Urbanspoon has been one of the most popular apps for the iPhone since it launched alongside the App Store in the summer of 2008. By blending location data with a fun, accelerometer-based way of finding good nearby restaurants, it even caught Apple’s eye, which soon began featuring it in its television commercials, fueling its success. And that success led to IAC eventually purchasing the self-funded startup in April of this year for a price in the seven-figure range.

But Urbanspoon didn’t stop thinking about what to do next, and the first stop is the BlackBerry. It just made sense since there’s a good overlap between the type of people who use BlackBerrys and the type who use Urbanspoon, co-founder Ethan Lowry tells us. So the company teamed up with Xtreme Labs, a popular development shop, to create the app.

Like its iPhone brethren, the app features the familiar slot machine-style interface to allow you to tailor your restaurant searches. For devices like the Storm, which has an accelerometer, you can use the app by shaking it. For other BlackBerrys, you simply click a button to set the wheels rolling. “It’s one of the snazziest BlackBerry apps there is,” Lowry says.

The reason Urbanspoon outsourced part of the development of the app rather than do it all in-house like they did with the iPhone is because there are too many types of BlackBerrys that need different versions. For example, there are four different versions of the Urbanspoon BlackBerry app alone, we’re told. Despite it being acquired by a large company, Urbanspoon remains a small team, and they simply don’t have the resources to devote to all these different devices.

But the team is already thinking ahead. Lowry said there was some debate as to whether they should go with BlackBerry or Android first as their next target. He’s excited about Android now, as opposed to a year ago when things were still up in the air about the platform, and believes that it will definitely be their next target. Other platforms like Windows Mobile and webOS (which the Palm Pre runs) will have to wait. Though the team is also debating crowd-sourcing the creation of apps for other platforms to its users — an approach with other small teams like Foursquare are taking.

In terms of monetization of the app, it remains for now mostly a user grab. There will be limited monetization through ads and the like (which BlackBerry has a revenue share agreement for), but it will be minimal, Lowry says.

Go here to get the app, it will work on most of the newer BlackBerrys.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

The deal includes the purchase of about 27 targeted dating sites with a combined 255,000 paying subscribers, including BlackPeopleMeet.com, BBPeopleMeet.com, LDSPlanet.com, SingleParentMeet.com and SeniorPeopleMeet.com.

People Media, founded in 2002, had $11.6 million of EBITDA in 2008 and quotes Jupiter Research as saying the combined revenues of the targeted dating service business are expected to reach $1.2 billion worldwide this year. Still according to the announcement, People Media, besides exclusively powering multiple AOL Personals communities, reaches nearly 4 million internet users each month. Match.com attracted about 5.8 million unique monthly users in May 09 according to comScore and reported $9.9 million in operating income before amortization last year.

Sounds like a good match.

And it’s not like Match.com’s parent company IAC/Interactive is lacking the cash for an acquisition of this size: after buying back 3 million shares for an average $15.15 apiece in the first quarter of the year, it ended the quarter with a whopping $2 billion in cash and securities with just $98.5 million in long-term debt.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

UrbanSpoon

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but I hear that it’s definitely worth something in the millions of dollars range. And it had to be, because UrbanSpoon was perfectly happy continuing to grow its business on its own, as it was already fairly profitable, Lowry tells me. But IAC, came in with “an offer we couldn’t refuse,” according to Lowry. He would only elaborate that, “we’re very happy with the deal.”

UrbanSpoon first popped up on IAC’s map when it began pulling in Citysearch reviews to serve up to customers. IAC was impressed with the local audiences UrbanSpoon was able to attract, Lowry says. The two sides had been talking informally on and off starting in the second half of last year. Coincidentally, this was right around the time when the iPhone 3G and Apple’s App Store launched. I mention those because they were really the catalysts that catapulted UrbanSpoon into the spotlight.

Actually, UrbanSpoon was one of the first iPhone 3G-specific apps I ever looked at because I thought it made interesting use of the device’s GPS chip. When you start up the app, it locates you via GPS, then you shake the phone and it comes up with a random restaurant near you. You can tailor these searches to be more or less random, but it’s so simple and turns indecision into a form of entertainment and discovery. Others clearly agreed as UrbanSpoon was a mainstay in top downloads area of the App Store, and Apple even thought enough of it to use in one of its commercials.

