Internet, Acquisition | featured news

The parent company of GoDaddy.com, a top registrar of Internet domain names, has been sold to a group of private investment firms for $2.25 billion, a person familiar with the transaction told The Associated Press.

MySpace, bought by the News Corporation six years ago for $580 million, has been sold to Specific Media for about $35 million, two executives with knowledge of the sale said Wednesday.

Yahoo Inc. recently approached Hulu to discuss a possible acquisition of the popular online video service, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

An investor group has emerged as a frontrunner in negotiations with News Corp. to take control of Myspace, as the media company rushes to complete a transaction by June 30.

Twitter has bought TweetDeck, the desktop and mobile application for organising tweets in handy columns, for more than $40 million in a cash and stock deal, CNN Money reports citing sources close to the deal. But there’s no confirmation from either player in this game: “For all those who might be curious, we continue not to comment on rumors,” Twitter’s global PR account tweeted earlier this morning. There were no tweets at all on the matter from TweetDeck founder Iain Dodsworth.

Allstate agreed to buy auto insurer Esurance and insurance agency Answer Financial from White Mountains Insurance Group for about $1 billion to expand its online presence.

The acquisition, an effort to gain a foothold in voice and video communications, would be Microsoft’s largest ever.

News Corp's IGN gaming and entertainment property has just acquired Hearst's gaming and entertainment property UGO, we've confirmed with the company. And yes, the move is step one towards News Corp. spinning out IGN as its own property sometime relatively soon, we're told.

Mark Zuckerberg is eyeing the takeover of the much popular Skype, in a deal that might cost Facebook close to $4 billion.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group said it had struck an agreement to buy Flixster, the parent company of Rotten Tomatoes, a website that analyzes movie reviews, awarding films a given number of tomatoes.