Acquisitions

It’s strange how the Internet changes every day and changes our lives too. It’s become a place for business, for finding information, meeting friends, or advertise whatever you want to sell. It’s also a place where idealists meet and come up with new ways to make this world a better place. Such a man is Jim Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, an encyclopedia with articles written and edited by a community of volunteers and is therefore, free. Wales now intends to release a search engine also based on a community’s input, because he thinks the results from this type of site selection would be much more relevant. He wants the engine to be called Search Wikia and has already employed the help of people like Jeremie Miller, the creator of Jabber, to create a platform for different search engines to work together. It’s not sure whether Wikia is intended to be specialized in certain areas, or will deliver general results, and it’s also unclear how Mr. Wales will keep the results correct and relevant, or how many people will be interested in taking the time to review hundreds of millions of websites. Because the founder’s ambition is high: he wants to rival Google, so he needs many results for each search. Still, he is aware that this type of endeavor will take a while to become popular and that it won’t be of much importance from the beginning. Wikia will be released in the fourth quarter of this year and has recently acquired its very own Web crawler called Grub from LookSmart Ltd.

related story: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,135171-c,searchengines/article.html

by Corina Ciubotaru for SigEx Telecom (http://sigex.com)

SigEx Telecom is quickly becoming the leading telebroadcasting communications provider allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share video clips through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, websites, blogs, video-mails and SMS. SigEx Telecom captures many add-on services for its clients generating royalties and fees in a broad spectrum of marketing services including public relations and promotions.

The Dutch navigation system, TomTom announced on Monday that it intends to acquire it's main digital map dealer Tele Atlas for two billion euros. TomTom is the world's largest maker of car navigation devices and for Tele Atlas this deal will mean more market share in the US. People say and I've seen it for myself, that if in Europe you make 3-4 right turns you are totally lost, while in New York or other American cities you are in the same spot. Marina Wyatt, financial executive at TomTom, declared an offer of 21,25 euro for each Tele Atlas stock, will be launched soon. The acquisition will ve financed by contracting credits but also cash. Tele Atlas offers maps and data for several digital cartography sites, including Google and Mapquest, and also produces navigation systems for some telephone producers, like Nokia for example. The chief executive at TomTom, Harold Goddijn, said that Tele Atlas will continue to offer maps for the TomTom navigation systems and for the other clients to. The navigation systems producer obtained in the second trimester a net profit of 68 million euros, compared to 38 million euros obtained in the same period an year before. TomTom sales have grown with 37 percent, up to 380 million euros. I think we will soon see TomTom and Tele Atlas taking over the US market because these are the kind of companies very attentive with details and customers, that personalize their services, offer quality services and know what success needs and means.

by Ana Maria Ciobanu for SigEx Telecom (http://sigex.com)

SigEx Telecom is quickly becoming the leading telebroadcasting communications provider allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share video clips through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, websites, blogs, video-mails and SMS. SigEx Telecom captures many add-on services for its clients generating royalties and fees in a broad spectrum of marketing services including public relations and promotions.

SunRocket Inc. used to be the second biggest U.S. supplier of Internet phone services. A few weeks ago it appeared to have shut down without notifying more than 200,000 clients. The customer service line offered costumers a short recorded message: “We are no longer taking customer service or sales calls. Goodbye.” SunRocket was formed in 2004 at attracted customers with the fee of $199 for unlimited phone calling for one year in Canada, USA and Puerto Rico. As I was looking for information about TeleBlend- a small Internet-phone service company based in Maine which entered the agreement to acquire certain strategic assets of the Vienna company I found a discussion on the Broadbandreports forum(http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/r18701325-Who-the-f-is-TeleBlend). People were furious. They were wondering who TeleBlend is and how can those guys imagine they will sign up for a contract with them, considering their web domain was only two days old and they were already sending emails on behalf of SunRocket to promote themselves. I find it hard to believe to because you don't need to much brains to see they don't look like a serious company. Even their slogan is copied. Remember "The future's bright, the future's Orange."?Well..."Change is good and with TeleBlend the future is brighter than ever." How does this sound you: "We have already been successful in getting your services restored and ready to go. Included is a special offer only available to SunRocket customers. Until the end of your annual contract, TeleBlend will give you the exact same services you know and love for only $12.95/month." Maybe they should do a little web searching and read the reactions they've caused and then revise their PR strategy because SunRocket clients won't buy it. I don't see why they should.

by Ana Maria Ciobanu for SigEx Ventures (http://sigexventures.com)

SigEx Ventures's matrix of properties are quickly becoming leaders in digital telebroadcasting, free content delivery allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, video blogs and SMS. SigEx Ventures invests in projects deploying "free" to add-on royalty revenue models

The House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection is investigating, The Federal Trade Commission is investigating and there is a terrible fuss around the entire matter. All this was caused by several privacy groups that filed complaint asking for the company to protect the privacy of online users. Although Google is hanging in and declared it is confident that the merge with DoubleClick will still take place, there are many opinions in favour of blocking the proposed acquisition, because it endangers indeed the competition market and also will prevent online advertising domination. Bobby Rush, the panel's chairman, will hold a hearing on the entire matter and will try to solve the problem that concerns everyone, but mostly Google. This issue is still pending and raises a lot of questions. I think that the merge will take place unless there are serious threatenings to users privacy. If Google assures that no one privacy will be violated, they won't have enough reasons to forbid the acquisition. For those who saw the movie "Citizen Kane", you probably know that the main character dominated the press industry and still nothing happened. So the hypotheses that the merge won't take place because it will dominate the market, doesn't seem to stand.Anyway, stay connected and see the end of the story. Enjoy your surf and watch out for viruses.

related story: http://news.carjunky.com/buying_tips/poor-credit-auto-buys-cde752.shtml

by Claudia Sonea for SigEx Ventures (http://sigexventures.com)

SigEx Ventures's matrix of properties are quickly becoming leaders in digital telebroadcasting, free content delivery allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, video blogs and SMS. SigEx Ventures invests in projects deploying "free" to add-on royalty revenue models

Everyone that’s even slightly tech savvy already knows about VoIP. Some even use it. It’s free, fast and feels like a step forward, something that sets users apart from regular people. But it has a disadvantage: if the connection fails, you’re out of touch with the world. Because of this, services like Vonage aren’t nearly as popular as they might be. The time of VoIP only calls seems to be far away. For now it’s time for Ooma! It’s a brand new telephone service that combines a landline and VoIP to let you make calls like never before. You have to connect your phone to the Ooma hub and you are free to call anyone you want without paying anything but your Internet bill. While Vonage only allows free calls to Canada and the USA for a subscription, Ooma lets users make international calls at prices not bigger than Skype’s without paying for anything more than the initial hub. This is the next step in telephony and a change which was to be expected given the development of Web 2.0 and the increasing integration of the Internet in our daily lives. An Ooma hub costs $399 and has a built-in answering machine which works just like a regular one: you can answer as the message is being recorded, listen to your messages etc. The landline I mentioned before is useful if the Internet connection is down for some reason and it’s optional; you can use it for emergencies if you have any.

related story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071900060.html

by Corina Ciubotaru for SigEx Telecom (http://sigex.com)

SigEx Telecom is quickly becoming the leading telebroadcasting communications provider allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share video clips through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, websites, blogs, video-mails and SMS. SigEx Telecom captures many add-on services for its clients generating royalties and fees in a broad spectrum of marketing services including public relations and promotions.