Disney acquires kids social online community site Togetherville

February 24, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

TechCrunch is reporting that Disney has acquired Togetherville, a social online community for families where parents create safe online neighborhoods for their kids (under 10) to play and connect with the real-life friends and family they already know and trust.

Togetherville mimics adult social networks in a kid-appropriate way. Each neighborhood is built around each specific child and remains closed to outsiders. Kids have their own profile pages, complete with their photos.

TechCrunch were were tipped off on the acquisition by one of their readers. Togetherville’s terms of service states: “Welcome to the Internet sites of the Walt Disney Internet Group (“WDIG”). “WDIG Sites” include Disney.com, ABCNEWS.com, ABC.com, ESPN.com, DisneyShopping.com, Go.com, Movies.com, FamilyFun.com, and other Internet sites on which these terms of use are posted.” TechCrunch also report another clue, CEO and founder Mandeep Dhillon’s LinkedIn profile,  states he is “Vice President, Togetherville at The Walt Disney Company.”

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USA, Burbank, CA & Menlo Park, CA

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Future Publishing emerges as a contender for BBC Worldwide’s magazine division

February 24, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

PaidContent is reporting that Future Publishing has emerged as a contender for BBC Worldwide’s magazine division.

BBC Worldwide expects to receive formal, non-binding offers from two bidders this week. It is not known who the final two companies are, though German publisher Bauer is thought likely to be one of them. German publisher, Hubert Burda has also been linked with the deal.

BBC Magazines publishes over 50 consumer titles including Top Gear, Radio Times, BBC Good Food and Gardeners’ World. They are the UK’s fourth largest publisher in terms of circulation; but it is the third largest in terms of retail sales value.

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UK, London

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Collective acquires video ad platform Oggifinogi

February 24, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Collective, a full service provider of media and technology solutions for display and video advertising, has acquired video advertising platform and services provider, Oggifinogi. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“The dramatic growth in video viewership over the past three years led to television quality video being more widely distributed online,” said Joe Apprendi, CEO, Collective. “The full potential of online video advertising has yet to be unleashed. This acquisition enables us to bring the right mix of art and science to brand advertisers, especially as they rethink their television advertising budget and look to online to complement their broadcast and cable ad spend.”

Oggifinogi provides highly interactive video advertising in both the banner and interactive pre roll space and is recognised for the significant interactive rates that its product drives. Collective’s acquisition of Oggifinogi combines audience targeting with engaging ad units, making it possible for AMP clients to more readily tap the benefits of rich media and video ad formats into their existing AMP capabilities.

Oggifinogi’s platform is already seamlessly integrated into Collective’s AMP platform and media network, with more than 300 campaigns executed since 2009.

Based in Bellevue, Washington, Oggifinogi’s client roster includes more than 100 companies, including Bing, Best Buy, Sony, NBC, Paramount and others. Oggifinogi reaches more than 150 million unique users across more than 2,500 publisher sites, and will continue to operate as a subsidiary of Collective, servicing its existing agencies, advertisers and publishers.

“We are thrilled to become a part of Collective, integrating our creative and technical know-how with Collective’s access to publisher, agency and marketer channels,” said Michael Hyman, CEO, Oggifinogi. “Together, we can offer a turn-key video advertising solution for brand advertisers.”

USA, New York, NY & Bellevue, WA

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Mediabistro.com (a division of WebMediaBrands) acquires Twittercism.com

February 24, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Mediabistro.com (a division of WebMediaBrands) has acquired the assets of the Twittercism.com blog from Shea Bennett. Mr. Bennett will continue working with and writing for Mediabistro. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“Shea Bennett has been covering Twitter for over two years on Twittercism and we will now combine his well-known analysis and commentary with our blog AllTwitter to create what we believe to be the most complete coverage of the evolution of Twitter and its rapidly expanding social media business model,” stated Alan M. Meckler, Chairman and CEO of WebMediaBrands. “We are excited to continue building on our leadership in covering the huge growth of social media through our various social media blogs including AllFacebook, SocialTimes, and AllTwitter, as well as our SocialTimesPro research service and social media events.”

USA, New York, NY

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QED Connect to acquire StockProfile.com

February 24, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Investment firm QED Connect is to acquire StockProfile.com. In addition, QED Connect intends to acquire StockProfileTV.com and SPnewsWire.com as part of the acquisition.

