Scripps Networks Buys Incando For Social Networking

Bolstering its capabilities in user-generated content, Scripps Networks has acquired Incando Corporation, a provider of social networking and content sharing tools online.

Incando is known for its personal media-sharing service Pickle.com and the user-generated content management platform Powered by Pickle, which allows for the speedy uploads of photos and videos from consumers' computers, mobile phones and digital cameras.

Marking the company's second digital media buy in under a month, Scripps Networks just acquired Recipezaar.com, a user-generated recipe and community site with some 230,000 recipes.

Long considered an afterthought, the "content" a publisher's community can generate has emerged as a highly valued commodity, according to Deanna Brown, president of Scripps Networks Interactive Group.

"It's becoming clear that consumers have an appetite for both the professional guidance," Brown said, "as well as the insights and sensibilities they can get from the user-generated experience."

Within the next few years, Scripps Networks expects as much as 50% of its online content to be co-created by its users. "User-generated content is the perfect complement to the authoritative resources currently provided by our brands," Brown added.

Ron Feinbaum, executive vice president of new business development for Scripps Networks, negotiated the deal with Incando as one of several acquisitions the multimedia company is considering.

Founded in 2005, Incando is the brainchild of John Funge and Leo Scott. The two will now will join the Scripps Networks Interactive Group, headed by Brown, to lead the integration of their technology across all of Scripps Networks' online properties.

E.W. Scripps' online divisions have performed well this past year. In the second quarter, online revenue at Scripps Networks--HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, among other brands--increased 26% to $19.4 million. Online revenue at Scripps' newspaper unit, meanwhile, increased 25% to $10.7 million.

CPMs for the company's broadband outlets--which include HGTV--have been in the $30-$35 range, versus $15-$18 for a more traditional Internet banner presence.

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