Lowry and the rest of the team will stay intact with the move to IAC, and will keep UrbanSpoon based in Seattle. They still have plenty of things in the pipeline, including updates to the iPhone app, but given IAC’s wide range of properties from the aforementioned Citysearch, to Ask.com, to Match.com to Evite, there are a lot of potential new things that UrbanSpoon can delve into now.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

IAC will sell 100% of the stock of Match Europe – the entity that houses Match.com’s European operations – for an approximate 27% stake in Meetic, plus a 5 million euro note (which converts to just over $6.33 million). Additional terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.

As Loïc points out, this is somewhat of a boost for the European internet industry, and the transaction is definitely turning Meetic into the default pan-European leader when it comes to online dating; one that will not easily be competed against. I wouldn’t exactly refer to it as ‘making history’ like Loïc does, yet I can’t help but notice Meetic’s tagline in their logo (”Same Game, New Rules”) and wonder if one could possibly find a phrase more appropriate to describe the deal.

From the press release:

Match.com is licensing the Match.com brand for its European operations to Meetic, and Meetic will optimize the two brands on a market-by-market basis. Match.com’s European operations include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Match Europe contributes approximately 13% of Match’s consolidated Operating Income Before Amortization. IAC expects annual run rate synergies to be at least 15 million Euros, though it will take a significant transition period before Meetic is able to fully realize them.

According to French newspaper Le Monde, Meetic had revenues of 153,7 million euros (close to $195 million) in 2008 and currently counts over 696,400 registered users. The company is public and listed on NYSE Euronext, currently valued at nearly 228 million euro ($289 million).

Acquisitions Meetic has made in the past to grow in Europe include eFriendsNet, Lexa, ParPerfeito, DatingDirect, Cleargay and Neu.

Meanwhile, IAC says Match.com will continue to operate all U.S.-based and remaining international operations, spanning 24 countries, 8 languages and five continents. This means that Match.com will no longer be competing against Meetic in Europe, but they’ll still be battling for ground in Latin America, the only continent where the companies both have a presence as of now. The IAC subsidiary also got a change at the helm: Greg Blatt, currently IAC’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel, has been named the new CEO of Match.com.

(Coverage in French on TechCrunch France)

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Sendori developed the technology, dubbed PureLeads and patent-pending, to enable both search advertisers and domain owners to benefit from typed-in domain traffic based on the highest auction bids. With rates for PPC (Pay-per-click) dramatically dropping the past few months, Sendori was quickly becoming a nice alternative for domain name owners who traditionally looked no further than the usual suspects offering PPC advertising deals.

Seems like a good match with Ask Sponsored Listings, an Ask.com unit which focuses on keyword targeted advertising on a rather large (+100) network of sites including properties like Match.com, TicketMaster, Ask.com, Evite, CitySearch, CNet, etc. Ask.com has also actively been purchasing valuable domain names and websites like Dictionary.com, Reference.com and Thesaurus.com. Sendori’s client roster includes names like Netflix, GEICO, Hewlett-Packard and other familiar brands.

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but we suspect Sendori got a good deal as its model was clearly working: the company said it was providing 130,000 advertisers 33 million page views per month from direct navigation traffic at the time of the acquisition. From the 11 employees (including contractors), 10 will make the move over to IAC.

Update: per commenter Satanish and BusinessWeek, we’ve learned that Ask.com paid a decent $25 million for Sendori.

The startup had raised only $800,000 in Series A financing, from Baseline Ventures, First Round Capital, Maples Investments and Felicis Ventures.

(Source: DNJournal)

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp announced a minor enhancement to the demographic and behavioral ad targeting available across its sites today—something it is calling “Audience Cubes.” Advertisers can now run ads targeted at different demographic slices including 18 to 34-year olds, sports fans, homeowners, and parents on 26 IAC sites (Citysearch, Evite, Match.com, Ticketmaster, and others). Judging from the coverage the announcement received, though, you would think that IAC just launched an entirely new ad network.

Some typical headlines:

Diller Fashions IAC Ad Network(Ad Age).

InterActiveCorp launches ad network, including for brands it’s ditching (Cnet).

Separate, Yet Together: IAC Creates Ad Network With Its Split Businesses (paidContent).

IAC To Bind Spin-off Companies In Ad Network (Silicon Alley Insider).

Sounds good, except that IAC has been selling ads across this very same ad network for the past three years. It’s called IAC Advertising Solutions. Maybe nobody noticed.

