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Mergers and Acquisitions

  • Facebook Acquires Onavo

    Earlier this week Facebook acquired the mobile data analytics company Onavo. The original spin was that this was a great fit with Internet.org, given that Onavo’s apps are focused on monitoring data usage and maximizing the amount of data you get per kilobyte. Onavo said as much in their blog post announcing the acquisition: As you…

  • Twitter Acquires MoPub

    When Yahoo Acquired Tumblr, I wrote about the Signal-to-Ads Cycle: The result is the signal-to-ads cycle: Information is gathered from first-party sites via analytics, 3rd-party sites via ads, buttons, etc, and owned-and-operated mobile apps tied to your identity (think Instagram) Highly targeted ads are served in search results, display ads, and natively, primarily on PCs At…

  • The Deal That Makes No Sense

    Early this morning Microsoft acquired Nokia for €3.79 billion (plus €1.65 billion for patents). It is a deal that makes no sense. While industry observers love to pontificate about mergers and acquisitions, the reality is that most ideas are value-destroying. It is far better to form an alliance or partnership; most of the benefits, none of…

  • Waze Winners and Losers

    Google acquired Waze earlier this week for a reported $1.03 billion. This is an interesting deal for a few different reasons with a clear set of winners and losers. Big Winner: Waze This is an incredible exit for a company with only ~17 million active users and negligible revenues. Waze is a great product – I’m…

  • Yahoo, Tumblr, and the Signal-to-ads Cycle

    Tumblr is worth far more to Yahoo than $1.1 billion, and worth far less as a standalone company. That makes this acquisition a win-win; Yahoo is buying three important parts of the signal-to-ads cycle, and Tumblr’s investors are getting a nice exit. There are three ways to improve advertising revenue: Sell more ads Sell more effective…