Google Acquires Slingbox-Style Tech Company Sage TV (GOOG)

Google has acquired Sage TV, which offers DVR and Slingbox-like features, according to 9to5 Google.

Sage TV will likely be used in Google TV software, which has struggled to gain traction. Or maybe it will be part of Google's video offering for Android. Watching video from your TV on your phone or tablet would be a nice feature.

There's no word on the price of the deal.

See Also: 8 Products Google Should Kill

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See Also:

• THE MICROSOFT INVESTOR: Xbox Bucking The Video Game Industry Down Trend, Picks Up 7-Percentage Points Of Market Share
• THE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Nearly Half Of iOS Developers Build For Android As Well
• Google Just Put $280 Million Into A Partnership With SolarCity

Google Acquires Slingbox-Style Tech Company Sage TV (GOOG)

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eBay Acquires “Hyper-local” Advertising Network WHERE.com

eBay has acquired Boston-based WHERE.com, which is a "hyper-local" advertising network that gives people relevant, real-time information and deals from businesses. The company also has a popular mobile app that allows people to find personalized deals and local recommendations. Last year eBay bought local product inventory finder Milo.com.

eBay Acquires “Hyper-local” Advertising Network WHERE.com

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Yandex Acquires WebVisor’s Behavior Analysis Technology, Team

Yandex, the leading Russian search engine, has acquired WebVisor, a Russian startup, after holding an “open day for startups” to pitch the search company. WebVisor provides visitor behavior analysis (mouse movement, clicks, text copying etc.) and will be integrated with the company’s own visitor statistics tool, Yandex.Metrica. Terms were not disclosed. Yandex says the WebVisor team has joined the company to work on merging their technology into its own framework. WebVisor will keep servicing existing clients, but the service will not accept new customers going forward.

Yandex Acquires WebVisor’s Behavior Analysis Technology, Team

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How Twitter Acquires People

When is an acquisition not an acquisition? When Twitter’s involved, apparently.

The microblogging company announced today that it had “acquired the team at Fluther, Inc.” Fluther makes a question-and-answer site, a popular category of Web startup as of late. (See Hunch or Quora for examples of better-funded competitors.)

When I asked Twitter spokeswoman Carolyn Penner what kind of deal it had actually struck, she characterized the event as a “talent acquisition.” I pointed out that there’s no such thing, really, as a talent acquisition: Either a company acquires or merges another company and takes on its employment obligations, or it hires employees as individuals. I also pointed out that under the U.S. Constitution, acquiring people was technically illegal.

The conversation pretty much devolved from there, and apologies were later issued by Twitter direct message. (Sorry, Carolyn, I can get pretty pedantic, I know.)

Apologies aside, Penner didn’t shed any further light on the deal, but an insider deeply familiar with the workings of the Twitterverse told me that Twitter hired five people who worked at Fluther but didn’t actually acquire the company or any of its assets. That squares with Twitter’s blog post, which noted it wouldn’t be taking on the Fluther.com website, but wouldn’t be shutting it down, either.

So what does this mean? In the absence of clear statements from Twitter, one can only speculate. A strong possibility is that Twitter’s concerned about looking cheap — hiring people away from a startup usually costs less than buying it. Twitter may also want to avoid being seen as the force responsible for shutting down a site with a voluble community of users, as Facebook was with the recent “talent acquisitions” of Drop.io and Hot Potato.

It’s an irony that these services, devoted to creating cultures of openness, transparency, and sharing, can’t come out and state the obvious: a lot of startups are failing to gain traction, and they’re happy to snap up engineers, but they’re not going to dilute their shareholders or spend their cash actually acquiring smaller companies. Dressing up this event as an “acquisition” makes it sound fancy, and may salve the feelings of the new hires.

There’s a lot of awkward terms for these admittedly awkward exits from a startup: “manquisitions,” “acq-hires,” “talent acquisitions.” We at VentureBeat stand for brutal honesty, however, and prefer to call them what they are: “engineers who need jobs.”

This post originally appeared on VentureBeat.

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See Also:

• Twitter's US Growth Has Stalled -- And It's Still Smaller Than The Huffington Post
• Twitter Advertising Going Self-Serve
• Stephen Colbert "Won Twitter" With Most Retweeted Tweet Of 2010

How Twitter Acquires People

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Google Acquires Widevine DRM Sreaming Video Provider

Google announced it has acquired "Widevine," a Seattle-based company that has focused on DRM and security for streaming internet media for the last decade.

Google Acquires Widevine DRM Sreaming Video Provider

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Zynga Acquires Mobile Game Developer Newtoy

Zynga's acquisition spree continued this morning as the company snapped up Texas-based mobile game developer Newtoy, which creates the popular With Friends franchise of games for the iPhone.

Zynga has bought seven companies in the last seven months, and is looking to Newtoy to improve its already impressive mobile gaming story. Zynga mobile chief David Ko claims that more than 10 million users per month are accessing Zynga games on mobile devices, and Newtoy's games are among the most popular social games on the iPhone and iPad today--Words With Friends has been downloaded more than 12 million times.

Newtoy has 23 employees, and earned money from a combination of advertising and paid versions of its apps. The companies didn't discuss financial details like Newtoy's revenue or the acquisition price.

Our notes from the press call are below:

12:36ET: OK, we're finally underway. The host is the senior vice president of mobile at Zynga, David Ko.

12:37: FarmVille on the iPhone has been a great indicator of massive demand. Been downloaded more than 7 million times in only 5 months. More than 10 million users per month are accessing Zynga games on mobile phones.

12:38: The news: Zynga has acquired Texas-based game developer Newtoy, developer of mobile social games like Words With Friends. It will become the Zynga With Friends Studio.

12:39: Ko says the Games With Friends franchise is the most popular game platform on the iPhone and iPad, with millions of active users per month.

12:41: Now Newtoy exec Paul Bettner is talking about meeting Mark Pincus and their shared mindset: they want to build games with "truly meaningful social experiences." 

12:43: That's it for the canned remarks, now we're moving into Q&A. Answering a question about popularity, they note that Words With Friends has been downloaded more than 12 million times on the iPhone and iPad.

12:46: Newtoy has only 23 employees. Also, virtual goods are coming soon, but they have nothing to announce today.

12:48: How will this affect existing Zynga games and Facebook, will there be cross-promotion with Newtoy now? Of course there will.

12:49: "Users now expect when you launch on the PC that they can access some of those things on mobile." So Zynga's PC games are still very popular, there's no slowdown, this is just an expansion to capitalize on the move to mobile.

12:50: Good question: how important is Newtoy to Zynga, and how important is mobile? What's the long-term importance of this?

12:52: Ko says that Words With Friends is one of the most social games available today, with the ability to compete with friends, very sticky. Zynga has 10 million people playing mobile games today, but it's not going to be mobile vs. PC in the future. It's just going to be a single game to play wherever you want.

12:53: Question about Newtoy's business model. Bettner says they've got paid versions and advertising-supported versions. They won't talk specifics on the call, though. That's a wrap.

 

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See Also:

• Zynga And Playdom Settle Contentious Lawsuit
• Zynga's first two games are live on Yahoo.
• Zynga Is "One Of The Most Evil Places I've Run Into," Says Ex-Employee

Zynga Acquires Mobile Game Developer Newtoy

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Tremor Media acquires Scanscout, making it the largest independent video ad network. Scanscout CEO Bill Day, formerl...

Tremor Media acquires Scanscout, making it the largest independent video ad network, with combined revenues of ~$100 million. Scanscout CEO Bill Day, formerly CEO of About.com, will run the company which hopes to IPO in the next 18 months.

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