Internet Industry Mergers & Acquisitions

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I've put together this list of Internet M&As for my readers at Research Connect and I thought some of you might find some interest in it! This obviously doesn't include every buyout but definitely the biggest and I welcome any input on M&As that I left out. The running list and additional commentary can be found on RC at:

http://www.researchconnect.com/current_comments_detail/cc_112.asp

Yahoo! Acquisition History:

* September 1997 – Yahoo acquires Net Controls for $1.4 Million
* October 1997 – Yahoo purchases Four11 for $92 Million
* March 1998 – Yahoo purchases Classic Games
* June 1998 – Yahoo picks up ViaWeb for $49 Million
* July 1998 – Yahoo acquires WebCal
* December 1998 – Yahoo acquires Yoyodyne for $29.6 Million
* December 1998 – Yahoo acquires Sportacy
* January 1999 – Yahoo acquires Hyperparellel for $8 Million
* February 1999 – Yahoo acquires Log-Me-On for $10 Million
* May 1999 – Yahoo purchases GeoCities for $3.6 Billion
* May 1999 – Yahoo purchases Encompass for $130 Million
* June 1999 – Yahoo acquires Online Anywhere for $80 Million
* July 1999 – Yahoo purchases Broadcast.com for $5.7 Billion
* November 1999 – Yahoo acquires MyQuest
* March 2000 – Yahoo acquires Arthas.com
* August 2000 – Yahoo acquires eGroups for $432 Million
* November 2000 – Yahoo purchases Kimo for $145 Million
* April 2001 – Yahoo acquires Sold.com for $30 Million
* June 2001 – Yahoo acquires Launch Media for $12 Media
* January 2002 – Yahoo acquires Hotjobs for $436 Million
* December 2002 – Yahoo acquires Inktomi for $235 Million
* February 2003 – Yahoo acquires Alltheweb for $100 Million
* October 2003 – Yahoo acquires Overture for $1.63 Billion
* January 2004 – Yahoo acquires 3721
* April 2004 – Yahoo acquires Kelkoo for $579 Million
* October 2004 – Yahoo picks up MusicMatch for $160 Million
* March 2005 – Yahoo acquires Ludicorp Research (Flickr) for $40 Million
* June 2005 – Yahoo acquires Dialpad
* July 2005 – Yahoo acquires Konfabulator
* October 2005 – Yahoo picks up Upcoming.org
* December 2005 - Yahoo buys del.icio.us

Google Acquisition History:

* January 2003 – Google acquires Pyra Labs – Blogger
* April 2003 – Google purchases Neotonic Software
* April 2003 – Google purchases Applied Semantics
* July 2004 – Google acquires Picasa
* October 2004 – Google acquires Keyhole
* March 2005 – Google purchases Urchin Sofware for $30 Million
* August 2005 – Google acquires mobile startup Android (Palo Alto, CA)
* January 2006 – Google acquires dMarc Broadcasting
* April 2006 – Google acquires Orion algorithm from a student in Australia
* August 2006 – Google acquires Neven Vision
* October 2006 – Google purchases YouTube for $1.65 Billion in stock

eBay Acquisition History:

* June 1999 – eBay acquires Alando
* June 2003 – eBay acquires EachNet, Inc. for $150 Million (Chinese eCommerce Company)
* August 2004 – eBay acquires a 25% stake in Craig’s List
* June 2004 – eBay acquires Baazee.com for $50 Million (online shopping site – India)
* September 2004 – eBay acquires Internet Auction Co. for $325 Million (online auction – South Korea)
* October 2004 – eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5 Billion
* November 2004 – eBay acquires Marktplaats.nl for $290 Million. (Dutch classified site.)
* December 2004 – eBay acquires Rent.com for $415 Million
* June 2005 – eBay acquires Shopping.com for $620 Million
* September 2005 – eBay acquires Skype for $2.6 Billion
* October 2005 – eBay acquires VeriSign’s online payment service for $370 Million

Notes:
1. eBay’s purchase of EachNet in June 2003 was the remaining 67% that it didn’t already own.
2. eBay acquired a 33% stake in EachNet in March 2002.