StockProfile.com provides the investing public with a unique information portal for investors who like to conduct their own research as well as make their own investment decisions. The StockProfile.com platform allows users to discover dynamic publicly traded companies in a free, user-friendly environment.

SPnewsWire.com (powered by StockProfile.com) is a web portal displaying public news and information issued by, or related to, the companies that have displayed on the StockProfile.com platform.

StockProfileTV.com (powered by StockProfile.com) is a new website displaying certain videos related to publicly traded companies displayed on the StockProfile.com platform.

“This Letter of Intent to acquire StockProfile.com and its related web properties provides valuable assets to the Company and helps our overall strategy of making QED more diversified and dynamic,” commented Tom Makmann, CEO of QED Connect. “The cross marketing potential with the public companies on the StockProfile.com platform provides an additional area which QED plans to exploit for its long term benefit. We are excited about the opportunity to acquire a strong media platform such as StockProfile.com.”

The companies expect to finalise a definitive agreement by April 4, 2011. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

USA, New York,NY & Manchester, NH

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PERFORM acquires Goal.com

February 23, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

PERFORM has acquired Goal.com, the world’s largest football portal, from a consortium of investors including Bessemer Venture Partners.

The deal is a major development for PERFORM, rapidly increasing its scale and reach in the global digital sports market to over 95 million users a month.

Over the last three years, Goal.com has used its strong brand and broad news coverage in fifteen languages to build up a leading position in the online football portal market. In January 2011, Goal.com was visited by 19.4 million unique users (Comscore).

PERFORM will integrate its live sports data (GSM), video news (OMNISPORT), video highlights (ePlayer) and live streaming (LIVESPORT.TV) from its catalogue of over 40 different football leagues and competitions.

Goal’s CEO, Ron Elwell, commented. “Over the last 5 years, Goal.com has grown from nothing to the largest football site in the world, reaching tens of millions of passionate fans thanks to the vision of our founder, Gian Luigi Longinotti-Buitoni. The acquisition by PERFORM provides a great platform for the continued growth of the site with the addition of world class video content and I’m sure it will continue to be a fantastic business.” Michael Simpson, one of Goal.com’s original founders assumes the role of Senior Vice President for Product and Content, Jonathan Gamble becomes Senior Vice President for Commercial and Sales and Scott Rothrock will continue as Chief Technology Officer of Goal.com. All three members will report to Simon Denyer, joint-CEO, PERFORM.

UK, Middlesex & USA, Waltham, MA

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Eurogamer is expanding to North America and has acquired games content publisher Hammersuit.

February 23, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Eurogamer, the Brighton UK based company founded by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman, has acquired games content publisher Hammersuit. Founded in 2004 and based in New York, Hammersuit is the publisher of the US games industry website IndustryGamers.com, as well as mobile gaming website Modojo.com. The company also provides content to businesses such as The Ayzenberg Group and Prima Games.

Eurogamer Network has created a division called IndustryGamers Inc, which will be responsible for publishing IndustryGamers.com as well as the newly formed IndustryGamers Content Services business. This division will also become responsible for representing existing Eurogamer Network properties such as Eurogamer.net, GamesIndustry.biz, VG247.com, RockPaperShotgun.com and Megaton in the US.
Rupert Loman, managing director of Eurogamer Network, commented on the acquisition: “We have been looking for the right opportunity to expand our business across the Atlantic and we are delighted to complete the acquisition of Hammersuit. They are a great fit for us and the potential as we expand our business to North America is huge.” He added, “We already have a significant US readership that values our distinctive editorial voice so adding a local team will greatly strengthen our offering for readers and advertisers in both Europe and North America.”

John Benyamine, co-founder of Hammersuit added: “The whole team at Hammersuit is looking forward to being part of the Eurogamer Network. Their reputation precedes them in the US, and we have no doubt this marriage will lead to even more success in the near future.”
Founder John Benyamine and the entire Hammersuit team will stay with the business following the acquisition.

UK, Brighton & USA, San Francisco, CA

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Access Intelligence acquires Red7 Media

February 23, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Access Intelligence, a portfolio company of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, has acquired Red7 Media, establishing a division serving professionals in the media and event management industries. Red7 Media is a producer of content and community for the event industry via Event Marketer, EXPO, Best Events and Event Design magazines; as well as the Event Marketing Institute, several industry conferences, and numerous websites. It also publishes FOLIO and Audience Development magazines, hosts the Folio Show and recently launched a research and consulting practice to provide business intelligence to its customers.