The company consolidated the ad serving technology from all its properties last year on Microsoft’s Atlas, and even before then was selling ads across the network. The news that this ad network will remain intact even once IAC splits into five separate companies is not really news.

And the fact that IAC is just now turning on some extra behavioral targeting capabilities is not that big a deal. Every advertising network is doing that. Even Yahoo.

(Photo by endolith).

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

In the Media & Advertising division—the new IAC’ largest and most profitable unit which includes Ask.com, Citysearch, and Evite—revenues increased 28 percent to $216 million and operating income skyrocketed 192 percent to $31 million. This was largely due to better revenues per search query due to the Google relationship, and a slashing of marketing costs. (Those annoying and expensive TV commercials finally got canned). Ask has been able to hang on to iits No. 5 spot in search market share (4.7 percent in March, according to comScore) and showed the biggest percentage gain (12 percent) in search queries of any search engine

These numbers show the benefits, at least in the short term, of handing your search advertising over to Google—something Yahoo is learning itself through its limited test with Google to do the same thing. The question is what happens in the long term when market share erodes and Google does not have to pay so much for the privilege of taking away the search advertising business from its fading competitors.

IAC’s other businesses did not do so well on their own. Match.com saw a 10 percent jump in revenues, but a 13 percent decline in operating profits. And the other businesses are just a mish-mash of underperforming assets.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Whether the financial maneuver will “unlock” any value for shareholders remains to be seen. (I’d be surprised if it did). But there is no doubt that IAC is an unwieldy, multi-headed beast whose collection of disparate businesses never really had much to do with one another. As I reported last November:

Diller will continue as CEO and chairman of IAC, which still remains somewhat of a grab bag of about 30 Websites. But at least those businesses are starting to finally be able to stand on their own feet. It doesn’t make much sense for them to be weighed down by Lending Tree because of the mortgage credit crisis or overshadowed by the Home Shopping Network. IAC’s holding company model gave shelter to its startups with the earnings of its more established operations, but any troubles in the larger businesses are difficult for the smaller ones to overcome no matter how fast they are growing.

The problem, as came out during the trial, is that those underlying Web businesses are not growing as fast as Diller had hoped either. Ask.com failed to reach its goal of doubling its market share of search, and Ticketmaster missed out on the growth of the secondary ticket market and recently had to buy TicketsNow for $265 million to compete with StubHub (owned by eBay).

Can an independent IAC compete more effectively against Web startups, or is it just a collection of Web 1.0 dogs?

(Photo by JDLasica).

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

No word on what will happen to Ask’s Teoma search technology (the rumor was that Google would be replacing it, since it already handles Ask’s search advertising). Safka is obviously taking more of a marketing than a technology approach. But without improving actual search results (with technology), Ask is going to have a tough time maintaining its 4.5 percent market share. Ask’s search sites collectively brought in 41 million unique U.S. visitors in January, which was up from December and November, but still below October’s 44 million, according to comScore.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

In a comScore ranking of the top-10 global search engines as measured by number of searches during the month of December, 2007, Yahoo comes in at a distant No. 2 with only 13 percent of global share. (Although, in the U.S., Yahoo actually gained a half-point of share in December, whereas Google dipped 0.2 percent). The big surprise, though, is the strength of local search engines in countries that don’t use the Roman alphabet. No. 3 on the list is not Microsoft, but Chinese search engine Baidu (with 5 percent share, versus Microsoft’s 3 percent). No. 5 is Korea’s NHN Corporation, which operates the Naver portal and search engine. Creeping up on Ask’s No. 8 spot, is Russian search engine Yandex. And Alibaba (which may include Yahoo China) brings up the rear at No. 10.

Shouldn’t the best search technology win no matter what the language? These market share figures suggest that culture and marketing play a big role as well—unless, of course, you are Google.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Many of the tickets that scalpers, er, brokers, sell on these secondary marketplaces are initially purchased from the Ticketmasters of the world. So the markup is a missed opportunity for Ticketmaster, whose own TicketExchange has shown lackluster performance.

The TicketsNow deal shows how hot the secondary event ticket market is becoming, and Ticketmaster’s entry will likely help legitimize the sector (see our previous coverage on some of the problems with the industry).