AOL Acquisition History:

* September 1997 – AOL acquires Compuserve for $1.2 Billion
* 1997 – AOL acquires ICQ for $287 Million
* June 1998 – AOL acquires Mirabilis Ltd for $287 Million
* November 1998 – AOL acquires PersonalLogic
* November 1998 – AOL acquires Netscape for $4.21 Billion
* June 1999 – AOL purchases a 10% stake in China.com
* June 1999 – AOL acquires Spinner (online music broadcaster) and Nullsoft (MP3) for $400 Million
* December 1999 – AOL acquires Tegic Communications
* December 1999 – AOL acquires Mapquest for $1.1 Billion
* January 2000 – AOL acquires Time Warner for $160 Billion
* November 2003 – AOL acquires Singingfish
* June 2004 – AOL acquires Advertising.com for $435 Million
* August 2004 – AOL acquires Mailblocks, Inc.
* August 2005 – AOL acquires Xdrive
* October 2005 – AOL purchases Weblogs, Inc. for $25 Million

Amazon.com Acquisition History:

* August 1998 – Amazon.com acquires Junglee and PlanetAll for $280 Million
* 1998 – Amazon.com purchases the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
* February 1999 – Amazon.com acquires a 46% stake in Drugstore.com
* March 1999 – Amazon.com acquires 50% of Pets.com
* April 1999 – Amazon.com acquires LiveBid.com (live-event auctions)
* November 1999 – Amazon.com acquires Back to Basics Toys (classic toys)
* February 1999 – Amazon.com acquires a minority interest in Geoworks (wireless communications)
* December 2001 – Amazon.com acquires bankrupt Egghead.com for $6.1 Million
* December 2001 – Amazon.com acquires OurHouse.com
* August 2004 – Amazon.com purchases Joyo.com for $75 Million (web retailer in China)
* April 2005 – Amazon.com acquires BookSurge (printing fulfillment company)
* April 2005 – Amazon.com acquires Mobipocket.com (Parisian software company)
* June 2005 – Amazon.com acquires CustomFlix (independently produced DVDs)
*February 2006 – Amazon.com purchases Shopbop (retailer of women’s apparel)

News Corp. Acquisition History:

* July 2005 – News Corp. purchases Intermix Media (Myspace) for $580 Million
* September 2005 – News Corp. acquires IGN Entertainment for $650 Million
* September 2005 – News Corp purchases a majority stake (51%) in Jamba from VeriSign for $188 Million. Jamba created the Crazy Frog ringtone and News Corp will integrate the company into Fox Mobile Entertainment.

Microsoft Acquisition History:

* August 1997 – Microsoft acquires WebTV for $425 Million
* January 1998 – Microsoft acquires Hotmail.com
* November 1998 – Microsoft purchases LinkExchange
* September 1999 – Microsoft acquires Visio (technical drawing software)
* October 1999 – Microsoft acquires speech software firm Entropic, Inc.
* June 2000 – Microsoft acquires Bungie Software Products (games)
* June 2003 – Microsoft acquires GeCAD (Romanian antivirus company)
* December 2004 – Microsoft acquires Giant Company Software
* March 2005 – Microsoft acquires Groove Networks
* September 2005 – Microsoft acquires Alacris (ID verification for smart cards)
* August 2005 - Microsoft acquires Teleo (VoIP Tech)
* August 2005 - Microsoft acquires Teleo (VoIP Tech)
* November 2005 – Microsoft purchases FolderShare (online file-sharing service) for integration into Windows Live

Lycos Acquisition History:

* February 1998 – Lycos purchases Tripod for $58 million
* October 1998 – Lycos acquires Wired Digital for $83 Million. Wired Digital owned HotBot, HotWired, Wired News, Webmonkey and Suck.
* September 1999 – Lycos acquires Quote.com for $78.3 Million
* May 2000 – Terra purchases Lycos for $12.5 Billion. Four years later in August 2004 Terra sells Lycos for just $105 Million to Daum Communications.
* March 2001 – Lycos Asia acquires MyRice.com (China site)

CMGI Acquisition History:

* March 1999 – CMGI acquires I/PRO (web traffic verification)
* June 1999 – CMGI acquires a controlling stake in AltaVista from Compaq Computer for $2.3 Billion. Overture Services later acquires AltaVista from CMGI for $140 Million in February 2003.
* October 1999 – CMGI acquires Flycast for $690 Million
* December 1999 – CMGI acquires Yesmail.com for $523.4 Million
* February 2000 – CMGI acquires Tallan Inc. for $920 Million
* February 2000 – CMGI acquires Ubid for $407 Million
* March 2004 – CMGI acquires Modus Media for $230 Million

1998 CMGI acquires Accipiter
1999 Activerse
1999 Adforce
1999 1StUp.com
1999 Tribal Voice
2000 Raging Bull

Excite@Home Acquisition History:

* October 1997 - Excite acquires Netbot for $35 Million
* July 1998 – Excite acquires Throw (advanced homepages with chat) for $28.2 Million
* January 1999 - @Home acquires Excite for $6.7 Billion
* August 1999 – Excite@Home invests $85 Million into Tickets.com
* October 1999 – Excite@Home acquires Blue Mountain Arts (online greeting cards) for $780 Million
* September 2000 – Excite@Home acquires Pogo.com (online games provider)
* October 1 2001 – Excite@Home files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and sells high speed network to AT&T for $307 Million

Ask Jeeves Acquisition History:

* September 2001 – Ask Jeeves acquires Teoma
* March 2004 - Ask Jeeves acquires Interactive Search Holdings for $343 Million
* June 2004 - Ask Jeeves acquires Tukaroo (desktop search and file management)
* February 2005 - Ask Jeeves acquires Trustic/Bloglines
*March 2005 – IAC/Interactive Corp acquires Ask Jeeves for $1.85 Billion

RealNetworks Acquisition History

* April 1999 – RealNetworks bought Xing Technology (MP3 software developer) for $75 Million
* January 2000 – RealNetworks acquires NetZip (internet download management software) for $268 Million
* January 2001 - RealNetworks acquires Aegisoft Corp (digital media security software) for $12 Million
* May 2002 – Sony acquires a 1% stake in RealNetworks
* April 2003 – RealNetworks purchases Listen.com (Rhapsody Music) for $36 Million
* January 2004 – RealNetworks acquires GameHouse for $35.6 Million
* May 2005 – RealNetworks acquires Mr. Goodliving (mobile games) for $15 Million

Netscape Acquisition History:

* November 1997 – Netscape acquires Kiva Software for $179.5 Million
* November 1998 – Netscape acquires Atweb for $95 Million
* November 1998 – Netscape acquires NewHoo (freeware directory). NewHoo is the former name of the Open Directory Project at Dmoz.org.
* November 1998 – Netscape acquires AtWeb (web site management tools) for $95 Million

Earthlink/Mindspring Acquisition History

* September 1998 - Mindspring acquires Sprynet from rival AOL for $40 Million
* September 1999 – Earthlink & Mindspring merge to compete against AOL. At the time of the merger the combined market cap was approximately $3 Billion.
* June 2000 - EarthLink acquires OneMain.com (ISP) for $308 Million
* April 2001 - EarthLink acquires FirstWorld Internet Services from Verado
* December 2001 – Earthlink acquires OmniSky (wireless ISP) for
* October 2001 - EarthLink acquires Cidco (Mailstation) for $5 Million
* June 2002 – EarthLink acquires PeoplePC for $10 Million