Mergers & Acquisitions, Internet | featured news

Well that didn't take long. Just four days in 2010 and we already have an acquisition. Social networking application Seesmic has acquired the social status updater Ping.fm.

The move positions the various Seesmic applications (web, desktop, and mobile) to be able to update some 50 social networks very easily.

Is Google simply buying its way into the mobile advertising market via its $750 million acquisition of AdMob? That’s what two consumer groups allege in a letter sent to the FTC today, as the organization continues to review the deal.

Search giant's reported plans to acquire the local-listings service may face difficulties, with regulators attuned to its established dominance of the Internet-search and advertising markets, observers say.

Last month Skype was in talks to acquire VoIP startup Gizmo5. It was a perfect backup plan in case all that IP litigation didn't work out.

Lots more details are coming in on the Photobucket fire sale by MySpace/News Corp. The sale is all but complete, say new sources.

Bloomberg is buying BusinessWeek in a deal that brings together a financial news service specializing in rapid-fire updates with a print publication struggling to adapt to the Internet.

MSNBC.com just announced that it has acquired EveryBlock, a 'hyperlocal' news and information site that has been publishing and aggregating data and news stories for 16 American cities for the last two years.

MySpace is close to acquiring popular social music service iLike, we've confirmed with multiple sources. The deal, which should close this week, will be MySpace's first acquisition since new CEO Owen Van Natta took control of the company in April 2009.

Everyone is obviously talking about the Facebook/FriendFeed deal, but everyone wants to know one key detail: How much did Facebook pay?

As the media world's most powerful figures gather in Sun Valley, Idaho to discuss the state of the industry the topics are likely to range far and wide. But aside from subjects like the economy and the influence of the internet, one question is likely to dominate conversations among the event's moguls and millionaires: will anyone broker a deal to buy Twitter?