jkOnTheRun Joined GigaOM Network

Om Malik yesterday announced that Giga Omni Media, the company behind GigaOM, has acquired jkOnTheRun, a blog started by James Kendrick and Kevin Tofel that focuses on the wonderful world of mobile gadgets, including mobile phones and cloud client computers.

James and Kevin will join GigaOM, but will continue to work from their respective homes of Houston and Telford, Pa., and jkOnTheRun will become the sixth blog in the GigaOM Network.

Om Malik said the reason for this acquisition as “jkOnTheRun is one of the rare blogs that covers the world of mobile gadgets with razor-sharp wit and insight. More importantly, it has a genuinely consumer-centric point of view. I first got to know the blog as a reader and have long considered it good enough to rank among my 10 favorites. (WebWorkerDaily editor Judi Sohn is also a fan.)

Strategically, it’s a publication that rounds out our existing areas of coverage. For instance, GigaOM tracks the world of web infrastructure pretty closely, but very rarely do we write about cloud client machines. And with the exception of the iPhone and some occasional mobile reviews, we don’t provide much gadget coverage, either. I think as we start to cover the world of cloud computing more closely we will no longer be able to afford to ignore the client side of the equation.“

See the announcement here.

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Google To Acquire Russian Context Ads Service Begun For $140 Million

Google announced today that it has signed an agreement with Rambler Media to acquire ZAO Begun ("Begun"), a leading Russian context advertising service, for $140 million, subject to customary adjustments. This agreement emphasizes Google's commitment to improving the service it offers users, partners and advertisers in Russia, where digital advertising is currently experiencing rapid growth.

The acquisition of Begun will give advertisers access to a broader network of sites to advertise on, and publishers will benefit from a wider set of adverts to run on their sites. Users will see more relevant advertising across a much wider set of websites. Google will bring its advertising expertise and experience to Begun's network of websites.

"Google is very committed to giving Russian users, advertisers and partners the best possible service and experience," said Mohammad Gawdat, Managing Director Emerging Markets, Google. "This agreement will result in better search results and more relevant advertising for our Russian users and publishers."

“Begun is an excellent business which can fully develop its potential under Google's ownership," said Mark Opzoomer, Chief Executive Officer of Rambler Media. "Google has the technological and financial capacity to improve Begun's established advertising service in Russia."

"The entire industry will benefit from this transaction as there is a high potential for synergies," said Alexey Basov, General Director of Begun "It brings together Google's visionary technology and Begun's six years of successful experience in building advertising and dealer networks and direct sales in Russia."

The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions and receipt of applicable regulatory approval and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2008.

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Twitter Announced The Acquisition Of Summize

Twitter, a micro blogging site announced that it has acquired Summize. Summize is a popular service for searching Twitter and keeping up with emerging trends in real-time. Like Twitter, Summize offers an API so other products and services can filter the constant queue of updates in a variety of ways.

The Summize service and API will be merged with twitter and integrated under the Twitter brand. All employees of Summize are now part of Twitter, Inc.

See the complete announcement here.

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ContentNext Media Is Acquired by Guardian News & Media

Guardian News & Media (GNM) today announces a significant expansion of its US presence with the acquisition of ContentNext Media, the leading B2B media company which covers digital media, the entertainment and technology sectors, and publishes the influential paidContent.org.

Its founder and editor Rafat Ali, and CEO, Nathan Richardson, will continue to run the company as a stand-alone business.

ContentNext, based in Santa Monica, California, and New York City, is an online media hub delivering high-quality professional news, information and analysis to executives in the media, entertainment & technology sectors.  Its publishing network comprises the flagship paidContent.org, providing global coverage of the business of digital content; mocoNews.net, covering the business of mobile content; paidContent:UK, focusing on the UK and Europe; and contentSutra.com, covering India’s digital content market. The company also runs a complementary events business bringing together business decision-makers and thought-leaders.

The move marks a major step in Guardian News & Media’s expansion outside of the UK. In the last nine months it has launched Guardian America, offering news and comment to a US audience, and forged a new commercial relationship with Reuters to sell advertising in the US. GNM, which publishes two leading UK newspapers, The Guardian and The Observer, and the guardian.co.uk network of websites, also owns a B2B division, Guardian Professional, providing publications, events and conferences to professional audiences in its core sectors of media, education, and the public sector.  ContentNext will form part of the Guardian Professional group.

