WebMediaBrands Snaps Up Social Times
- by Mark Walsh @markfwal, December 13, 2009
After starting AllFacebook in 2007, focused on covering all things Facebook, founder Nick O'Neill subsequently launched SocialTimes.com to track the social media space more broadly. In addition to the two blogs, the company runs an annual conference -- Social Ad Summit -- and a social media training program called New Media School.
For WebMediaBrands, best known as the owner of Mediabistro, the deal marks a bigger step into the burgeoning social media business. "Social Times is a terrific acquisition for WebMediaBrands because it adds two dynamic blogs to our growing media blog network, an important tradeshow to our events portfolio, and another dimension to our fast-growing online education operations," said the company's ever wheeling-and-dealing CEO, Alan M. Meckler, in a statement.
Publicly traded WebMediaBrands also operates online educational service LearnNetwork; Freelance Connect, a new offering that lets employers bid on the services of skilled freelancers; and the blog Semantic Web. The company last month completed its sale of business-to-business site Internet.com to QuinStreet Inc. for $18 million.
WebMediaBrands reported third-quarter revenues from continuing operations of $4.5 million, down from $7.6 million a year ago. It posted a loss of $4.6 million for the quarter compared to $21.8 million in the year-earlier period.
For his part, O'Neill plans to expand staff and operations at Social Times in connection with the acquisition. "Over the coming weeks and months you should see a number of new writers posting on our sites, new event announcements, and possibly some new websites as well. The bottom line is we're dedicated to covering the entire social web economy," he wrote in a blog post.
As of November, AllFacebook.com had monthly traffic of 225,000 -- about 10 times that of SocialTimes.com, according to Web measurement firm Compete.
