News Corp Buys Intermix Media / Myspace.com for $580 Mill
Bloomberg and Marketwatch report that News Corp. has agreed to acquire Intermix Media for a juicy $580 million in cash. This traditional media company has instantly doubled their on line ad views from 20 million to over 47 million unique visitors per month with this move, and is in a much better position to capitalize on the expected 15% growth in on line advertising versus the 2% expected in the traditional television market.
If you can't beat 'em, join em!
The biggest jewel in this acquisition is the addition of the myspace.com free blogging service to the portfolio. News Corp. instantly became one of the largest providers of free blog technology on the internet, where if the previous claims of over 18.5 million accounts plus 2 million users monthly are correct, they are taking Google's Blogger, Microsoft's MSN Spaces, and Yahoo's Yahoo360 head on for marketshare.
It'll be interesting to see if there are any more moves by traditional media giants to enter this burgeoning space, as well as what this move will mean for the industry dependent on how aggressive they decide to play in this sandbox we call the blogosphere.
