Last.fm, StumbleUpon, Photobucket: sold
The last days were pretty boring in the world of scene releases - on the contrary, they were pretty interesting if we talk about new acquisitions and websites sales. Social music site Last.fm has been bought by US media giant CBS Corporation for $280m (£140m). The online network allows users to connect with other listeners with similar music tastes, to custom-build their own radio stations and to watch music video-clips. It was founded in the UK five years ago and it now has more than 15 million active users. As part of the deal, Last.fm’s managing team will remain in place and the site will maintain its own separate identity.
Another interesting project with a huge user base was bought by eBay Incorporated which has announced it has acquired StumbleUpon, an early-stage company that helps people discover and share content online, for an aggregate transaction value of approximately $75 million. StumbleUpon, currently servicing 2.3 million users, gives people a new way to discover relevant and entertaining content based on personal preferences and community recommendations. The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2001 and has since become one of the most popular new ways to discover Web sites, people, videos, product information, communities and other online content based on personal interests. Driven by word-of-mouth, the StumbleUpon community has grown 150% year over year and delivers approximately five million new recommendations.
Third big project which has new owners after yesterday is popular Photobucket. This online photo sharing, storage and creativity Web site is being acquired by Fox Interactive Media, a division of News Corporation. In a separate deal, News Corporation said it is also acquiring real-time video and audio editing Web site Flektor Incorporated. Terms of both deals were not disclosed. Denver-based Photobucket has more than 42 million users, with an estimated 47% who then link their photos to social networks such as MySpace.com, according to the company.
The last two acquisitions were made by Google: anti-malware firm Green Border for an undisclosed sum. A Google spokesperson said the company will not disclose additional terms of the deal. GreenBorder produces technology that separates the browser context from the operating system context by creating what is essentially a virtualized browser instance that can then be used to identify malware without impacting the underlying system. Finaly, the last interesting change was made to FeedBurner which is managing our RSS feed. Rumors about Google acquiring RSS management company Feedburner from last week are now confirmed according to a source close to the deal. Feedburner is in the closing stages of being acquired by Google for around $100 million. The deal is all cash and mostly upfront, according to our source, although the founders will be locked in for a couple of years. The company was founded in 2003 and has raised just $10 million in capital over two rounds. It looks that every popular website with noticeable amount of users is being sold to someone bigger, more powerful and well-known. What are you waiting for, start up your HTML editor and build your online kingdom!
decent websites, but i dont use any of them… so I dont care
i used all of them for some time, expecially last.fm is very nice and good working. stumbleupon can also bring you to very interesting websites…
280M for Last.fm? Damn…
Now they’ll go straight to hell and the Illuminati corporations keep growing. Fcvk Rupert Murdoch and his brainwashing empire News Corporation.
Marvel_Trading_Card_Game_CLONEDVD-PROCYON
Regarding StumbleUpon i could say after two years as a member on that place that it really sucks and they have some internal difficulties to get along with each other and the dudes behind StumbleUpon is the worst joke ever,believe me.Last.There are a lot of pages where the people behind them left for over two and three years ago and still the page is up at StumbleUpon.If you wants a good community feeling.Search somewhere else.
Have a great day.
Nah, stumbleupon is okay. (Not deleting inactive account is a GOOD thing.) But it’s not a ‘real’ community, and it very well may turn to shit now.
Stumbleupon? Community?
Fuck that, I just use it to give me a random humour/music/geektech/porn site when I’m bored.
I don’t think the interaction part ever took off, especially when they introduced charging people for extra features.
But $280 million? Shit! Makes me wanna take up C++ and come up with some stuff of my own!
Google will conquer the world, the prophecy is becoming true……
Google, aka Skynet
eBay buying a website that deals with sharing online content sounds weird, at least the other deals had the big companies buying things that are relevant to them.
I’ve been using last.fm since the days when it was still called audioscrobbler. Its a pretty good site, I’ve discovered many new artists and, surprise surprise, I actually bought a few CDs! Who would believe that a casual pirate would actually buy music from time to time?
Martin, your not going to sell anytime soon are you?
One of the **AA’s might want this site
Very interesting! I’m blogging about this. Thanks for the info Martin. You’re surely one hell of a techie!
Just got this
Dear mutz
As you know, sending unsolicited emails is something we’re not in the habit of doing, but in this case, we thought the news was big enough to justify it.
Panoramio is going to be acquired by Google!
The deal is set to close in about two weeks. We’re excited and we hope you are too! The acquisition will be an overwhelmingly good thing for Panoramio uploaders and viewers alike. Uploaders will get to leverage Google’s reach, increasing the exposure of their photographs to photophiles around the world. Viewers will get to choose from a larger universe of photographs as Panoramio becomes more widely known.
We understand you may have questions, so we’ve set up a Q&A to help. Go to Q&A to learn more.
We owe our dedicated users a debt of gratitude for making Panoramio the success that it is. Thank you! And stay tuned; we intend to repay that debt by bringing making Panoramio bigger and better than ever.
Sincerely,
Panoramio Team
Opt-out
We promised in our Terms of Use that you’d be given a chance to opt-out of the transfer of your personal information to a company that acquired us. If you take no action, the rights to your data will transfer, unmodified, from Panoramio to Google upon close of the acquisition. Choosing to opt out will terminate your user agreement with Panoramio, trigger the removal of your photos from the Panoramio database, and prevent the transfer of data rights to Google. For more information about Google’s privacy practices, click here. If you’d like to opt out, click here.