Tim Brooks, Managing Director of Guardian News and Media, said: “We have long been admirers of Rafat and the business he has built, which is an indispensable resource for so many senior people in our industry.  So we are genuinely excited at the prospect of being able to help Rafat, Nathan and the team take ContentNext to the next level.”

ContentNext was founded in 2002 by Rafat Ali and funded by Greycroft Partners in 2006.

Rafat Ali, the founder, said: “The Guardian’s international reputation for editorial integrity and digital innovation make it the perfect partner to help ContentNext to grow its expanding platform.”

Nathan Richardson, CEO of ContentNext, added:  “The strategy and ambitions of the Guardian are a terrific fit for ContentNext’s plans to be the leading digital publishing platform for news and information to the media, entertainment and publishing industries.”

“I have admired paidContent for years. Rafat and his team personify the values of editorial independence and integrity that are core to the Guardian. I’m very happy to welcome the company into the expanding Guardian Media Group,” commented Carolyn McCall, Chief Executive of Guardian Media Group.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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IBM Acquires Platform Solutions Inc

IBM today announced it has acquired Platform Solutions, Inc. (PSI), a privately held technology company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. PSI's technologies and employees will become part of the IBM System z business unit of the IBM Systems and Technology Group. Financial terms were not disclosed.

PSI's technologies and skills, along with its intellectual capital, will become part of IBM's long-term mainframe product engineering cycles and part of IBM's future product plans.

"IBM's strategy is to continually evolve our mainframe technology to help our clients tackle the most demanding business issues," said Anne Altman, General Manager, IBM System z. "We will continue to move the mainframe forward through both IBM innovation and by acquiring new technologies. We welcome Platform Solutions, Inc. and look forward to collaborating with them."

"We are pleased to become part of IBM, knowing IBM has the industry's most comprehensive vision for the future direction of enterprise computing, and has the requisite technologies to realize that vision," said Michael Maulick, President and CEO, Platform Solutions, Inc. "This acquisition makes the most sense for our companies -- to collaborate on future technology offerings and maximize our combined knowledge and skills for the benefit of IBM clients globally."

As part of this acquisition, both IBM and PSI dropped their respective claims against each other.

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Blockbuster Withdraws Proposal to Acquire Circuit City

In the mid of April 2008, Blockbuster Inc. made an unsolicited, non-binding proposal to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Circuit City for at least $6.00 per share in cash.

However Blockbuster Inc. yesterday announced that it has decided to withdraw its proposal to acquire Circuit City.

"Based on market conditions and the completion of our initial due diligence process, we have determined that it is not in the best interest of Blockbuster's shareholders to proceed with an acquisition of Circuit City," said Jim Keyes, Blockbuster Chairman and CEO. "We continue to believe in the strategic merits of a consumer retail proposition that would bring media content and electronic devices together under one brand. We will pursue this strategy through our Blockbuster stores as a way to diversify the business and better serve the entertainment retail segment."

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Microsoft to Acquire Powerset

Microsoft reached an agreement to acquire Powerset, a San Francisco-based search and natural language company.

Powerset will join Microsoft’s core Search Relevance team, remaining intact in San Francisco. Powerset brings with it natural language technology that nicely complements other natural language processing technologies in Microsoft Research.

“We're buying Powerset first and foremost because we're impressed with the people there. Powerset CTO and cofounder Barney Pell is a visionary and incredible evangelist. When he introduced our senior engineers to some of the most senior people at Powerset — Search engineers and computational linguists like Tim Converse, Chad Walters, Scott Prevost, Lorenzo Thione, and Ron Kaplan — we came away impressed by their smarts, their experience, their passion for search, and a shared vision.” said Satya Nadella, Senior Vice President, Search, Portal, and Advertising. “Working with our existing Search team and other Microsoft teams that focus on natural language, Powerset will help us address all of those problems and opportunities.”

You can find the complete announcement here as well as here.

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Hi5 Acquired PixVerse To Enhance Real-Time User Interaction

hi5 Networks, one of the world’s largest social networks, announced its acquisition of PixVerse, Inc., an innovative provider of rich, real-time interactions within social networks. Built on its breakthrough Flash™-based, no-download virtual world platform, PixVerse developed the popular and highly interactive Pix Chat and Pix Wall applications, which run on hi5 and other social networking services through platform integration.

“PixVerse has great technology that delivers a very immersive end user experience,” said Ramu Yalamanchi, CEO of hi5. “Communicating with friends is one of the primary benefits of hi5, and this technology and team enables hi5 to deliver a much richer, more visual medium of interaction for users of our network.”

Founded in 2007, PixVerse was backed by Venrock, a premier venture capital firm. The company was an early adopter of Google App Engine™, which enables developers to build their web apps on the same infrastructure that powers Google's own applications. With a mission to enable virtual worlds on the web, PixVerse was a pioneer in developing end user applications on top of the leading social network platforms.

“When we set out to build our applications, we were immediately drawn to the hi5 platform,” said Charles Ying, co-founder of PixVerse. “Access to the social graph enabled us to leverage hi5’s 80 million users to drive our growth. And the fact that hi5 is part of OpenSocial, rather than a proprietary platform, meant our work was extensible and reusable.”

PixVerse is one of thousands of third-party software developers that have written applications to run on top of the hi5 Platform since its launch in April 2008. Ranging from enhanced friend interactions to games, applications on hi5 provide a popular way of extending the social networking experience and enhancing end user engagement. Every day, hundreds of thousands of hi5 users install applications on the hi5 Platform, with over 50% hi5’s daily users interacting with at least one application. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Microsoft To Acquire Mobile Solutions Provider, MobiComp

Microsoft Corp. announced it intends to acquire MobiComp, a company that helped pioneer technologies allowing the backup and restoration of mobile data and mobile posting of social content to Web sites such as Facebook. The acquisition would combine MobiComp’s expertise building innovative mobile data protection and sharing services with Microsoft’s vision to provide compelling experiences that span work and play across mobile phones, the Web and PCs. Terms of the planned acquisition are not being disclosed.

“People expect their phones to deliver the best experiences from PCs and the Web right to their pockets,” said Todd Peters, corporate vice president in the Mobile Communications Business at Microsoft. “Investing in the right solutions from companies like MobiComp will extend the capabilities of Windows Mobile and Windows Live to help us provide the most innovative and seamless way to stay connected.”

The Portugal-based company is known for a variety of breakthrough mobile services including MobileKeeper Backup & Restore, MobileKeeper Sharing & Communities, and Active mTicker. These services help mobile operators and people around the world back up personal content stored on a phone, publish updates to online communities, and get entertainment and news content delivered to phones.

“Like Microsoft, we’ve always believed in an open and innovative mobile platform and deep industry partnerships,” said Carlos Oliveira, co-founder and CEO of MobiComp. “We’re thrilled that our work over the past eight years can now be extended by partnering with Microsoft’s world-class portfolio of mobile services.”

MobiComp will contribute to a rapidly expanding list of offerings from Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business while continuing to serve its existing partners and customers, which include 11 mobile operators worldwide. Fifty handset makers build on the Windows Mobile platform, and 160 mobile operators in 55 countries carry Windows Mobile phones. The services of Windows Live, including one of the largest free instant messaging services and blogging services, run on every major mobile operating system worldwide.

“We’re extremely pleased with this announcement, which reflects our country’s leadership in innovative technology,” said Nuno Duarte, general manager of Microsoft Portugal. “It highlights the success of our prime minister’s economic policies and serves as proof of Microsoft’s commitment to the partnership signed between Portugal’s government and Bill Gates two years ago. Following several top companywide awards for Microsoft Portugal, this is further evidence of our visibility in Microsoft’s worldwide efforts.”

About MobiComp

MobiComp is a Braga, Portugal-based software services company, founded in 2000, that provides mobile operators and consumers innovative security and access to information while mobile.

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IPC Media Acquires Market Leading Online Games Site, www.mousebreaker.com

IPC Media yesterday announced the acquisition of www.mousebreaker.com, the leading UK-based free-to-play games site.

Mousebreaker, launched in 2001, publishes over 200 free online flash-based games. The site, aimed at 18-to-34 year old men, has an audience in excess of 4 million unique users every month, enjoying an easy to play spectrum of football, sports, driving, arcade, shooter and puzzle games. Mousebreaker leads the free casual games sector in the UK.

Online games are a worldwide phenomenon. The market was worth an estimated $5.7billion in 2007 and is forecast to double in size in the next five years*. Over 200 million people play games online each month, with the casual games sector thriving.

