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March 14, 2008

AOL On A Bender - KickApps May Be Next Acquisition

Michael Arrington

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AOL, a company that is supposedly on the block themselves, seems to be on somewhat of an acquisition bender lately. In addition to a number of smaller purchases like Yedda and Goowy, and not a day after the announced $850 million acquisition of Bebo, rumors are popping up that AOL is preparing to acquire yet more companies in the coming weeks.

The next may be KickApps, a service for creating social networks, widgets and other services, says Kara Swisher (who’s rarely wrong, except when she said “two words: No sale” regarding our prediction of a Bebo acquisition). She says the company may be bought by AOL for $90 million.

We’ve followed KickApps closely, first covering it at launch in July 2006 and, most recently, when they released v. 3 of the service and started to wade into Ning territory. We also compared them to eight competitors in July 2007.

Does KickApps fit within AOL’s overall widget/socialnetwork/advertising strategy? Sure, maybe. It’s clear they’re embracing social networks, and widgets, already. KickApps gives them some technology and customers to continue that push and offer customized solutions for third parties. That can create lots of inventory to sell ads into as well. On the other hand, I don’t think AOL has fully verbalized their go forward strategy yet. They may not even understand it internally.

KickApps has raised $17 million in venture capital over two rounds of financing - the most recent in August 2007.

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  1. jonathan.bonzy.tv : le blog de Jonathan Bonzy

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:30 am

  2. AOL May Acquire KickApps For $90 Million

    March 14th, 2008 at 4:31 am

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  1. Ernst-Jan

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:55 am

    Yeah they’re on an buying spree. Seems like they want to be the next targeted-ads giant, since they also bought online affiliate marketing network Buy.at.

  2. Kara Swisher

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:23 am

    How I love you misquoting me! To clarify, here is the whole post section you are referring to with the headline, where I was referencing your clear assertion in a mid-February post that Bebo was essentially sold when it was not a month ago and that Google was the buyer. That it sold yesterday is a much different thing and Google is, um not AOL.

    Here is my post:

    Bebo=Not Being Bought by Google
    Posted at 4:02 PM on February 13, 2008

    That is all.

    Wait, not all. The report that it has signed a bill of sale earlier this week that “definitely happened”: It definitely did not.

    What is true: Bebo is raising money and it is open to selling and there has been interest. But, in two words: No sale.

    That’s a bit different than what you are saying above, but I like your chutzpah.

    And later in the post, which you conveniently left out, I wrote:

    The very innovative social-networking company certainly could be sold and sold quickly, and it has long been interested in that option, but is not averse to going it alone. But Bebo, which held a board meeting today, has not been sold and remains independent.

    But I will give you this, Michael, you had the selling itself part quite right about Bebo. To whom and when, not so much.

    But, to be fair, none of us nailed this.

  3. Strubit

    March 14th, 2008 at 4:35 am

    go Kara,

    nothing like pulling up Mike A on a bit of poetic license.

  4. MyBlogFans

    March 14th, 2008 at 7:27 am

    AOL on a buying spree… Yahoo! on a launching spree.. what’s Google doing, lately? ;-)

  5. Mark Zuckerbegr

    March 14th, 2008 at 10:12 am

    AOL getting bebo for just 860 mil is unbelievably cheap. At that price I will sell five per cent of Facebook.

  6. Garth Hall

    March 14th, 2008 at 10:28 am

    Given your impeccable sources, a KickApps deal does look a possibility. My take is that AOL could use KickApps to build thousands of niche communities under the umbrella of Bebo 2.00 (or should that be Bebaol) for when the Bebo generation comes of age, and their needs change. Rather like the original AOL walled-garden model from last century!

    We - ie. FILMCOMMUNITY.COM - is not for sale, yet, but if we were we’d opt for the Time-Warner side of the family rather than AOL. However, as we’re building on the Ning platform that may make our eventual selling a logistical challenge.

    KickApps for their part are re-defining “white label”. So are Ning for that matter but not in the way one might have wished. Ning were moving so promisingly in (what we thought was) the direction of “white label” last year but now it doesn’t appear so. But that’s another story.

    All power to KickApps if they pull this off. And all power to Kara who calls it as she sees it.

  7. Hashim Warren

    March 14th, 2008 at 11:05 am

    is an acquisition the only way for web companies to survive?

    I thought the web was going to give us millions of media companies, but it seems that we are still stuck in the Big 4 conglomerate model.

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