M&A

A representative for eco-blog TreeHugger has confirmed that the site has been acquired by Discovery Communications, parent company of the Discovery Channel, The Science Channel, Animal Planet, and several other properties. A report of the deal initially surfaced in the New York Post today.

A press release from Discovery and TreeHugger confirmed that the blog will be part of the upcoming Planet Green network, but financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The New York Post had suggested a $10 million price tag.

"TreeHugger.com is a strategic complement to our digital media portfolio, aligning perfectly with Discovery?… Read more

The New York Post is reporting that green-centric uberblog TreeHugger may have been purchased by Discovery Communications as a companion blog to its forthcoming new cable network, Planet Green. The new channel is slated for a launch in the first quarter of next year, and has already built up some buzz for its series Eco-Town, created in collaboration with actor and Prius poster boy Leonardo DiCaprio; an already-trendy eco-blog would indeed be a desirable companion for the company.

According to the Post's Peter Lauria, the price tag for TreeHugger was somewhere around $10 million.

The New York-based TreeHugger, which … Read more

Media-sharing site Twango updated its Web site on Monday to announce that it's been chomped up by cell phone manufacturer Nokia. With its cool new toy, Nokia hopes to make it easier for handset owners to share multimedia content among desktop, Web, and mobile platforms.

"The Twango acquisition is a concrete step towards our consumer Internet services vision of providing seamless access to information, entertainment, and social networks--at any time, anywhere, from any connected device, in any way that you choose," said Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's executive vice president and general manager of multimedia at Nokia, in … Read more

Luis Villa commented on an earlier post wherein I had asked, "Why doesn't Oracle just buy Red Hat?" His remark was, "Because Red Hat employees would leave en masse."

Think about that. To the extent that an open-source company is driven by a culture of freedom, would-be purchasers might be put off by one of two things:… Read more

Larry Dignan over at ZDNet has an interesting, though speculative (though perhaps interesting because it's speculative? :-) post on Oracle's acquisition strategy. Since Oracle is not planning to slow its frenetic pace of acquisitions any time soon, Peter Goldmacher of Cowen & Co. asks, "Who would Larry buy?"

The list is interesting. I have a few alternative suggestions to Goldmacher's, to help Oracle get more involved in open source:… Read more

Getty Images, which made a name for itself as a stock photography clearinghouse, announced Wednesday it has purchased Pump Audio, which licenses independent music to advertising and media clients. The price of the acquisition, according to a release from Getty, was $42 million.

This is the most recent in a series of moves on Getty's part to expand beyond photography and into the digital media sector. Last month, it launched a new division in the company to license video footage and other multimedia content, and over the past few months has chalked up a string of acquisitions, from amateur photography site Scoopt … Read more

TechCrunch reported late on Friday about a hot new rumor in the social media space. The Germany-based business networking site Xing, according to TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, may be in talks to acquire online address book management company Plaxo. The deal is rumored to be in the $250 million range--a significant buy indeed.

Plaxo, for some background, was founded in 2002 by Napster co-founder Sean Parker. Since then, the company claims to have hit 15 million members (as of September 2006). It synchronizes primarily with Microsoft Outlook address books, but has also formed deals with companies like Yahoo and AOL'… Read more

It could be said that GotFrag, a news and social networking site for fans of competitive video gaming, just got pwned--but in a good way. New York-based professional gaming league Major League Gaming announced Wednesday that it has purchased GotFrag for an unspecified amount.

Through the acquisition, Major League Gaming hopes to boost the visibility of professional gaming, especially in the United States, where it's far more under-the-radar than it is in European and Asian countries. This has been an ongoing goal for the professional league, which inked a deal with the USA Network last year to have … Read more

eBay released a statement on Wednesday afternoon confirming that, as speculated, it has acquired Web site discovery service StumbleUpon. The price, according to eBay, is approximately $75 million.

eBay's most famous acquisition is arguably Internet telephony service Skype, which it purchased in 2005.

"StumbleUpon is a great fit within our goal of pioneering new communities based on commerce and sustained by trust," eBay's senior director Michael Buhr said in a statement. "StumbleUpon's downloadable toolbar provides an engaging and unique experience to its users, but it is the similarities in our approaches to the concept … Read more