GuildCafe Entertainment Inc., the developer of the GuildCafe.com social gaming platform, announced that it has completed the acquisition of Uberguilds, uberguilds.org, a network of high-profile gaming communities. The two sites were previously working together.

GuildCafe, which this summer raised a first round from IDG Ventures, offers tools for players to share strategies, organize guilds and find other players, along with other game-related social functions.

Terms of the deal were undisclosed.

Intuit Inc. announced it has signed a definitive agreement to purchase Homestead Technologies Inc. which about 10 years ago created Homestead.com. The cash transaction is valued at approximately $170 million, including the assumption of Homestead’s outstanding options and restricted stock units. Approximately 12 million people have used Homestead’s service. Homestead, together with Geocities (acquired by Yahoo) and Tripod (bought by Lycos) was one of the early providers of tools to help individuals and companies easily get online. Apparently 19 times is a charm since according to Homestead CEO Justin Kitch’s blog, this was the 19th acquisition offer they have received over the years.

This transaction will enable Intuit to offer Web site creation and e-commerce solutions which will help small businesses serve and acquire customers through the Internet, which are increasingly important factors for success and expansion. The acquisition is part of Intuit’s effort to diversify beyond its popular Quicken and TurboTax programs.

The transaction is expected to close during the first calendar quarter of 2008.

According to some publications Venture capitalists look at the following metrics when valuing an Internet property:

Cost of Acquisition: At the most prized content sites, at least 35 percent of new users are enrolled by existing users. In other words, they are added “virally.” The best example of this is MySpace.

Site Stickiness: A site becomes more valuable if frequent repeat visitors make up a high percentage of its traffic. At Facebook, for example, nearly 65 percent of users visit the network daily. User-generated content - such as photos, reviews, and links - tends to increase the stickiness of the site and will increase it’s value.

Add-on Services: Sites that offer fee-based premium accounts have more opportunity for future revenues and will command higher valuations. Even a 1% take rate on premium services is considered healthy.

Although there is not much written about the valuation of websites, in the last few years some have attempted to establish some methods for valuing an already established website. These methods range from the simplistic to the overly complicated.

Even I wrote a lengthy (still in progress) article about web site valuation but while the methods set forth there are extensive, they are currently a little outdated and they don’t help properly and quickly valuing a website today.

Here are some tips on how to come up with a general value for a website you might want to sell.

You will need the following information: (1) unique monthly visitors (2) number of monthly page views (x) number of members (3) dollar amount of monthly income from all sources (4) total expenses to run site.

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AOL announced that it has acquired Yedda, Inc., a semantic social search Questions and Answer service. Yedda will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL. Yedda was founded in 2006. Yedda employs approximately 20 people and will continue to operate in the U.S. and throughout Europe. Yedda’s R&D center will continue to be based in Israel. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SheKnows.com, a fast growing online destinations for women, announced the acquisition of Soaps.com, the second largest soap opera entertainment property on the web. Soaps.com delivers nearly 600,000 unique visitors per month with over 15 million page views. SheKnows delivers over 5.5 million unique visitors every month with nearly 60 million page views and targets women 25-54 with a centralized destination and community built around a broad spectrum of shared interests.