In many ways today was a strange day in the world of technology. We had several product announcements from the likes of Palm, Microsoft (which I haven’t talked about yet but I’m sure all of you already know by now), and Apple. We also had some major announcements regarding various web 2.0 properties. Now Krunker might be about the latest in technology from the viewpoint of consumer electronics, computers, and gadgets, we do like to dabble in the world of the Internet every now and then.. so with that as the backdrop, it’s important to recognize several news items today.
First off, eBay confirmed today that they had purchased the social bookmarking and website discovery site – StumbleUpon – for $75 million dollars. Yes.. eBay?? buying a social bookmarking site? Well as it turns out, eBay’s particularly interested in the community based aspects of StumbleUpon. Aside from social networking websites, where else do you find so many people congregated in a single location? Imagine eBay products being integrated into the mix? Check out this link over at News.com for additional information.
Social anything is the buzz word these days on the net, so it’s no surprise that Last.fm was picked up.. but what is a surprise is by who. CBS of all people decided to purchase Last.fm for $280 million dollars. Not familiar with Last.fm? Well they’re basically a social networking website dedicated to music. Last.fm looks at your playlist and then tries to provide recommendations from other members with similar tastes as yours. It’s not quite clear though what CBS has in mind for the site. They say that Last.fm will still run independently of CBS but perhaps the real reason for the purchase is to access the technology behind the site. We’ll have to wait and see.
Finally, Fox Interactive Media formally announced that they had indeed agreed to acquire Photobucket and Flextor for an undisclosed amount of money. Photobucket is the 34th most visited site on the Internet and is basically one of the most image sharing websites out there that you probably never heard of. Meanwhile Flektor is a slideshow mashup company which lets people edit audio, video, and photos to create their own embeddable slide shows on the Internet.
While it’s certainly not the IPO boon of the late 90’s and early 2000, it’s certainly good times for many web 2.0 companies out there looking to make a quick buck or two via company sales.
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