Every is wondering who gets bought next… Yes by Google. Or by Yahoo. But the truth of the matter there are some marriages out there that just make sense. And its probably money that isn’t making the marriage happen just yet. Maybe I can help some of these companies get bought out by pointing out the obvious.
Marriages that just work
1) Zillow and InterActive Corp.
Zillow is the talk of the town everywhere I turn around. And while Ask.com which was recently acquired by IAC. IAC has been on the move acquiring companies for years. In fact as a matter of disclosure I worked at one during an acquisition as IAC acquired ServiceMagic.com and merged our real estate division with RealEstate.com. This acquisition would just make sense. IAC has a bundle of information on contractors, lots of data on contractors and I know how much they need to stay ahead of Inman. While the purchase price should be in the 100 Million Dollar range by my Zestimate. It’s well worth it. Being able to integrate Zestimates and LendingTree loans into the Real Estate dot com portal just makes a heck of a lot of sense to me. Tie all of the above into the Ask.com search engine and this deal makes sense.
Most recent purchase: CollegeHumor.com
2) NYTimes, Automattic and Sphere
The Times built itself as a leader in publishing as the world changes so must it change. Advertising revenue is down across countless traditional publications. One of its more profitable ventures is About.com who utilizes Sphere’s content serving capablities. Automattic who makes the world’s greatest software WordPress also shares advisors with Sphere and WordPress powers a few NYTimes Blogs. NYTimes in a much needed push into user generated content acquires the WordPress.com system, an up and coming blog search engine to serve up blog search results on its sites, and some leading go getters in Toni Schneider and Matt Mullenweg. This deal makes sense for the future of the Newspaper + New Media World. Although I’m sure to get laffed off the stage with this story. It makes sense really it does.
Last Major Acquisition: About.com
3) Google and Memeorandum
Google News Sucks. You know it. I know it. Everyone in the blogosphere knows it. Gabe has a great system figured out over at Memeorandum. It’s not perfect but it works. Slice it anyway you want but Google wants to improve Google News and the best way to do it is to buy Memeorandum for the community and the kick ass algorithmic system. Who cares what the price its probably worth it.
Last Major Acquisition: YouSpot
4) Yahoo and Scrybe
When Yahoo purchased Oddpost it set out to really upgrade its email services problem was Google and Hotmail were also hell bent on keeping up and passing Yahoo Mail. Only way to keep up now is acts of desperation and high tech wonder. Scrybe would be a great update including some hawt bookmark magic added in using one of Yahoo’s 42 Bookmarking applications and you could even sync your Flickr images offline. Now that would be a smart purchase. Sure beats spending a billion dollars on a social networking site known as Facebook. Who cares about the pricetag this deal makes sense for the users. And that’s who Yahoo needs to keep happy in order to keep above water. It also puts a tool on users desktops that could serve up contextual ads.
5) Yahoo and Blue Lithium
Blue Lithium is leading the way in Audience Centric Advertising and the only way Yahoo can keep pace and maybe innovate ahead of Google is to focus solely on mobile markets or stick to its guns and focus on its users. I recommend sticking to its users. Blue Lithium is huge up and comer and this deal makes sense. Yahoo would get some hawt new technology and Blue Lithium would get a much bigger user base. Looks good all the way around. I estimate this deal wouldn’t cost a lot to wrap up but it would be well worth it.
Last Major Acquisition: Delicious
None of these acquisitions will probably take place. Most notably because big companies simply don’t shell out big bucks for companies unless they can SEE how it’s going to work. Google usually doesn’t buy someone unless they get the people. Yahoo doesn’t companies unless they get a community. And well IAC only buys companies so they can fire Butlers. So none of this makes sense and yet it makes perfect sense because this is Web 2.0.
David Krug covers Online Education at College-Catalog.com
Originally posted on November 3, 2006 @ 5:59 am