Business and Marketing News
It doesn’t make much sense on the surface and is something of a head scratcher. But Adobe has agreed to acquire Omniture for $1.8 billion. The acquisition is described as an effort to jumpstart Adobe’s website development and service efforts by linking it with Omniture’s analytics. Adobe’s Creative Suite includes Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash. From a local media perspective, … Read more
MojoPages, a 12 person local search/directory player based in the San Diego beach town of Solana Beach , has landed $5 Million in Series A funding from Austin Ventures. Mojo has settled on $5 million as the amount it needs to get to breakeven on a cash flow basis, says CEO Jon Carder, who founded the … Read more
Zillow is buying Trulia, its chief rival, for $3.5 Billion in stock. The two companies – both nine years old — have a lot of overlap currently. But after the deal closes in 2015, they will seek to develop two differentiated marketplaces for real estate-related information, which includes house sales, rentals, mortgage and related national and local … Read more
MasterCard has dived feet first into the card linked loyalty battles with the acquisition of Truaxis. The company should prove to be an anchor for MasterCard Offers Services, where it has partnered with Local Offer Network and others. Formerly known as BillShrink, a lowest rate guide which developed a customer base of 1.6 million, Truaxis has most recently been … Read more
The card-linked loyalty and rewards space is seen by a lot of the smart money as the next Groupon. Today, we saw new money being poured into FiveStars ($13.9 Million), LevelUp ($9 Million) and LocalBonus ($900,000). The companies have now raised $16 million, $21 Million and $1.4 Million respectively — about half the $78 Million that we estimate has been invested … Read more
Amazon.com, which is moving in multiple directions vis a vis local, has agreed to buy TeachStreet, the service for matching teachers and students. Amazon’s interest appears to be less in TeachStreet than in the underlying ecommerce platform for SMBs. The platform already is being used by The Washington Post for its Service Alley SMB leads service. TeachStreet had raised just over … Read more
Source: Washington Post. Case, Leonsis and partner Donn Davis Universities stimulate major business zones in various cities. So do airports. Hence the Dulles tech corridor in DC. So do the success of major companies. People leave with their stock options and develop their own companies. Witness Wang in Boston; Microsoft in Seattle; AOL in DC; … Read more
TargusInfo, a major direct marketing tools provider and the parent company of Localeze, a “Big 3” provider of business listings, will be acquired by NeuStar for $650 Million in cash. The deal enhances NeuStar’s positioning as a leader in authentication services across the Internet and voice networks, whether fixed-line, cable, or mobile. Authentication is expected to dramatically grow … Read more
Marketplaces 2010 takes place just 7 weeks from now in San Diego (March 22-24). We are putting the finishing touches on the program, and have added MANY exciting new speakers in just the past few weeks. The event is totally dedicated to the higher value/conversion/engagement ethos of vertical media. For sure, this isn’t one size fits … Read more
MerchantCircle is claiming a registered base of 250,000 small businesses. That’s a lot – a penetration of 4.8% of the 12 million U.S. businesses that advertise. It has also announced $10 million of new funding, adding the likes of IAC and Square 1 Bank to prior investors, who include Rustic Canyon Partners, Scale Venture Partners, and Steamboat … Read more