Complete List of Q3 2008 Web, Internet and Tech Acquisitions

Our big news in acquisitions this past quarter comes straight from our own office. PartnerUp was acquired by Deluxe Corporation back in July, so we’re pretty excited to be able to add our own name to the Q3 list.

As for the rest of the M&A activity this past quarter, things have been cooling down. While Q2 saw a substantial increase in the number of total tech acquisitions with 41, Q3 ended with a mere 24 acquisitions—quite a nose dive from last quarter. The drastic reduction in activity is likely a direct effect of the current economic climate and weakening of the finance industry.

Here are a few of the highlights from Q3:

Web/Internet remained the largest category with 16 of the 24 acquisitions falling in this category.
The largest acquisition was NBC Universal’s purchase of the Weather Channel for $3.5 billion.
Twelve of the 24 acquisitions disclosed their sale price, the total of which came to $4.957 billion.
The average disclosed price was $413 million. Excluding the Weather Channel acquisition, the average disclosed price was $132.5 million.

We’d also like to say thanks to all the great blogs out there (TechCrunch, GigaOM, Mashable, VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb and more) whose frequent tracking of acquisitions makes this list possible.

If you know of any mergers or acquisitions that we’ve missed from Q3, please leave a comment on this post and we’ll update accordingly.

Web/Internet Companies Acquired in Q3 2008

Acquired	Acquirer	Acquisition cost	Details
Powerset	Microsoft	$100 Million	Powerset is a semantic search engine.Press Release \| TechCrunch ReadWriteWeb VentureBeat
Weather Channel	NBC Universal	$3.5 Billion	Weather Channel is the premier destination on television and the web for weather forecasts. Mashable \| CNN Forbes
HaloScan	JS-Kit	Undisclosed	HaloScan is one of the largest hosted comments service providers.Press Release \| TechCrunch \| VentureBeat Mashable
Imagekind	CaféPress	$20 Million	Imagekind is a site that allows artists to upload and sell framed prints of their pieces, and also allows users to purchase one-off prints of their own images.TechCrunch \| VentureBeat CenterNetworks
Truemors	NowPublic	undisclosed	Truemors is a rumor website launched by Guy Kawasaki. Press Release \| TechCrunch \| Marketwatch
ContentNextMedia	Guardian Media Group	$30 Million	ContentNext is an independent media and information company. Press Release \| TechCrunch \| BNet
PodTech	ViewPartner	$500 K	PodTech publishes online and downloadable videos about new technology. VentureBeat \| CenterNetworks
jkOnTheRun	GigaOm	undisclosed	jkOnTheRun is a mobile focused blog. TechCrunch GigaOm Official Blog
Omnisio	Google	unidsclosed	Omnisio is a service that lets users annotate videos, mash various clips up and synchronize Slideshare presentations. TechCrunch \| ReadWriteWeb Official Blog
AbeBooks	Amazon	undisclosed	AbeBooks is an online marketplace for rare out of print books. Press Release \| TechCrunch \| CenterNetworks
DailyCandy	Comcast	$125 Million	DailyCandy is a newsletter service that caters to women. TechCrunch \| AlleyInsider VentureBeat
Blogcritics	Technorati	undisclosed	Blogcritics is a blog network company founded by Eric Olsen. Official Blog TechCrunch \| CNet
Ciao (Greenfield Online)	Microsoft	$486 Million	Ciao is a European Comparison Shopping Site. TechCrunch Mahsable InformationWeek
social.im	iSkoot	undisclosed	scoial.im is an instant messaging client for Facebook. Press Release \| VentureBeat \| TechCrunch
Peerflix	LiveUniverse	undisclosed	Peerflix is a dvd trading company. TechCrunch \| PaidContent
Napster	BestBuy	$121 Million	Napster is an on demand music subscription service. Press Release \| TechCrunch \| Mashable ReadWriteWeb

Social Networking Companies Acquired in Q3 of 2008

Acquired	Acquirer	Acquisition cost	Details
YoVille	Zynga	undisclosed	YoVille is a popular virtual world Facebook App.Press Release \| TechCrunch
PartnerUp	Deluxe	undisclosed	PartnerUp is a social network for small business owners and entrepreneurs.. Press Release \| VentureBeat CenterNetworks Official Blog
Socialthing!	AOL	undisclosed	Socialthing! Is a lifestreaming service that competed with FriendFeed. Press Release \| TechCrunch \| CNet

Internet Advertising Companies Acquired in Q3 of 2008

Acquired	Acquirer	Acquisition cost	Details
ZAO Begun	Google	$140 Million	ZAO Begun is a contextual advertising company. TechCrunch VentureBeat CNet

Software Companies Acquired in Q3 of 2008

Acquired	Acquirer	Acquisition cost	Details
Jabber	Cisco	undisclosed	Jabber is an open source IM technology. Press Release \|AlleyInsider \| BNEt
Pure Networks	Cisco	$120 Million	Pure Networks makes home networking software.Press Release \| TechCrunch \| CNet

Voice Companies Acquired in Q3 of 2008

Acquired	Acquirer	Acquisition cost	Details
Ribbit	British Telecom	$105 Million	Ribbit is a platform for creating voice-based applications over the Internet. TechCrunch \| GigaOm
PostPath	Cisco	$215 Million	PostPath is a linux based e-mail service. PressRelease TechCrunch \| CNet

Hardware Companies Acquired in Q2 of 2008

Acquired	Acquirer	Acquisition cost	Details

A brief disclaimer: We’ve tried hard to ensure that all of the information above is accurate, but it is very likely that we’ve made a few typos and mistakes. If you catch an error, please post a comment and we’ll do our best to research and correct it. We’re not responsible for the accuracy of the above information and it should not be relied upon.