8 posts and columns on acqhire

With 500-Shareholder Concerns Gone, Will Facebook Make Big Acquisitions?

in Social on January 7, 2011 at 1:14 pm PT

Now that Facebook is giving itself permission to have 500 or more shareholders, given it expects to go public next year, the company’s acquisitions team may get the go-ahead in 2011 to pursue larger and more complicated deals.

Zynga "Acqhires" Social Web Browser Maker Flock

in Commerce on January 5, 2011 at 6:13 pm PT

Zynga has acquired Flock, a five-year-old start-up based in Menlo Park, Calif., that was working on developing a Web browser.

Twitter Triples Team in One Year, Acqhires Q&A Start-Up

in Social on December 21, 2010 at 10:01 am PT

Twitter announced today it has acquired the talent behind Fluther, a Q&A start-up, in order to beef up its efforts to help users discover content. The company specifically said this is a talent acquisition of four engineers and one designer, and that the Fluther product will remain independent, though mostly unmaintained.

Facebook Acqhirees Make a Quick Mark on Its Products

in Social on November 23, 2010 at 5:00 am PT

Facebook has a well-defined M&A strategy of bringing in talent from young, small companies and shutting down their products. But there’s also a pattern emerging for what happens to that talent. Acqhired CEOs hold prominent roles on Facebook’s product team; nearly every recent Facebook product launch seems to have been introduced by an acqhired employee.

News Corp. Adds Making Fun to Social Games Group

in Media on November 5, 2010 at 6:27 am PT

Most of the big media companies have big stakes in digital games, except News Corp. But Rupert Murdoch’s company is trying to catch up–without spending a lot of money.

News Byte

Facebook Acquires Some Location Experts With Nextstop Buy

in Media on July 8, 2010 at 1:36 pm PT

Facebook’s location service, long reported to be in the works, has yet to show up. But if and when it does, perhaps the folks at Nextstop will end up working on it. Facebook has bought the two-year-old San Francisco-based start-up, which lets users share tips about things to do and places to go (like Foursquare, sorta kinda). Nextstop will shut down its existing site in September.

RealNetworks Wants a Convergence Play–Just Like Everyone Else

in Media on January 4, 2010 at 3:30 am PT

RealNetworks figures you’re going to want to move your entertainment off the Web and onto whatever device you want, whenever you want. So do a lot of competitors.
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Why Buy When You Can Hire? Time Warner Cable Gets a Joost Guy.

in Media on September 4, 2009 at 9:40 am PT

What happens to a start-up whose business never materializes? One option is to try to peddle the company based on the value of its human capital–aka the “acqhire.” Or would-be employers can simply wait for the start-up to flame out, then pick up the people they want on an a-la-carte basis. Did that just happen with Time Warner Cable and former Joost CTO Jason Gaedtke?
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