Paul Lomax - Two Point Oh

Dpreview.com (Digital Photography Review) has announced today that they have been acquired by Amazon for an undisclosed amount. The site will continue to be run independently from London. Dpreview’s in-depth camera reviews attract seven million unique visitors a month and generates 120 million page views, but founder Phil Askey, who started the site as a hobby in 1999, says he was struggling to keep up:

“One of the difficulties of operating dpreview.com independently has been the balance between producing content and delivering new site features. Now, with the support of Amazon, I’ll be able to devote more of my time to expanding and improving our features – such as product reviews and discussion forums while still delivering the high-quality content that our readers have come to expect.”

Dpreview.com offers in-depth reviews of the latest digital cameras and accessories, active discussion forums, digital photography and imaging news, sample images, a dynamic digital camera buyers’ guide, side-by-side comparisons of the most popular models, and the web’s most comprehensive database of digital camera features and specifications.

Emre Sokullu at Read/WriteWeb comments on a Yahoo’s recent acquisitions - and in hindsight it looks like they picked up some real bargains (although most of the prices aren’t public).  What’s surprising is that 2006 saw just three purchases - they were ahead of the curve and the spree was really in 2005. 

Their two point oh round-up looks like this:

1. Blo.gs - blog pinging service
2. Flickr - photo sharing
3. Upcoming - price unknown
4. del.icio.us  - social bookmarking
5. Konfabulator - desktop search
6. Jumpcut - online video
7. Bix - online karaoke
8. MyBlogLog - social networking

Yahoo certainly paid less for the whole basket of web 2.0 apps than Google paid for YouTube… perhaps they learnt from the experience of spendingUS$3.6bn on GeoCities in 1999.

Wikipedia has a complete list of Yahoo acquisitions dating back to the (first) dotcom boom.

Update: Pete Abilla has put together a neat timeline of acquisitions by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft using Ajax.

I’ve just started reading up on and playing with Flock, the ’social web browser’ - so more soon - but in the meantime Matthew Ogston asks, Will Yahoo buy Flock?

TIME WARNER’S AOL AND GOOGLE TO EXPAND STRATEGIC ALLIANCE

America Online (AOL) and Google are expanding their current strategic alliance to create a global online advertising partnership. The deal will make AOL content more accessible to Google web crawlers, expand display advertising through the Google network, enable Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, and allow for collaboration on online video offering. It includes a $1 billion investment in AOL by Google for an effective 5% equity stake.

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The Register reports that Google have snatched AOL from Microsoft, paying $1 billion (£570m) to take a 5 per cent stake.

One word: Phew. Very glad it was Google and not Microsoft…

Interestingly for us (IPC), the deal means that “AOL’s sales team gets access to the Google Network, and Google will also give Time Warner’s media properties preferential treatment.”. Cool - we should therefore get preferential treatment as a Time Warner property

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/17/google_wins_aol/

December 14, 2005

Dear valued partner:

We are very pleased to inform you that PriceGrabber.com has become a part of Experian Interactive, a division of Experian, Inc, the global leader in information solutions. Experian operates in 28 countries with clients in over 60 countries and revenues of over $2.5 billion. Experian Interactive is a market leader in online lead generation and consumer marketing and accounts for nearly 20% of global Experian sales. Experian Interactive is comprised of key online marketing companies including LowerMyBills.com, Experian Consumer Direct, and ClassesUSA.com. As evidenced by the acquisition of PriceGrabber.com, continued expansion of Experian Interactive is a core part of Experian’s global growth strategy. We believe that as a result of this acquisition we will be in a better position to service our users, customers and partners.

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Greg Yardley reports that del.icio.us is to join the Yahoo Family, adding to its stable of Web2.0 products such as Flickr. As Greg writes, hopefully this will mean they get much more stable servers to cope with the demand, but that Yahoo won’t impose their logins…

Rumour has it that the purchase price was around US$30m (£17m), valuing each of their 300,000 user’s bookmarks at $100. They’re definitely paying for the community not the technology.

Daily Mail acquires property website Primelocation.com for £48m

Daily Mail said the deal was part of its drive to boost its positions in key areas of the online advertising market.

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