Access Intelligence’s new Media and Event Marketing Group will be led by Kerry Smith. Kerry founded Red7 Media in 2002 and grew the Norwalk, CT-based company into a market leader attracting more than 7,000 executives and 500 sponsors to its events and more than 800,000 unique visitors to its web sites. Kerry will continue in his role as President of the expanded Red7 Media Group and become a Senior Vice President of Access Intelligence.
USA, Rockville, MD & Norwalk, CT

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Evolve Media Corp. acquires PlayStationLifeStyle

February 23, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Evolve Media Corp., has acquired PlayStationLifeStyle, the largest PlayStation enthusiast site in the US. PlayStationLifeStyle will become a part of GameRevolution. GameRevolution.com is part of AtomicOnline, Evolve Media Corp.’s publishing division.

PlayStationLifeStyle is one of the leading PlayStation-specific news and review sites with over 169,000 Unique Visitors a month (comScore, December 2010). The website publishes up-to-the-minute industry news, in-depth game reviews, and a comprehensive trophy guide that outlines various videogame achievements users can obtain. PlayStationLifeStyle is also heavily focused on the gaming community and provides a forum for users to discuss games, tips, rumors and developments.

“PlayStationLifeStyle not only provides great coverage of PlayStation-focused news, but also has a very enthusiastic community of gamers,” said Paul Hanges, Managing Director of GameRevolution. “We recognized PlayStationLifeStyle’s potential and wanted to bring it to a larger platform by coupling it with GameRevolution’s extensive reach, therefore creating the ultimate gaming destination.”

GameRevolution will migrate PSLS to Evolve’s publishing platform, manage all editorial content and will merge the PlayStationLifeStyle’s editorial team with its own writing staff, enabling it to improve site features and functionality as well as further provide in-depth coverage of PlayStation news. Also, PlayStationLifeStyle’s founder, Anthony Severino, will now stand as GameRevolution’s Managing Editor.

“I am confident that GameRevolution will take PlayStationLifeStyle to new heights previously thought to be unreachable. Not only is this exciting for myself and the PlayStationLifeStyle staff, but also for the site’s growing audience,” said Anthony Severino, Managing Editor of GameRevolution. “We are excited to be able to leverage the enormous resources of Evolve to improve the site, adding mobile, social and original video functionality and programming to the site.”

USA, Los Angeles, CA

 

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Energy efficiency company Octus is acquiring Élan Energy Corp. and Sunarias Corporation

February 23, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Energy efficiency company Octus is acquiring Élan Energy Corp. and Sunarias Corporation from Alternative Energy Partners (AEGY). The acquisition is exchange for common shares of Octus. AEGY previously acquired Élan Energy Corp. and its operating subsidiary, R.L.P. Mechanical Contractors, Inc., in a transaction with a stated value of $5 million, and acquired Sunarias in a transaction with a stated value of $2 million.

Octus is a building energy efficiency company that provides services to reduce the utility costs of commercial and institutional buildings through energy-efficient lighting, HVAC and water management systems and products. Clients include ARCO, Bank of America, Blockbuster, Chevron, Delta Airlines, Frito Lay, Hewlett-Packard, Home Depot, Ikea, Nabisco, Pepsi, Petco, Safeway, Sears, Siemens, and University of California.

In addition, Octus has agreed with Lin Han Equity Corporation to transfer majority ownership of Octus to Lin Han, in exchange for common stock in privately-held Healthcare of Today, Inc., and working capital to fund Octus’s growth strategy.

“The addition of Élan Energy, a proven, profitable and vibrant HVAC and refrigeration efficiency contractor, immediately boosts Octus’s financial strength, customer offerings and market reach,” said Octus CEO Chris Soderquist. “Market demand for combined energy and water-saving solutions, coupled with utility company rebates and project financing, has increased steadily in the last few months and these transactions will enable Octus to aggressively pursue existing and new business opportunities.”

As part of the transaction, the existing business operations of Octus will be transferred to a new, wholly-owned subsidiary operating company, and Octus will become a public holding company for its operating subsidiaries, providing administrative and related services to the entire corporate group.

Both transactions are expected to close by March 15, 2011.

USA, Davis, CA

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