• The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, May 9, 2007 10:33 AM

Spring is in the air, and so are mergers and acquisitions. StumbleUpon, the Web site that helps consumers stumble upon content they might like on a variety of Web sites, is in "advanced talks" to become a part of the eBay empire. Unnamed sources said the company's fetching price is around $75 million, but that a deal was far from certain.

EBay's interest in the company raise an interesting about where the online auctioneer thinks its going. StumbleUpon is in the content business, while eBay is in the e-commerce/communications business. Following its $292 million purchase of the online ticket-seller StubHub, CEO Meg Whitman said eBay would be on the M&A hunt: "To the extent that we feel acquisitions are strategically on target for eBay -- if they're priced right, and we think we can find synergies and add value ..." she said.

It might not be immediately obvious how StumbleUpon fits that bill, but the addition of a site in which users offer information about their interests could be infinitely useful in the sale of ads across eBay's network. The data could also be used to help eBay products find people on the auction site rather than the other way around.

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