices knowledge with practitioners globally. The site will feature daily marketing blog posts, content devoted to specific online marketing channels, including email marketing, web analytics, site optimization, guest editorials from industry leaders, and an opportunity for marketing professionals to post comments on each editorial piece.

IAC Partners With Black Web Enterprises For Search Engine — Iac has partnered with Black Web Enterprises (BWE) to launch RushmoreDrive.com, an online search engine. The new search engine combines basic search results, with mainstream findings, to deliver information specifically tailored to a Black audience. “Mainstream search engines and professional networking communities fail to easily provide information relevant to a Black audience and current search tools often do not deliver search results from Black Web sites in the first several pages of results,” said RushmoreDrive.com President and CEO Johnny Taylor.

AdBrite Launches Open Targeting Exchange — AdBrite has launched the Open Targeting Exchange (OTX), an open and competitive marketplace for ad targeting technologies. San Francisco-based AdBrite claims the OTX system delivers superior yield and advertiser effectiveness by leveraging multiple targeting methods and algorithms, and allowing them to compete for the right to match advertisements to publisher web pages. OTX is an integrated element of AdBrite’s network, so publishers and advertisers automatically benefit from competition among targeting providers. Each time a page is viewed on an AdBrite publisher’s site, OTX scans multiple eligible targeting algorithms to determine the most relevant and valuable advertisement for the given site, user, and geography.

MSN Releases Major Upgrades To Live Maps — Microsoft has released a host of upgrades to its Live Maps (and Virtual Earth) properties. Live Maps now uses ClearFlow (a technology developed in-house) to better reroute driving directions. “When you choose the ‘Route around Traffic’ option you will get much more accurate travel times and improved routes,” wrote the Virtual Earth team. “We have also added a bunch more cities that we are covering with Traffic flow data from Traffic.com.” The team has also started improving their 3D views of major cities like Las Vegas and Dallas, with more attention to the surrounding suburbs, higher resolution and greater detail.

Ziff Davis Enterprise Restructures, Issues Layoffs — Tech publisher Ziff Davis Enterprise is cutting an unspecified number of jobs, according to B2B magazine. The layoffs were handed down by Steve Weitzner, who was named chairman-CEO of ZDE in January.
Aside from the layoffs, ZDE, the publisher of Baseline, CIO Insight and eWEEK, also promoted a number of executives. Kirk Laughlin is moving to the managing director post of the Live Event unit, after serving as senior editorial director. Also, Kevin Neary, formerly CFO at Primedia, has joined ZDE as exec VP-CFO.

MySpace And ShineReveille Partner On International TV Distribution — MySpace has signed a distribution deal with UK TV production house ShineReveille that’s intended to expand the reach of their original programming internationally and online, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The terms call for ShineReveille to manage international TV, home video and merchandising rights for MySpaceTV properties. MySpace holds on to U.S. and online syndication. The deal is not exclusive, though it is designed as a two-way street: ShineReveille gets to test and promote their shows to MySpace’s users, while the Fox Interactive social net gets its hands on some potential hit programs. Plus, ShineReveille could help it build on any web successes with the TV or home video market. Jamie Kantrowitz, MySpace International’s VP for marketing: “With this deal, we can think about how to convert (webisodes) into a TV format or DVD format… Producers who start off doing internet content for us will have the opportunity to work with us to turn it into a multiplatform property.”

IAC Set To Jump Into Crowded How-To Space With Life333.com — You could almost see this one coming: IAC (NSDQ: IACI) is prepping a fresh entrant into the crowded “how-to” space, as part of its strategy to incubate a string of homegrown start-ups, paidContent.org has learned. A launch could come in the next couple of months. This has become a suffocatingly crowded area, with a new start-up announcing funding seemingly every couple of weeks. The site, which will be called Life333.com (a lookup confirms the domain is registered to IAC), will offer a mix of content types, including video, but definitely not limited to that.

Buzznet Inc. Acquired Stereogum — Los Angeles-based social media community focused on music and pop culture, has acquired music blog Stereogum. No financial terms were reported. Buzzznet also recently acquired social media company Qloud, and reportedly raised $25 million in new VC funding from Interscope Records, Redpoint Ventures and Anthem Venture Partners.

The Nielsen Co. Acquired IAG Research — Nielsen Co. has agreed to acquire IAG Research, a New York-based provider of analytics for television ad effectiveness. The deal is valued at $225 million, and is expected to close later this quarter. IAG had raised over $71 million in VC funding since 2001, including a $47.5 million Series E round in 2006 from Insight Venture Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners.

News Corp’s Ad Network Buys UK’s Utarget — News Corp’s online ad unit - Fox Networks - is strengthening its UK presence through the acquisition of a majority stake in London-based ad firm Utarget. The deal was signed for an undisclosed sum, believed to be “in the low-eight-figure level”, according to a Fox source quoted by Reuters. Utarget will now be rebranded ‘Utarget.Fox’ and start selling its products through Fox Networks and Fox International Channels. Founded in 2000, Utarget specialises in ‘banner-pop-under’ ads, which are video ads running in a separate window displayed under the web browser. These media, also known as subsites, start playing automatically once the ad window comes into focus.Last week, reports suggested that Fox Networks was finally rolling out in the UK, selling ads on News Corp local sites, such as Sun Online, Times Online and The News Of The World. Fox Networks is already operating in 16 countries, and plans to become the largest network, in terms of global coverage, with a presence in more than 20 countries.

Imeem Inc. Acquired Snocap — Palo Alto, Calif.-based social media network, has acquired Snocap, a Palo Alto–based provider of digital rights and content management solutions. No financial terms were disclosed. Imeem has raised over $5 million led by Morgenthaler Ventures and Sequoia Capital, while Snocap has raised over $25 million from Morgenthaler, Walden Venture Capital and Court Square Ventures.

Yahoo! Buys Assets Of Web Analytics Firm Indextools — Yahoo! is acquiring the assets of Hungarian web analytics firm Tensa Kft, better known as IndexTools, for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 2000, privately-held Tensa provides web analysis software that monitors web traffic and consumer behaviour. Its main unit, IndexTools, claims to compete with Webtrends, Visual Sciences, Omniture and Coremetrics. The companies expect to close the deal by Jun 31.Yahoo!, itself the target of a takeover bid by Microsoft, says the acquisition will help expand its analytics services with new tools, including plans to let developers monitor and optimise the traffic on their applications. The search giant expects that the more than 150,000 small and medium-sized businesses which use Yahoo! for their online advertising will be the first to benefit from the new tools.

Vignette Buys Video-Hosting Service Vidavee For USD6.6MM — Online portal solution provider Vignette is acquiring video hosting and publishing site Vidavee for USD6.6m. New York-based Vidavee, which is backed by VC firm Trident Capital, provides video monetisation and hosting services for online publishers. Its has developed a ‘heat map’ system that shows how web surfers interact with online content, allowing website owners to see which sections of video streams are generating the most interest. It then leverages the data to help insert advertising or other revenue-generating content.Texas-based Vignette declined to comment on how it would incorporate Vidavee in its service. Reports suggest that the video hosting functions will be added to Vignette’s large-scale web portal creation packages as an aggressive move into the white-label rich media site solution sector.

Hachette Filipacchi UK Buys Entertainment News Site DigitalSpy — French media group Lagardere is acquiring UK-based entertainment news site DigitalSpy through its subsidiary Hachette Filipacchi UK, for an undisclosed sum. DigitalSpy launched in 2000 and initially provided TV-related news and message-boards, before branching into a wider range of entertainment and celebrity news and gossip areas. The site, estimated to be the fourth largest online entertainment news provider in the UK according to comScore, will be added to Hachette Filipacchi’s digital media division, joining its previous acquisitions of Sugarscape.com and ElleUK.com.