The WSJ, which broke the story, reports (subscription required):

Ticketmaster President and Chief Executive Sean Moriarty said the company plans to share revenue from its new division with clients that own venues or promote events, although he said details on how the money would be distributed aren’t final. He said the move highlights a shift in the way ticket resellers are perceived, both by the public and by concert-industry participants. Where resellers once were viewed as shady scalpers, now, thanks largely to the Internet, they are becoming more respectable.

“Clients who five years ago were not willing to allow a ticket to be resold now want a piece of it,” Mr. Moriarty said. The size of the secondary ticket market is hard to judge, but estimates range from $2.5 billion to $5 billion a year in the U.S.

That’s a nice growth market for a business that is about to be spun off as its own stock.

According to comScore, TicketsNow had 1.5 million unique visitors in December, about the same it did a year ago, while StubHub attracted 3.4 million and has been growing nicely under eBay’s wing (although it took a major hit in November).

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Now perhaps, those discussions are back on track. One source says the deal is done. Another says the parties have been in serious discussions over the last couple of weeks and are “very close,” but no deal has been closed. Both agree the price is over the $150 million being discussed last year, and may be as high as $200 million or more. The deal is being structured as a cash plus earnout transaction.

Flixster had an up and down year in 2007. They started off strong (”growing like a weed“) and have grown to 43 million user home pages. Traffic grew to 12 million unique worldwide visitors and 358 million page views in May. But it has fallen since then. In November, Flixster had just 8.2 million visitors and 139 million page views (source: Comscore). Over 1.2 billion movie reviews have been written by users.

Those declining visitor and page view numbers don’t seem to be a concern to IAC, according to our sources. They just like the company and its loyal users.

Flixster, based in San Francisco, raised $2 million in funding in February 2007 from Lightspeed Ventures and a number of angel investors.

I’m expecting to hear more news in the next couple of weeks. With the current information we’ve received, I put a over-under on a deal getting done with IAC at about 66%.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Bodybuilding.com sells a broad range of fitness supplements, clothing and supplies as well as offering general fitness articles and a social networking service where over 100,000 users swap exercise goals or post pictures.

According to comScore, Bodybuilding.com had around 2 million unique visitors in November, and according to Liberty sales are expected to top $100 million in 2008.

It’s an interesting move by Liberty Media given they are better known for their investments in other holding companies, most notably IAC/ Interactive Corp.

Wall Street Journal reports that Liberty Media acquired the stake from the site’s founding family and Milestone Partners and that the deal is expected to be formally announced today.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Direct traffic on Ask.com grew from 29.8 million unique visitors in November 2006 to 46 million in November 2007 after dropping to 24.4 million in February for an impressive 54% growth rate.

Ask subsites saw some amazing growth rates, but mostly off very low bases. The Algorithm has a growing market in Europe, with Ask Spain experiencing 2062% growth rate, Ask Germany at 3006% and Ask France with 606%.

Some humble pie from me: back in May I slammed Ask.com for its advertising campaign suggesting that it was too clever by half; I haven’t changed my dislike of a campaign that suggested that “The Algorithm constantly finds Jesus” but the numbers don’t lie: it worked and worked well. Congrats and Christmas well wishes to the team at Ask; you’ve still got a long way to go to catch up to Google, Yahoo and Microsoft but at least you’re heading in the right direction, and competition is always a good thing.

Ask’s full numbers below:

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

That’s not surprising, given the picture Lodwick chose to include with his goodbye post. A source close to Lodwick says “he was let go.”

Lodwick’s girlfriend, Julia Allison (who made a scandal at our August Capital party last summer – see video here), wrote a blog post saying “Dear Jakob, I wish I hadn’t found out you left the company you’ve been with for the last seven years from your blog. Love, Julia.”

Lots of drama out in NYC this evening.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

According to the Wall Street Journal, IAC CEO Barry Diller said the new push into China would involve something that is “unique” and does not compete directly with existing players. The IAC owned travel site eLong has not be doing well in China, with Diller saying that “We bought eLong and promptly screwed it up.”

Diller said that online gambling was one area that IAC would consider in China. The China focused version of Ask.com will be available “within 2 years.”

Asked about the cultural difficulties of operating in China, Diller gave the WSJ a response that is bound to upset a number of TechCrunch readers in the United States, but certainly shows respect and recognition that American law is not supreme throughout the globe and that business is bound to follow the laws of the nations they operate in, even when they don’t like those laws: “Every place has got its constraints..It doesn’t bother me … When you operate in a country you play by the country’s rules.”

