Category: Outlets – Mashable

Compete Acquired By TNS For $75 Million

Posted on March 3, 2008

Compete_logo
MASHABLE — Mar 3 — Taylor Nelson Sofres plc (TNS) acquired web
analytics company Compete, Inc. for $75 million in cash plus deferred
cash payments in 2008-2010 of up to another $75 million. The
acquisition comes at a time when Compete announced revenue of $14.9
million for 2007 and a loss of $4.5 million for the same year, due to
investing in "building its panel and industry expertise." Along with
Alexa and Quantcast, Compete has been the only relevant, free, publicly
available metric of website traffic. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

Mark Brooks: I use Compete all the time and I hear the information is pretty good.

This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.

Paltalk Adds Vumber’s Disposable Phone Numbers To Video Chat

Posted on February 20, 2008

Paltalklogo MASHABLE — Feb 19 — There are a number of VoIP services, like Jangl and Jajah, that let you chat online, or even via landlines without having to reveal the phone number. Paltalk has integrated Vumber's disposable number service. The biggest benefit of Vumber is that its users can have an easier time taking their Paltalk video chat sessions offline. Paltalk customers get a 30-day free trial of Vumber's service, after which the $4.99 per month rate will kick in. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

Cupid.com And RegionalHelpWanted Acquired For $100 Million

Posted on February 12, 2008

Cupid_logo MASHABLE — Feb 11 — RegionalHelpWanted.com was purchased by onTargetjobs, a portfolio company of Warburg pincus. The financial terms weren't explicitly disclosed, but according to PE Hub, Classified Intelligence "pegs the figure at $100 million". RegionalHelpWanted is also the company behind the telephone and online dating service Cupid.com, another recognizable brand name. The RegionalHelpWanted portfolio will join the onTarget portfolio that includes other sites like BioSpace.com, Hcareers.com, HEALTHeCAREERS.com, MedHunters.com, JobLoft.com and CareerBank.com. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

Mark Brooks: Cupid and RHW are promoted on remnant radio advertising usually at second tier radio stations around the country. What's unusual is that the payouts are on a CPA basis to radio stations.  onTargetjobs has picked up a unique marketing channel.

PickupPal Is eHarmony For Hitch-Hikers

Posted on February 8, 2008

Pickuppallogo MASHABLE — Feb 6 — PickupPal helps its users find a ride. Users can put in a request for getting a ride to where they need to go including the price they are willing to pay. PickupPal gets a 7% commission on the deal. Of course safety is an issue, which is why PickupPal lets users rate each other, and stats are kept on users, indicating the number of rides they've given and taken, as well as the number of packages they've delivered. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

Hookups Get More Random, With Jangl On PlentyofFish

Posted on January 31, 2008

Janglplentyoffish_loga_2 MASHABLE — Jan 31 — The very successful , "no-gimmicks" dating site run by one man in his apartment is not known for its great user interface design, or even for its feature set. So it's a noteworthy thing when we find out that PlentyofFish is the latest to integrate Jangl VoIP services in order to offer click-to-call options for its dating users. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

People Search For Dating Sites. Copenda Hooks It Up

Posted on December 3, 2007

Copendalogo MASHABLE — Dec 3 — Copenda is a new search tool that scours the web's dating sites to find a perfect match. A good portion of found profiles come from Match.com, Friendster and hi5 (Facebook is on the way). For each result users will see whatever text that individual has included in their original social networking profile, their interests, status (single, married, divorced, etc), and a link to their external profile. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

MySpace Founder Sues Over Censorship

Posted on November 6, 2006

CensorspaceMASHABLE BLOG — Nov 2 — Brad Greenspan, the guy who started the company that created MySpace before it was sold to News Corp in July 2005 is suing News Corp over alleged censorship and launched CensorSpace, a blog that aims to shed light on MySpace's tendency to block certain services. Brad is opposed to MySpace blocking certain widgets. In the past they've blocked (and later reinstated) players from YouTube and Revver. Now they've blocked players from Brad's video-sharing site, Vidilife. He's also standing up for Photobucket, Imageshack, and Slide.com, all of which he thinks could be at risk of being blocked in future. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE BLOG

Mark Brooks: Can you imagine the board room wrangling? Should MySpace block competitive services, or not?  Your comments please… 

Blatant Facebook Rip-Off Gets Acquired

Posted on October 25, 2006

Facebookclone_1MASHABLE BLOG — Oct 24 — Beijing-based social network for college students, Xiaonei.com (~1million users), was acquired by Oak Pacific Interactive (OPI), a Chinese Internet consortium. The plan is to merge Xiaonei with 5Q, OPI's own college social network. The two sites now serve 90% of the active online student population. Xiaonei is a one-year old startup founded by Tsinghua university graduate Wang Xing. Even the strategy was a clone of Facebook – Xiaonei focused on the top schools first, realizing that widespread adoption would follow. They received angel funding from investors that included an ex-CTO of Amazon.com. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE BLOG