] HipMojo.com » Top 10 Best Internet Acquisitions of All Time

Top 10 Best Internet Acquisitions of All Time

After reading the Top 10 Worst Internet Acquisitions, Part 1 and Part 2, I could not help but come up with this list and offer you the following ten “best” Internet acquisitions of all time.

Criteria:

- My background and experience lies in search, video and online advertising, so naturally there is a skew there.
- Expensive is relative, but not overpaying is a major criteria.
- People matter in all deals, so a good “acq-hire” is sometimes worth more than a deal that is accretive to earnings.
- Take out a competition?  Always good!
- Buy low, sell high?  We’re impressed.
- Allows parent / acquirer to enter a whole new market with one deal?  You have our attention.
- We’re avoiding partial acquisitions, otherwise Google’s 5% investment in AOL for $1B would be high on this list, for defensive purposes.
- Also, we will try to avoid speculation: ie. YouTube/Google is way too young to really be judged.
- To avoid a disclosure-laced post, all disclaimers, FYI, etc. are posted at the end.
- Last but not least: like with all lists, I am sure I am forgetting a big one, so feel free to comment; as with all posts, comments are open but moderated to avoid for spam… I’ll check in later and approve everything that is not spam: good, bad and ugly.

Go to the first one HERE.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |
Posted By: Ashkan Karbasfrooshan | Nov 24th

22 Responses to “Top 10 Best Internet Acquisitions of All Time”

  1. Howard Lindzon » Top Ten Internet Acquisitions continued… Says:
    November 24th, 2006 at 7:08 pm

    […] Ashkan at WatchMojo just blogged his 10 best Internet Acquisitions of All Time . I agree with most of them. […]

  2. Pramit Says:
    November 25th, 2006 at 12:18 am

    Microsoft bought Hotmail- not a good choice. What did Microsoft get out of the deal?

  3. Glen Says:
    November 25th, 2006 at 12:46 am

    MSN buying Hotmail was also a big win for Channel Nine (owned by Kerry Packer) here in Australia. Whenever someone logged off in Australia from Hotmail they’d end up at www.ninemsn.com.au

    Which in turn gave them bragging rights at being the number one portal in Australia.

    Not that anyone went there on purpose, but that’s besides the fact.

  4. Everton Says:
    November 25th, 2006 at 5:06 am

    Microsoft/Hotmail appeared in the worst 10…..

  5. PULSE 2.0 » Blog Archive » The Direction that Zune is Taking Microsoft Says:
    November 25th, 2006 at 5:10 am

    […] Before I continue about the Zune, I’d like to remind you about the 1998 acquisition that Microsoft made of Sabeer Bhatia’s Hotmail.com and what it did for Microsoft.  Some people list Hotmail as being part of the top 10 worst Internet acquisitions to take place, but HipMojo placed this acquisition as one of the top 10 Internet acquisitions to take place. […]

  6. Verio Staff Says:
    November 25th, 2006 at 9:05 am

    You’ve left out the grand-daddy of them all. Summer of 2000, NTT Communications aquired Verio for $5.5 billion.

  7. Kevin Price Says:
    November 25th, 2006 at 10:13 am

    Great blog and I couldn’t agree with you more. I think the jury is out on YouTube with all of the copyright issues involved. Although I think MySpace is a fantastic purchase, it is going to have to be handled very carefully, as I pointed out in a recent blog entry (http://houstonbusinessdaily.blogspot.com/2006/11/so-will-myspace-be-good-deal-in-long.html0. Keep up the great work!

  8. BP Says:
    November 25th, 2006 at 11:30 am

    What about AOL acquiring ICQ for about $350 million to protect AIM?

  9. Howard Owens Says:
    November 25th, 2006 at 1:44 pm

    What about Scripps acquiring Shopzilla?

  10. dave mcclure Says:
    November 25th, 2006 at 2:07 pm

    hmm… i think i’d score this differently by looking at what the acquiring company got out of these deals, rather than simply just straightup ROI.

    my top 3 would look like this:
    1) Yahoo acquires Overture
    2) eBay acquires PayPal
    3) Fox/NewsCorp acquires MySpace

    in particular, Yahoo would be completely dead meat today if they hadn’t acquired Overture — that deal basically made the company’s revenues you see today. while many (including me) complaid about Yahoo not pulling the trigger fast enough on other deals lately (eg, Facebook), this one deal saved their bacon for at least the first decade of the century.

    as you noted above, the PayPal deal similarly saved eBay’s ass… this was not quite as apparent when the deal occurred as it was today. in hindsight, eBay bought PayPal for a song — that $1.5B probably accounts today for perhaps 1/3 of eBay’s revenue, likely more of its growth, and i think you could argue at least $10B of its market cap. eBay’s stock went on a tear for the first 2-3 years after the acquisition — and as a PayPal employee, i certainly enjoyed that ride. now that eBay’s marketplace growth has slowed dramatically, PayPal is the only real engine keeping the eBay train running.

    lastly, while i agree MySpace was a terrific deal for Fox & NewsCorp, and also put Fox on the map as an Internet player, at the moment it has yet to prove itself in terms of revenue payoff. the Google advertising deal was worth close to $1B, and Rupert said the company could be worth up to $6B, but i’d still say the jury’s out on just how good this deal will end up for them. if they get all the revenue potential it promises, then i’d upgrade it to #1.

    my .02,

    - dave mcclure
    http://500hats.typepad.com

    if you look i’d say Yahoo acquiring Overture should

  11. Niall Wordsmith Says:
    November 25th, 2006 at 7:18 pm

    Overture may have been a good aquisition, except Yahoo squandered it. And you forget that 1 year prior to Yahoo’s acquisition of Inktomi, Ask Jeeves bought Teoma for only $4 million. Amazing how in front of things Jeeves consistently was.

    In terms of About, just because About was selling to the others doesn’t mean they were interested. It was very highly priced relative to traffic and revenue.

  12. Darren Herman Says:
    November 26th, 2006 at 12:03 pm

    A very good recap! Well done.

  13. Mike Effle Says:
    November 26th, 2006 at 7:53 pm

    How could Google’s acquisition of Applied Semantics, the original technology behind AdSense, be off the list? A $100MM acquisition that contributes how much revenue a quarter? Plus the publisher externality and viral growth/branding engine. That’s gotta be in the top 10 of any list.

  14. froosh Says:
    November 26th, 2006 at 8:08 pm

    Mike,

    I try to avoid replying to posts because lists are meant to be criticized and subjective no matter who writes them and in what media they are published.

    But your mention of Applied Semantics is a great one.

    In our research, the Google acquisition of Applied Semantics was in the running. But further research highlighted a few things: Sprinks had a similar contextual IP going and was being used in Primedia’s network. By acquiring it in October 2003, Google effectively consolidated the space.

    As well, Google bought Applied Semantics in April 2003 after looking at up to 10 players in the space. This is a bit why Advertising.com’s deal to AOL did not place higher (there were a lot of options for the buyer to accomplish roughly the same thing).

    The buyout of Sprinks, immediate deal with Primedia, the subsequent shutdown of Sprinks right before going IPO was an acquisition out of this world, in our humble opinion.

    Also, as recently as Google’s first earnings report, the bulk of Google’s revenue came on its Google property and not on sites it powered search for or sites that carried Google’s Ad Sense.

    Regards

    Ash

  15. 不要变卦 Says:
    November 28th, 2006 at 9:49 pm

    Top 10 Best High Tech / Web Stocks of All Time (Past, Present and Future)

    It’s hard to keep the hits coming. We’re talking about stocks and investor relations, of course, but that applies to many things.

    After we penned our Top 10 Best Web Acquisitions, we knew we had to think of something better for our next Top 10 li…

  16. Mi otro blog… » Blog Archive » Otra lista de las 10 peores adquisiciones en Internet y una de las 10 mejores Says:
    November 30th, 2006 at 1:14 pm

    […] Por otra parte, en el blog HipMojo no sólo han comentado la lista de la que se habló la semana pasada, sino que además se ha publicado una lista de las 10 mejores adquisiciones (aunque pueda resultar raro que Overture -incluida en una de las listas de peores adquisiciones- aparezca aquí como una de las mejores adquisiciones, no lo es si leéis los artículos originales, pues las justificaciones se refieren a instantes temporales distintos): 11. (Mención de honor) Yoyodyne adquirida por Yahoo! […]

  17. Matt McAlister » Top 10 Top 10 Lists for 2006 Says:
    December 22nd, 2006 at 3:09 pm

    […] 1. And the winner is…wait, we have a tie… Using rule #2 from the Top 10 Rules for Top 10 Lists which says “Start strong, end strong.”… At number one we have both the Top 10 Best Internet Acquisitions which was inspired by the Top 10 Internet Flops. […]

  18. GR8List.com » Top 10 Best Internet Acquisitions of All Time Says:
    February 6th, 2007 at 11:16 pm

    […] From HipMojo.com, the ten “best” Internet acquisitions of all time. Read the full article… […]

  19. HipMojo.com » 2009: The Year in Social Networking Says:
    December 24th, 2008 at 7:27 pm

    […] So while companies like Hotmail and ICQ sold for a tidy sum (we actually put both sales on our Top 10 Best Web M&A list), we don’t think it justifies the exorbitant sums of VC money raised for the space.  Why?  […]

  20. HipMojo.com » Twitter Captures The Conflicts Between Executives and Shareholders Says:
    March 17th, 2009 at 9:20 am

    […] Still, an interesting debate.   For more on M&As, check out our own list of top 10 best Web M&As here. […]

  21. HipMojo.com » Will the Web Shrink TV as Much as It Shrank Print? Yes. Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 11:18 am

    […] the NYT paid $410M for About.com back in 2005.  We put that deal in the Top 10 best Internet M&A deals… but right now, I am not sure what can save the […]

  22. HipMojo.com » Is YouTube a Failure? Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 9:40 am

    […] November 2006 (so less than a couple of months after Google bought YouTube), I wrote a list on the Top 10 best Web acquisitions of all-time.  I did not include YouTube’s sale to Google, not because it was good or bad, but because it […]

Subscribe:


Leave a Reply

*
To prove that you're not a bot, enter this code
Anti-Spam Image

Subscribe:


« « previous post | next post » »
Admin

Shortcut:
HipMojo.com

Subscribe:

Search Site:

Categories:

Archives:

Blogroll: