Fox to Acquire Startup NewRoo
Michael Arrington
43 comments »
Fox Interactive is in the closing stages of acquiring unlaunched startup NewRoo for “less than $10 million,” according to very reliable sources.
This follows Fox Interactive President Ross Levinsohn’s dramatic announcement at a recent UTR conference that “they’ve acquired someone in this room,” leading to serious blog speculation as to who the acquired company might be. While NewRoo did not present at the event, it turns out that they were in fact in the room at the time.
NewRoo is a real-time news aggregator that allows users to create their own customized news and content pages. The company has not launched. See my previous post on NewRoo for a full profile of the company.
While this is a small acquisition for Fox, there is a clear product synergy with their Myspace and Fox Sports online properties - users of those sites can create their own music/youth related content sites in the case of Myspace, or sports related news sites in the case of Fox Sports. Given Ross’ stated infatuation with user-generated content, it isn’t hard to see how NewRoo’s technology can add to their overall strategy of generating more page views without paying for the actual content generation.
UPDATE: Rafat at PaidContent says Yahoo was also in the running to acquire NewRoo. It’s always good to have (at least) two horses in the race - the acquisition price tends to go up dramatically.
Now Fox is acquiring companies before they even launch a beta?
Congratulations Brian and Dan!
I got to play with their site for a little bit. It’s still early-stage but they’ve built one of the coolest systems I’ve played with. Memeorandum for the masses.
I don’t know much about how this kind of stuff works, Mike perhaps you can answer:
Did the founders approach Fox, or does it happen vise-versa? Was NewRoo backed by interests that would be out there presenting the stuff to potential buyers?
One thing that would be interesting to add to TechCrunch would be more background on how people launch, sell, and promote their web sites.
Newroo+myspace = roospace
what?
Also, in terms of start-up acquisition speak, what does “under $10m” mean? Above $5m? Or any number from 1-10?
Is this to shore up a hole for myspace and keep it’s momentum going?
Oh, and under $10 mil. I assume that’s closer to $10. These numbers make so little sense. Basically their buying technology for 10mil! That’s crazy. No product track record…
Congratulations to them!
nice…good work…
This is a smart move by FIM. If they can integrate NewRoo tightly into MySpace, they will generate pages that can secure order-of-magnitude higher CPMs (than regular community pages).
Their site says “Watch for our launch on Techcrunch”. I think they mean this post!
Congrats to all involved!
In order to compete for talent and get ahead of the cruve, more and more emerging companies will be bought up by the big MSM guys before they can make it through a real due dilligence phase and a Google IQ test…
Hence the bubble may be paid for by corporate coffers this time instead of aunt Harriets savings account!
They are desecrating our national mascot with that name.
Then again, we eat our national mascot. Hmmm. Forget about that comment :p
fox is making a way into internet news
you have to admit a pre-beta launch aquisition is pretty amazing.
Yeah…. I’ve known this for a while now but was sworn to secrecy.
“While NewRoo did not present at the event, it turns out that they were in fact in the room at the time.”
YES… exactly. That’s what EVERYONE missed.
Now I wonder if Newroo will adjust their algorithms to include Faux News republican bias.
I still haven’t see what they’re doing and don’t yet grok it yet but this is probably a good thing for the space.
PS… I thought I posted this yesterday but never hit the submit button.
“Now I wonder if Newroo will adjust their algorithms to include Faux News republican bias.”
What a Brokeback Liberal thing to say.
很好,,,,,.25512…..不错哦,,,
很好,,,,25512…..不错哦,,,