IPC Ignite managing director Eric Fuller says: “The entertainment sector is the fastest growing online sector in the UK**, and games are driving that growth. Mousebreaker is a successful site, and its content is complementary to our existing young men's brands, Nuts and Loaded.

“This is a major strategic investment for IPC Media. Mousebreaker doubles our portfolio's digital reach of UK young men. It's an attractive proposition for advertisers, delivering a highly targeted and loyal male audience. We have some very exciting plans in place to enable our advertisers to engage with our audience of young men in innovative and effective ways.”

Mousebreaker co-founders Richard Pendry and Alick Stott will remain with the business. They will work with IPC Ignite publishing director Jo Smalley and Ignite digital director Kevin Heery to develop the brand. Advertising sales across the site will be managed by Ignite's sales team, led by Sam Finlay.

Richard says: “IPC Ignite is the perfect home for Mousebreaker. Ignite's track record in developing the potential of sites for young men – including www.nuts.co.uk – speaks for itself.”

Alick adds: “IPC Ignite will be able to provide the resources – commercially and editorially – to evolve the site to its full potential and we're very excited to get to work.”

The acquisition of Mousebreaker follows another major acquisition in October 2007 of TrustedReviews, the UK's premier product review site. Last year IPC also launched a number of major new websites, including homes portal www.housetohome.co.uk and www.goodtoknow.co.uk, the essential online destination for women today. And earlier this month IPC Connect launched a major new digital site – www.look.co.uk – the perfect fashion filter, online.

via PR

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Amazon.com Acquires A Leading Online Fabric Store, Fabric.com

Amazon.com, Inc. today announced the acquisition of Fabric.com, a leading online fabric store that offers custom measured and cut fabrics, as well as patterns, sewing tools and accessories.

This acquisition will enable Fabric.com to further expand its selection of fabrics and accessories while enabling Amazon.com to offer its customers a wider variety of products in the sewing, craft and hobby segment.

Fabric.com has built an impressive business by providing great products and excellent service for sewing and crafting enthusiasts, said Chris Nielsen, vice president of the Amazon.com Home & Garden store. Over the years, we've seen a growing interest in this segment from our customers. Our acquisition of Fabric.com will allow us to offer a greater variety of fabrics and accessories to crafting customers.

Launched in 1999 by Stephen Friedman, Fabric.com has developed a significant and loyal customer base of sewing enthusiasts, and today offers a comprehensive line of fabrics in all three major fabric categories, including apparel, quilting and home decor.

The acquisition will allow us to more effectively build our business around the customer, offering great value and a unique shopping experience within the sewing community, said Stephen Friedman, CEO and founder of Fabric.com. We now have the opportunity to significantly expand our breadth of inventory, as well as benefit from the technology, fulfillment and customer service expertise of Amazon.com.

Fabric.com will continue to function as a stand-alone operation based in Marietta, Georgia.

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Nokia to Acquire Symbian Limited to Enable Evolution of The Leading Open Mobile Platform

Nokia today announced it has launched a cash offer to acquire all of the shares of Symbian Limited that Nokia does not already own, at a price of EUR 3.647 per share.  The net cash outlay from Nokia to purchase the approximately 52% of Symbian Limited shares it does not already own will be approximately EUR 264 million.

Nokia has received irrevocable undertakings from Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ), Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd. and Siemens International Holding BV to accept the offer, representing approximately 91% of the Symbian shares subject to the offer.  Nokia also expects Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. to accept the offer.

The acquisition is a fundamental step in the establishment of the Symbian Foundation, announced today by Nokia, together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone. More information about the planned foundation can be found at www.symbianfoundation.org.

"This is a significant milestone in our software strategy" said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia. "Symbian is already the leading open platform for mobile devices. Through this acquisition and the establishment of the Symbian Foundation, it will undisputedly be the most attractive platform for mobile innovation. This will drive the development of new and compelling, web-enabled applications to delight a new generation of consumers."

"The wide support for this initiative, uniting the industry around the Symbian platform, reflects the strong gravitational pull it has for application developers and other ecosystem players. We will drive efficient, open innovation by unifying the platform and simplifying the software supply chain, leveraging our experience from mobile devices.  Nokia is strongly positioned to realize the benefits of open innovation, as well as accelerating time to market, enabling us to meet and exceed consumer expectations for leading converged devices and experiences", Kallasvuo continued.

Symbian Limited is the software company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the market-leading open operating system for mobile devices. User interfaces designed for Symbian OS include S60 from Nokia, MOAP (S) for the 3G network and UIQ, designed by UIQ Technology, a joint venture between Motorola and Sony Ericsson.  A privately-owned company established in 1998, Symbian has its headquarters in London, UK and other offices in the United Kingdom, United States and Asia (Bangalore, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo).

"Ten years ago, Symbian was established by far sighted players to offer an advanced open operating system and software skills to the whole mobile industry", said Nigel Clifford, CEO of Symbian. "Our vision is to become the most widely used software platform on the planet and indeed today Symbian OS leads its market by any measure. Today's announcement is a bold new step to achieve that vision by embracing a complete and proven platform, offered in an open way, designed to stimulate innovation, which is at the heart of everything we do."

Mobile devices based on Symbian OS account for 60% of the converged mobile device segment (source: Canalys, 12 months to Q1 2008).  Symbian OS represented approximately 7% of all mobile device sales in 2007, up from 5% in 2006 (source: Strategy Analytics).  To date, more than 200 million Symbian OS based phones have been shipped, over 235 models, from 8 vendors and on more than 250 mobile networks around the world.  More than 4 million developers are engaged in producing applications for Symbian devices.

Nokia expects the acquisition to be completed during the fourth quarter of 2008 and is subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions.  On a reported basis, Nokia expects the transaction to be dilutive in 2009, approximately breakeven in 2010, and accretive in 2011.  On a cash basis, Nokia expects the transaction to be dilutive in 2009 and accretive in 2010 and 2011. After the closing, all Symbian employees will become Nokia employees.

via PR.

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Nokia To Social-Activity Service Provider Acquire Plazes

Nokia and Plazes today announced an agreement for Nokia to acquire substantially all assets of Plazes, a privately-owned start-up company of 13 people with its principal operations in Berlin. Plazes provides a context-aware social-activity service that people can use to plan, record, and share their social activities: why they are at a given location at a given time, whether in the past, present or future.

"This acquisition helps Nokia to accelerate its vision of bringing people and places closer together, in line with our broader services strategy," said Niklas Savander, Head of Nokia Services & Software. "In addition to the key assets, through this acquisition Nokia will bring on a visionary team with an advanced understanding of social-activity services, as well as the technical ability to further develop this area."

By acquiring Plazes, Nokia will be able to extend its context-based service offering with social presence and time-based activity planning features. Plazes adds the elements of "place" and "time" to social networking through features that allow people to alert friends of their activity and location; review their own and others' past activities; share their experiences and make plans with friends, who are then able to respond with comments and suggestions as well as their own location information.

"Nokia shares our vision of the social activity space and of how we can together develop the service that Plazes provides today," said Felix Petersen, co-founder of Plazes. "We feel proud of what the Plazes team has achieved so far with its pioneering work in context-aware services and we feel even more excited about what's to come next."

The agreement is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the third quarter 2008. After closing, Plazes will become part of Nokia's Services & Software unit.

About Plazes

Plazes AG is one of the pioneering web platforms for location sharing and publishing on the web today. Members of Plazes are able to update their location through their laptop or mobile phone, and update their online presence with their current, past and future whereabouts. That way Plazes provides location-based context and real-life value when coordinating with friends, family and business partners. Plazes AG is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland with a development office in Berlin, Germany. For additional information, please visit www.plazes.com.

Via PR

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Microsoft Announces Acquisition of Navic Networks

Microsoft Corp. announced the acquisition of Navic Networks, a leading provider of television advertising solutions. Navic’s technologies include sophisticated campaign management tools that use relevant data to optimize the delivery and placement of targeted interactive television media and through Admira provide a unified ad network for targeting audiences across television advertising inventory. With the addition of Navic solutions, Microsoft’s comprehensive advertising platform will be able to facilitate enhanced digital advertising across online and offline environments.

“Television media represents the largest percentage of advertisers and agencies’ media budget today,” said Brian McAndrews, senior vice president of the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group at Microsoft. “Together, Navic and Microsoft will deliver addressable television advertising solutions to help our partners better manage media spend by increasing advertiser reach and ROI, and maximizing publisher yield on television advertising.”

Together, Microsoft and Navic plan to consult and work with the key constituents in the television advertising industry to better understand how its campaign management and advertising platforms for digital television can help advertisers, content owners and distributors maximize yield and achieve their media objectives.

“Viewers across North America are engaging with relevant advertising and interacting with their TVs in ways never before possible. Joining forces with Microsoft will enable our common vision of addressable television advertising solutions to continue to flourish and better meet the needs of our industry partners,” said Chet Kanojia, CEO of Navic Networks. “While our current business relationships will continue to grow, we look forward to extending our technology into a vast array of new markets and software solutions.”

With this acquisition, Navic Networks becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft and will join Microsoft’s Advertiser and Publisher Solutions (APS) Group, the group responsible for Microsoft’s comprehensive advertising platform that spans all digital media including television and video advertising. The APS Group includes Atlas, a pioneer of Video-On-Demand advertising solutions.

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Verizon Wireless To Acquire Alltel For ~$5.9 Billion

Verizon Wireless has entered into an agreement with Alltel Corporation and Atlantis Holdings LLC, an affiliate of private investment firm TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners, to acquire Alltel Corporation in a cash merger. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone.

Under the terms of the agreement, Verizon Wireless will acquire the equity of Alltel for approximately $5.9 billion. Based on Alltel’s projected net debt at closing of $22.2 billion, the aggregate value of the transaction is $28.1 billion.

The parties are targeting completion of the merger by the end of the year, subject to obtaining regulatory approvals.

Once this transaction closes, customers of both companies will have access to an expanded range of products and services, including a premier lineup of basic and advanced devices and an expanded IN Network calling community. Alltel customers also will benefit from advanced services including over-the-air downloadable music from a three-million-song library, and a network that is nationwide, for a uniform coast-to-coast experience. They also will be able to take advantage of industry-leading consumer policies, including Test Drive and Worry Free Guarantee®.

“This move will create an enhanced platform of network coverage, spectrum and customer care to better serve the growing needs of both Alltel and Verizon Wireless customers for reliable basic and advanced broadband wireless services,” said Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless president and chief executive officer.

Alltel serves more than 13 million customers in markets in 34 states. This includes 57 primarily rural markets that Verizon Wireless does not serve. The transaction puts the Alltel markets and customers on a path to advanced 4th generation services as Verizon Wireless deploys LTE technology throughout its network over the next several years. Alltel’s customers also will reap the benefits of Verizon Wireless’ Open Development initiative, which welcomes third-party devices and services to use the Verizon Wireless network.

Alltel and Verizon Wireless both use a common network technology, which provides advantages of a seamless transition for Alltel customers, ease in integrating the two companies’ networks, and scale efficiencies in operating the larger integrated network.

Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Verizon Wireless on this transaction and is providing bridge financing. Debevoise & Plimpton LLP acted as legal advisor to Verizon Wireless.

Citibank, Goldman Sachs and RBS advised the sellers on the transaction. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz acted as legal advisor to Alltel, and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP and Ropes & Gray LLP acted as legal advisors to the sellers.

Read the complete press release.

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comScore Acquires M:Metrics For $44.3 Million in Cash

comScore, Inc. a leader in measuring the digital world, today announced the acquisition of M:Metrics, Inc., the recognized leader in mobile measurement. The acquisition makes comScore the immediate leader in measuring the emerging and strategically important mobile Internet market and adds to comScore’s leading position in measuring PC-based Internet usage.

The transaction involves a cash payment of $44.3 million and the issuance of approximately 50,000 options to purchase shares of comScore common stock to certain M:Metrics unvested option holders.

M:Metrics offers three primary measurement products:

· MobiLens^TM, a syndicated monthly online survey that captures overall mobile phone usage, including device information, data usage, media consumption and demographic characteristics of a representative sample of more than 40,000 mobile device users.  MobiLens is available in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Spain, and Italy.

· MeterDirect^TM, the industry’s first on-device meter that passively measures the mobile Internet behavior and media consumption of more than 4,000 existing Smartphone panelists. The M:Metrics metering technology is compatible with more than 280 device models. MeterDirect is currently available in the U.S. and U.K.

· M:Ad^TM, the first competitive tracking service for mobile advertising that continuously monitors clickable display advertising from a broad representative set of mobile Web destinations to reveal leading advertisers across a variety of market segments.  M:Ad is currently available in the U.S. and U.K.

Going forward, comScore will increase the size of the metered panel and will offer measurement of combined Internet usage across both PC and mobile-based online access platforms. The combination of the two companies is expected to result in substantial operating synergies, cost savings and enhanced revenue growth by building a larger customer base, combining two highly productive sales forces, and leveraging comScore’s global panel and scalable technology infrastructure.  

“With the substantial growth of 3G devices and Internet friendly handsets, we believe we are now at an inflection point in Internet usage on mobile devices,” said Dr. Magid Abraham, comScore’s president and chief executive officer.  “Our acquisition of M:Metrics makes comScore an immediate market leader in this space and positions comScore to deliver significant shareholder value as wireless carriers, telecom equipment providers, media companies, advertising agencies, online publishers, and marketers extend their reach into the mobile Internet world.”

“M:Metrics brings compelling products and an established, customer base of over 180 clients. Adding comScore’s capabilities and scale to this mix will significantly enhance the company’s future growth and performance,” continued Dr. Abraham. “We see compelling opportunities to increase the market penetration of M:Metrics’ products within comScore’s customer base of over 950 clients and to cross-sell comScore’s portfolio of products into the wireless industry, including the major carriers and device manufacturers.  In addition, we plan to leverage comScore’s panel, technology infrastructure and sales force to expand the metered mobile panel and develop new offerings that can significantly increase the growth and profitability of M:Metrics’ business.”

In connection with the acquisition, the co-founders of M:Metrics, Will Hodgman, president and chief executive officer, and Seamus McAteer, chief product architect, will join comScore’s  management team.

“comScore is the ideal partner for M:Metrics and clearly the right company to leverage and build upon M:Metrics’ leadership in mobile measurement.  The combined company will provide our customers with a compelling portfolio of cross media online measurement and analytics.” said Will Hodgman, president and CEO of M:Metrics. “We are excited about joining comScore and leveraging its vast capabilities, blue chip customer base, and innovative technologies. By combining forces, I am confident we will be the pre-eminent Internet and mobile marketing intelligence provider in the world.”

The acquisition agreement was signed, and the acquisition was closed, today, May 28, 2008, having been approved by the comScore Board of Directors and M:Metrics stockholders. The transaction will be accounted for under purchase accounting rules.

comScore is expecting the M:Metrics business to be profitable on an Adjusted EBITDA basis by the end of the fourth quarter of 2008, and to be a significant positive contributor to Adjusted EBITDA in 2009. M:Metrics’ revenues are currently forecast to be approximately $11 million to $12 million for the full year 2008, and will contribute $6.5 to $7 million to comScore’s reported revenues for 2008 post-closing.  The acquisition also enables comScore to lower its future tax payments by realizing a cash benefit of up to $7 million through the utilization of up to $20 million in M:Metrics net operating loss carry forward (NOLs).

Pro forma financials resulting from the M:Metrics acquisition will be reported in an amended 8-K that comScore expects to file in late July, when comScore also plans to announce its earnings for the second quarter of 2008.

M:Metrics, Inc. was represented by The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc., a New York City based investment bank that specializes in the media and information industries.

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Officially Announced The Acquisition of Ars Technica by Condé Nast

Ars Technica & Condé Nast has officially announced the acquisition of Ars Technica by Condé Nast. Below is a press release published yesterday.

"Ars Technica, one of the leading technology sites on the Web with 4.4 million unique monthly visitors and 30+ million monthly page views, will become part of WIRED Digital, operating as an independent unit of the fast-growing division, it was announced today.

The announcement was made by Sarah Chubb, president of CondéNet, the digital division of Condé Nast, which has managed the growth of the WIRED Digital sites, and David Carey, group president, Condé Nast, who oversees the sales and marketing efforts for WIRED Digital.

“We welcome Ars Technica to WIRED Digital and Condé Nast, as we believe this fantastic site allows us to accelerate our expansion by tapping into a vital and sophisticated community," Chubb said. "WIRED Digital can now provide a network of highly trafficked technology sites that attract an engaged, tech-savvy reader."

In addition, Webmonkey, the popular web developer tutorial site, will be re-launched under WIRED Digital. Plans are also underway to revive HotWired.com, recognized as a pioneer in the industry as one of the first commercial web brands.

The combined sites of WIRED Digital now reach close to 19 million unique visitors per month.

"The rapid growth of the WIRED Digital family—with the momentum of Wired.com and Reddit, the addition of Ars Technica, and the return of Webmonkey and HotWired—will allow us to have a larger voice and presence in the technology publishing ar