Media conglomerate News Corp is looking at acquiring two more Internet companies – Blinkx and IGN Entertainment, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the company’s plans.
In its online edition, the newspaper said the firm has bought Scout Media, a sports web company, and Intermix, which operates social networking site My-Space.com.
The report said News Corp is already holding talks to buy video search engine Blinkx.
It added that video gaming company IGN, which is considering an initial public offering or a sale, is also under consideration and could be valued at up to 800 mln usd.
Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp, this year identified the Internet as a priority and said the group could spend up to two bln usd on acquisitions.
‘We have tens of billions of dollars of asset value in our news, sports and general entertainment businesses,’ Murdoch said last week.
‘While we monetize this value daily in the form of our TV shows, channels, films, books [and] newspapers, our priority now in truth our mandate is to perfect a plan that will monetize them across the world on the Internet.’
Just when I thought IGN couldn’t get any worse! Time for Fair and Balanced reviews? :lol:
I am curious what a Fox-owned IGN would be like, although it probably wouldn’t have editorial content like
so with the warm glow of nostalgia hitting me like George W. Bush’s whiskey-drenched breath at a sobriety checkpoint
Where in the hell would George Bush be without Dick Chaney? The point is every self-respecting megalomaniac knows that someone is going to have to do all of the hard work.
I could launch into a massive list of facts pointing out how Bush is destroying this country, but I’ll just leave it at this: I man of such low intelligence should not be running this, or any country. he should instead do what he does best…Time for a keg run, W!
Yeah, I just don’t see how it’s worth that much, but then again I’m whatever is the opposite of a financial expert.
It would seem to me that for a lot less you could just start your own Internet network and promote the hell out of it with cash to get traffic. If you have that kind of cash to throw around you could generate tons of content – believe me, writers work cheap.
If it was me I’d probably be more interested in buying something like G4 and using to brand a new Internet gaming network and then drive traffic to and from the TV and Internet.
That value isn’t just based on the gaming content, he sees that they also have softcore por… sorry, I mean babe galleries, car stuff, sports, fashion, music, shit like that. IGN isn’t being sold as a gaming portal, it’s being sold as a hip place for young males 16-24 to be. Rupert wants his own maxim to compete with felix dennis.
Remember that the deal might also include some other attractive properties, like rottentomatoes.com, the GameSpy Network (including FilePlanet and GameSpy.com), and GameSpy’s SDK business. It’s a pretty large package, though I’m also not sure it’s worth close to a billion dollars.
The thing about websites is that they’re just fairy dust. It’s not like buying a radio or TV station because there’s a limited number of those due to government regulation. Anyone can start a website and it doesn’t require a lot of capital.
So take that and add a lot of capital to the mix, and now any company can create a network and hit the ground running.
I just can’t imagine that, say, with $200M you couldn’t create a network that would rival IGN’s holdings. Would it even take that much?
The $800M figure is probably derived from some kind of multiplier of IGN’s revenue. Desslock or Brooski could probably explain much better how valuations are derived.
You could probably do a lot with $200 million, but you’d also need two other things: time and effective management. A network like IGN isn’t going to spring fully grown from the mind of Zeus. Expediency and a sure bet that you’re not going to get worse management than the status quo are pretty good arguments to buy. If the price is reasonable, anyway.
I agree IGn is mature, and GameSpy is totally worth purchasing. As is Rotten Tomatoes.
But IGN itself… Jesus…
1up.com is the model for how to do this. the site completely reinvented itself about a year ago, and now it’s a good rival for GameSpot, if not better than GameSpot.
Step 1: hire fan boys right out of college
Step 2: give them a posh office and make them want to stay there 24/7
Step 3: use some sweet, cheap Web backbone software, $1000 can get you incredible code these days.
It wouldn’t take $200m to build the content and infrastructure, but it takes loads of time to build the mindshare and get users. Not just time but headaches in administration and building a new business. That stuff is worth something.
1up.com is the model for how to do this. the site completely reinvented itself about a year ago, and now it’s a good rival for GameSpot, if not better than GameSpot.
Stylistically speaking, yes. But traffic wise, 1up gets routinely crushed by IGN and Gamespot. And no traffic = no ad revenue = less resources.
is it just me, or are sites like gamespy etc so soaked with flash adverts and ‘interstitial’ adverts for soft porn that its painful to go there for any actual games coverage?
One of the best things about print magazines is that the pages dont flipping animate!
