Nick Denton Sells Off Wonkette, Gridskipper, And Idolator
April 14, 2008
Nick Denton has sold off three of his babies to while he claims he’s waiting for the internet bubble to burst.
The political blog Wonkette is now owned by the current managing editor, Ken Layne, the founder of Tabloid.net. Music blog Idolator has been sold to Buzznet, which specializes in entertainment. And as for Gridskipper, it’s been handed off to Curbed, which Gawker Media has a stake in.
The actual numbers have yet to be made public, but Mr. Denton stated on Valleywag that “each had their editorial successes; but someone else will have better luck selling the advertising than we did.”
“We’ll be able to devote more attention to breakouts such as Jezebel and io9, as well as established titles such as Gizmodo and Kotaku, which are becoming utterly dominant in their domains,” he explained.
Apple Dismisses Beatles On iTunes Reports
March 12, 2008
We certainly hope we won’t have to wait until we’re sixty-four in order to see the Beatles catalog appear on iTunes, but it looks like those reports that it’ll happen within the next few months are incorrect.
Multiple reports have surfaced within the last few days stating that the collection of Beatles tunes would be making their way to Apple’s iTunes within months, not years, and the sources were allegedly individuals who were ”close to Sir Paul McCartney”.
Paul McCartney did say in an interview with Billboard last November that “It’s down to fine-tuning, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be happening next year, 2008.”
Apple does not agree. The company referred to the talk as “unsubstantiated speculation” and told Reuters that ”this is not news nor is it a scoop.”
The Beatles are considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, bands of all time. It may not happen tomorrow, or even within months, but it’s only a matter of time before this deal does go down.
It’s Official: Google Acquires DoubleClick For 3.1 Billion
March 11, 2008
Google announced today that the company has finally closed the deal to acquire DoubleClick, which specializes in online ad serving and management.
The Federal Trade Commission okayed the agreement back in December 2007, but it took substantially longer for EU antitrust regulators to give the thumbs up.
“The Commission’s in-depth market investigation found that Google and DoubleClick were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other’s activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors at the moment,” the group concluded.
Competitors Microsoft and Yahoo had sought to block the acquisition, expressing concerns that it would give Google too much of a monopoly on the online advertising market.
And with great power comes great responsibility.
“Today’s acquisition of DoubleClick will provide Google with unrivalled access to consumer data and a foothold in the display media space,” said Wayne Arnold of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA).