• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, April 14, 2006

Think Partnership, a publicly traded provider of on- and off-line marketing and ad services, said Thursday it had agred to purchase IceRocket, billionaire Mark Cuban's blog search engine. The deal appears likely to close within 60 days, judging by statements made by both parties. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

The two-year-old Dallas, Tex.-based IceRocket is co-owned by Cuban and Blake Rhodes, the company's CEO who is expected to remain on following the acquisition. "We have spent significant time evaluating many opportunities within the interactive marketing and advertising space, and have concluded that Think Partnership was clearly positioned as one of the premier companies in our market," Rhodes said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Think Partnership acquired Litmus Media for about $13 million, and is presently incorporating Litmus' pay-per-click search ad network, click fraud prevention and shopping cart abandonment tools into its portfolio of Web companies. Litmus runs the ValidClick Search Network, which serves pay-per-click search ads, local search advertising, shopping comparison and coupon content to search engines and Web directories.

One likely outcome of the acquisition will be the tying of Think Partnership's affiliate ad resources to IceRocket's blog network--a potential threat to Google's AdSense network and more niche blog ad networks.

The deal's closing is contingent on mutual due diligence investigations of IceRocket and Think Partnership, an amendment to Think Partnership's loan agreement with Wachovia Bank, and Board of Director approvals, among other conditions, according to Think Partnership spokesman Xavier Hermosillo.