Internet Brands acquires legal publisher Nolo

May 10, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Internet Brands has acquired Nolo. The deal includes Nolo’s online legal information portal, lawyer directory and content library. Nolo’s operations will be combined with Internet Brands’ existing legal division, ExpertHub.

According to Jake Warner, “Internet Brands is the ideal acquirer for Nolo with its dedication to high quality products and information. I am confident that Nolo and its mission to provide law for all will thrive under the highly capable leadership of Bob Brisco and his team at Internet Brands.”

From the Nolo Blog: 

We are pleased to announce that we have been acquired by Internet Brands, a new media company based in El Segundo, California.

“Nolo has always advocated for a more accessible and affordable legal system while giving consumers the plain-English information they needed to tackle everyday legal tasks,” said Jake Warner, our executive chairman and co-founder. “We’re confident that Internet Brands’ proven expertise in e-commerce, consumer-focused products, and online SMB marketing services will maximize Nolo’s online presence.”

Bob Brisco, CEO of Internet Brands welcomes our company formally on his blog and was quoted in Internet Brands’ press release this morning, “Consumer demand for quality, easy-to-understand legal information continues to grow very rapidly online. Nolo is the gold standard for original legal content, and has expertly navigated the shift to the Internet and digital formats.”

Though this marks a change, Nolo will remain in Berkeley publishing books and software that put the law into plain English, just as it has for the last 40 years.

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USA, Los Angeles, CA & Berkeley, CA

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CrowdGather acquires Pocketables.net

April 29, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Forum communities business CrowdGather has acquired Pocketables.net.

Pocketables.net has been providing news, reviews, and commentary about ultramobile computers, mobile internet devices, and other handheld gadgets since 2006. Over the years, it has won numerous awards and grown into a network comprising GoodAndEVO.net and StreakSmart.com, websites dedicated to the HTC EVO and Dell Streak brands

“We are delighted to add Pocketables.net and Jenn Lee to the CrowdGather family,” said Sanjay Sabnani, CrowdGather’s Chairman and CEO. “Mobile devices are a fast growing segment of the market and this transaction significantly expands our presence in this arena. Forums are ideally suited to discussions about the use and application of these technologies and we believe Pocketables.net has benefited by becoming a trusted authority to thousands of consumers and enthusiasts.

Sabnani continued, “Jenn’s approach of using a central, Pocketables forum fed by traffic from satellite content sites such as GoodAndEVO.net and StreakSmart.com is a strategy that we seek to further expand on our own network and we look forward to having Jenn enrich the editorial network across our network of branded communities.”

USA, Woodland Hills, CA

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Shutterfly completes acquisition of Tiny Prints for $146.5M

April 29, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Shutterfly has completed the acquisition of Tiny Prints, a privately-held ecommerce company offering cards, invitations, personalised stationery and photo books. Shutterfly believes the acquisition will accelerate growth in its cards and stationery offering and provide the opportunity for significant financial synergies through vertical integration.

Under the terms of the agreement, Shutterfly acquired all of the outstanding stock of Tiny Prints in exchange for approximately $146.5 million in cash and approximately 4.0 million shares of Shutterfly common stock. In addition, Shutterfly has reserved approximately 1.4 million shares of common stock as consideration for the vested and unvested Tiny Prints employee equity awards assumed by Shutterfly.

Tiny Prints stockholders own approximately 12% of the pro forma combined company. Tiny Prints outside investors will be subject to a six-month lock-up on the sale of Shutterfly shares received in the transaction and the Tiny Prints founders will be subject to a staggered 18-month lock-up. In addition, approximately 9% of the acquisition consideration will be held in escrow for 12 months.

Shutterfly plans to provide Q2 2011 and FY 2011 financial guidance as part of its Q1 2011 earnings release and conference call on April 27, 2011.

USA, Redwood City, CA

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PopCap Games acquires ZipZapPlay

April 29, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Casual games business PopCap Games is to acquire ZipZapPlay, a social games company based in San Francisco, California. With the acquisition, PopCap increases its Facebook games lineup and establishes a social studio in Silicon Valley. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

ZipZapPlay is a venture-backed social games startup with seventeen employees including founders Curt Bererton (CEO) and Mathilde Pignol (CCO), who will continue to direct game design and development at the San Francisco studio. ZipZapPlay’s previous titles include Baking Life and other social games.

“The team at ZipZapPlay is one of the best in the social games space, and combined with our existing group in Seattle gives us the opportunity to dramatically expand our development resources,” said John Vechey, PopCap co-founder and VP of Corporate Strategy and Development, who oversaw the acquisition. “While the acquisition creates immediate cross-promotional and operations benefits, this is a strategic move with huge long-term potential; we believe ZipZapPlay can help us further evolve and expand the definition of social games.”

Ireland, Dublin & USA, San Francisco, CA

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YouTube founders acquire Delicious From Yahoo!

April 29, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Delicious.com, the social bookmarking service, has been acquired from Yahoo! by the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. YouTube was acquired by Google in 2007 for $1.76B. Delicious will become part of AVOS, a new Internet company.

“We’re excited to work with this fantastic community and take Delicious to the next level,” said Chad Hurley, CEO of AVOS. “We see a tremendous opportunity to simplify the way users save and share content they discover anywhere on the web.”

The YouTube founders plan to work closely with the community over the next few months to develop innovative features to help solve the problem of information overload. “We see this problem not just in the world of video, but also cutting across every information-intensive media type,” said Chen.

Going back to their roots, Hurley and Chen located Delicious in downtown San Mateo, California, blocks away from where they started YouTube. They’re aggressively hiring to build a world-class team to take on the challenge of building the best information discovery service on the web.

USA, San Francisco, CA & USA, San Mateo, CA

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TechTarget completes acquisition of Computer Weekly from Reed Business Information

April 29, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Technology media company TechTarget has completed the acquisition of the websites, product offerings, and events associated with Computer Weekly and its sister channel-targeted brand MicroScope from Reed Business Information. The acquisition was first reported on DigiNet last month.

USA, Newton, MA & UK, Sutton, Surrey

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SurveyMonkey acquires Wufoo

April 29, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

SurveyMonkey has acquired Infinity Box, the makers of Wufoo, a web application to create online forms. As part of the transaction, the entire Wufoo team will relocate to Palo Alto to join the combined company. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Wufoo was created in 2006 to provide an easy and efficient process for creating online forms, one of the most essential and commonly used interfaces for collecting data on the web. The application’s HTML form builder automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to collect and understand data so users can create surveys, contact forms, registrations and other forms without writing code. In addition, customers frequently use Wufoo’s forms to process online transactions. With Wufoo, a process that previously required hours of work by web developers can now be done by anyone with web access in a matter of minutes.

“Wufoo is the market leader in online form creation and a perfect fit for SurveyMonkey,” said Dave Goldberg, SurveyMonkey CEO. “From the product and business model, to the team and culture, we are absolutely delighted to welcome the company into the SurveyMonkey family and look forward to increasing the reach and scale of an already outstanding product through our platform.”

The acquisition will allow SurveyMonkey to offer online forms, in addition to surveys, to collect users’ insights and data. Over the past two years SurveyMonkey has continued to enhance services by actively evaluating opportunities to partner and invest in complementary businesses. In January, SurveyMonkey announced it had formed a strategic partnership with ClickTools, a leading survey provider on salesforce.com’s AppExchange. In 2010, SurveyMonkey successfully completed a $100 million debt financing and also acquired telephone-based survey company Precision Polling.

USA, Palo Alto, CA

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Wolters Kluwer Health to acquire drug information provider Lexi-Comp

April 29, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Wolters Kluwer Health is to acquire Lexi-Comp., a leading global provider of drug information and clinical content for pharmacists and clinicians. The acquisition is the latest in a series of strategic acquisitions Wolters Kluwer Health has made in its Clinical Solutions business as part of the company’s strong focus on serving the point-of-care segment. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“Wolters Kluwer Health has focused heavily on building a robust suite of clinical decision support solutions for point-of-care use by healthcare professionals, and our acquisition of Lexi-Comp is very much aligned with this strategy,” said Arvind Subramanian, President & CEO, Wolters Kluwer Health Clinical Solutions.

“Like Wolters Kluwer Health’s Clinical Solutions businesses, Lexi-Comp is a leader in providing quality drug information and clinical content designed to help pharmacists and other healthcare professionals make informed and efficient clinical judgments and decisions to improve the quality of care they can provide for their patients. With this acquisition, over 500,000 pharmacists and clinicians in 149 countries will have access to Wolters Kluwer Health Clinical Solutions offerings. Following completion of the acquisition, our combined businesses will be well-positioned to provide a robust portfolio of clinical decision support solutions for professional customers across the healthcare continuum.”

Lexi-Comp provides drug information and medical reference content to more than 1,500 hospitals internationally, and publishes drug monographs covering more than 1,700 products.   Lexi-Comp’s clinical information is available to pharmacists and other healthcare professionals online and on a variety of popular mobile devices, as well as through integrated health information systems. To support and supplement effective clinician-patient interactions, Lexi-Comp also provides patient medication leaflets in 19 languages. The company is headquartered near Cleveland, Ohio and has approximately 150 employees.

The two companies have a long-standing relationship through Wolters Kluwer Health’s UpToDate business.

USA, Philadelphia, PA

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Travel Channel invests in Oyster.com

April 29, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Travel Channel has acquired a stake in hotel booking website Oyster.com. The size of stake has not been disclosed.

“This is a transformational event for the Travel Channel,” said Laureen Ong, Travel Channel president. “Entering into a strategic relationship with Oyster.com greatly broadens our position as a trusted source for information and allows us to go beyond the inspiration and entertainment we offer on television. Simultaneously, this partnership provides an incredibly meaningful way to connect with and improve the experience of travelers and adventure seekers everywhere.”

Founded in 2008, Oyster.com combines exclusive content and commerce all in one online location. The website publishes objective, in-depth hotel reviews written by trained journalists who document their visits through photographs, and provide expert editorial opinions. Based on a strict set of criteria and ratings, Oyster’s curated content is designed to give users a way to plan, research, and book their hotels.

Under terms of the agreement, Travel Channel and TravelChannel.com will have access to exclusive Oyster.com content. Each brand will also collaborate on future programming and cross-platform promotional opportunities.

USA, Chevy Chase, MD

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MyLife.com acquires CitizenLocal.com

April 29, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

MyLife.com, a people search service for both personal and business connections, has acquired CitizenLocal.com, a community-driven platform for local deals.

“MyLife.com’s unique proposition is to enable people to find and keep valuable connections they need in their lives, all in one place,” said Jeff Tinsley CEO of MyLife. “With the addition of Local Services & Deals, we aim to connect members searching for plumbers, real estate agents, contractors, lawyers, etc. with the appropriate provider in that field and in their locality, plus see their available deals.”

USA, Los Angeles, CA

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