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

—HSN (the Home Shopping Network, both TV and online)

—Ticketmaster

—Lending Tree

—Interval International (a marketplace for vacation timeshares, which will also include CondoDirect, Resort Quest Hawaii and VacationSource.com)

—IAC (the remaining Web businesses, including Ask.com, Bloglines, Citysearch, Evite, iWon, Match.com, BustedTees, and CollegeHumor)

Diller will continue as CEO and chairman of IAC, which still remains somewhat of a grab bag of about 30 Websites. But at least those businesses are starting to finally be able to stand on their own feet. It doesn’t make much sense for them to be weighed down by Lending Tree because of the mortgage credit crisis or overshadowed by the Home Shopping Network. IAC’s holding company model gave shelter to its startups with the earnings of its more established operations, but any troubles in the larger businesses are difficult for the smaller ones to overcome no matter how fast they are growing.

That will continue to be the case in some respects within the Web-only IAC. While a portfolio approach does help to reduce overall risk, it is not what most investors are looking for (the stock was up nearly 9 percent this morning on the news). IAC is better off spinning off its larger standalone companies. Arguably, it could still benefit by shedding more businesses down the line.

The big news buried in all this was that Ask.com re-upped its ad-serving deal with Google for five more years, and got $3.5 billion guaranteed. Currently, Ask.com makes up 10 percent of Google’s ad revenues from partner sites, or about $100 million a quarter. The new five-year deal assumes that will increase to $175 million per quarter. So something is working.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Taking a look at IAC’s earnings today, it is not clear whether or not the expensive ad campaign will even pay for itself. Out of IAC’s $1.5 billion in total quarterly revenue, its media and advertising businesses (of which Ask.com is a part, along with CitySearch and Evite) accounted for only $190 million. While those revenues were up 40 percent from last year, the search portion of that saw a greater contribution from the Ask network (search results it powers on other sites) than from Ask.com itself. In other words, IAC’s media and advertising businesses saw a $54 million bump in revenues last quarter. Not all of that was due to Ask, and of the part that was, more than half came from traffic outside of Ask.com. The point of the ads, of course, is to drive traffic to Ask’s main site.

At least Ask is not losing market share. According to comScore, the search market share of Ask’s network as a whole nudged up 0.2 percent in September versus August to 4.7 percent (compared to 57 percent market share for Google, 23.7 percent for Yahoo, and 10.3 percent for Microsoft). Both Google and Yahoo still gained more share in September than Ask.com, although it did take some share away from Microsoft. And if you look on Compete.com, traffic to Ask.com itself does look to be picking up.

UpdateIt’s been pointed out to me by someone who know that the $100 million is the total amount the search engine is spending on marketing worldwide, including much more than the TV spots (such as online ads, agency fees, and internal marketing salaries). The TV spots are still a significant chunk of it, but not the majority. Also, the most recent TV ad campaign just started in September. This Hitwise graph suggests that it contributed to a nice 23.7 percent jump in Ask’s share of executed searches from August, 2007

So it could just be too early to tell whether the TV ads are driving enough traffic to Ask.com to be worthwhile. But if they don’t show up more significantly in the numbers next quarter, those ads will be seen as a boondoggle. They are entertaining, though.

Enjoy the latest one, which pokes fun at Google (and which makes you think that maybe Ask won’t be renewing its search advertising relationship with Google when the deal expires at the end of the year):

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

iWon’s business model is to lure people in with cash prizes, get them to play online games like Sudoku, Slots, or Solitaire, and show them ads. Games can also be created specifically for ad sponsors.

This was iWon 1.0:

and here’s iWon 2.0:

I can’t decide which one’s lamer. Still, iWon needed to do something. According to comScore, its monthly unique visitors dropped from 5.2 million last year to 2.2 million in August. Although average time spent on the site shot up from 33 minutes a month to 53 minutes, that’s what you’d expect as the casual visitors tired of the offerings and the only ones left were the hardcore iWannaBeWinners. In beta testing, the new site has already proved to keep people playing five times longer than before. But is it the same people over and over again, or will the makeover be able to attract enough new visitors to turn things around?

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

The positive headline results did not flow through to the struggling 4th ranked search engine Ask.com, which saw a decline in revenues. The second quarter decline comes despite a $100 million Crispin, Porter + Bogusky advertising campaign that should be resulting in increased traffic and revenue to the site.

The exact amount of the decline was not disclosed.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors