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About.com
bought by New York Times for $410 million
This morning, the New York Times Co. announced it was buying
About.com for $410 million in cash. The deal comes fast on
the heels of Dow Jones buying MarketWatch.com for $519 million
in cash, and the Washington Post Co. paying an undisclosed
sum for Slate. (Click here for the requisite disclosure.)
Why are the nation's elite newspaper companies investing the
cash thrown off by their fine broadsheets into online companies
with shoddy profit histories?
One answer is obvious. Print advertising has barely been keeping
pace with the rate of economic growth. According to the Newspaper
Association of America, newspaper advertising rose just 3.8
percent through the first three quarters of 2004 and is forecast
to rise by just 4.1 percent in 2005. Meanwhile, online ads
grew by 25 percent in 2004 and should rise at the same clip
in 2005, according to forecaster Robert Coen of Universal
McCann.
Top firms fail search engine
test
By Robin
Langford
The official sites for top FTSE 100 companies are failing
to capture their slice of the search market, with the financial
sector yielding the biggest culprits, according to new research.
The survey was conducted by search marketing firm WSPS, who
have today rebranded under the name “The Search Works”.
Almost two thirds (64%) of the official websites of FTSE 100
companies did not appear in the first page or top 10 results
of an online search using keywords such as ‘travel’,
‘insurance’ or ‘bank’, the research
found.
The travel sector is the most advanced, with the highest proportion
of travel companies achieving a high profile across the largest
number of search engines. Meanwhile, FTSE 100 insurance, banking
and other financial services sectors performed were among
the worst performers.
More
Marchex completes share
offering; funds acquisition of Name Development
Marchex Inc., which helps retailers complete online transactions,
said it has completed its purchase of the assets of Internet
domain company Name Development Ltd. Marchex paid $164.2 million,
including $155.2 million in cash and $9 million in stock.
The purchase includes a large base of online user traffic,
which Marchex says amounted to more than 17 million unique
visitors per month in November 2004, from an undisclosed number
of Internet domains.
http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2005/02/14/daily7.html
http://www.namedevelopment.com/
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