Male lifestyle portal CraveOnline, a leading lifestyle destination for men, has acquired established hoops fan and basketball culture site HoopsVibe. HoopsVibe was founded in 2002 and covers all aspects of basketball culture, catering to the whole spectrum of fans.
Terms were not disclosed.
Poker supplies web site Poker Stars Direct http://www.pokerstarsdirect.com was acquired by Brian Garvin and Jeff West. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
AOL has announced that it is acquiring social network Bebo for $850 million in cash. Bebo has about 40 million members. Bebo is especially popular in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand and has over 100 staff across its London, San Francisco and Austin offices. In January 2008, Bebo had 22.4 million unique visitors worldwide with visitors averaging more than 3 hours and 30 minutes on the site during the month. 4.8 million unique U.S. visitors came to Bebo in February 2008. Bebo’s revenues for 2006 were $7 million with $3 million in EBITDA. In 2007 revenues were $20 million with $5 million in EBITDA.
It was reported that Gazprom Media, which is part of Russia’s gas giant Gazprom, has purchased a majority stake in Russia’s youTube equivalent RuTube, valuing the video upload site at about $15 million. Russian analysts think the site, which claims 5.5 million visitors a month was overvalued.
Media General announced that it has signed an agreement with NARAE Enterprises, Inc. to acquire DealTaker.com, an online social shopping portal that offers consumers an array of bargain hunting, posting and comparison opportunities. The transaction is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2008. DealTaker.com was founded in 2004 and has more than 100,000 registered members as well as relationships with 1,500 affiliated retail businesses. The Web site provides coupons, rebates and bargains, many of them exclusive to DealTaker.com. It currently has more than 400,000 unique visitors per month.
Terms were not disclosed.
CraveOnline.com, a lifestyle destination for men, has acquired dominant gaming site, GameRevolution.com which was started in 1996, continuing to support CraveOnline’s position in the highly competitive online male youth market. The acquisition will also expand AtomicOnline’s family of niche properties that allow users to dive deep into specialized content.
As one of the fastest growing destinations on the web with sites like ComingSoon.net, Sherdog.com, ActionTrip.com, Superherohype.com and SpikedHumor.com. CraveOnline attracts nearly 26 million unique visitors per month.
