EBay Rethinks China; Will Close Own Sites, Open New One In JV With Tom Online: Report – The WSJ is reporting that eBay is making a major change in its China strategy, planning to shut its own main site and instead teaming with Tom Online in a JV. The Chinese content company would own 51 percent to eBay’s 49 percent; by contrast, eBay is expected to put up $40 million to $20 million from Tom Online.
SI Continues Interest In Social Networks; $25 Million On 40 percent Of Start-up FanNation.com? – Last week SI launched its relationship with high school social net Takkle. Now comes word that the Time Inc. magazine may be negotiating for a piece of social net FanNation.com, a creation of start-up Sports Technologies. Sports Business Journal’s Terry Lefton reports (sub. req.) SI has a “deal in principle” to invest $25 million for 40 percent of FanNation.com.
NBBC Signs Up 150 Partners – NBC Universal’s Internet-video-syndication venture, the National Broadband Co. (NBBC), signed up “close to” 100 content licensors and 100 distributors, for a total of about 150 partners to date. NBBC expects to officially launch in the first half of 2007.
10 Internet Acquisitions from 2006? – List of the top 10 internet acquisitions of 2006 led by YouTube / Google.
Pandora Goes Social – Pandora, which plays streaming music for free via a flash player on its site, is one of the first companies we profiled on TechCrunch, back in August 2005 during the original Bar Camp meetup. I still listen to it most of the time I’m writing blog entries. Tonight Pandora is releasing a additional features aimed at increasing interaction among members. These social features include listener profiles with musical preferences, bio information, etc. (previously listeners had only a list of bookmarked songs), as well as listener search and lists of users who are fans of particular bands.
