Hyperlocal media becoming popular M&A targets

Posted by Erina Lin on January 6, 2010 at 3:16 PM

Today's media industry has been shuffling, while traditional print is facing challenges, Web sites that report news and also carry content in the neighborhoud, or "hyperlocal" level, are prosperous, and becoming major M&A targets, The Deal reported.

Google Inc., in December, tried a US$550 million bid to buy Yelp Inc., a user-generated review site, though it failed. In 2009, MSNBC.com purchased EveryBlock.com for undisclosed terms, while AOL Inc. bought Patch Media Corp. and Going Inc.

Meanwhile, many of the hyperlocal start-ups got funds last year. In December, Outside.in Inc., which aggregates blogs and other local content, announced to close a $7 million funding, with participation from Turner Broadcasting System Inc. As part of the deal, CNN.com will utilise Outside.in's tools to enhance hyperlocal news across all of its sites.

Over the summer, FourSquare Labs Inc., a firm encourages people to share information of local restaurants and businesses via mobile phones, got a $1.35 million funding from Union Square and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.

Twitter also notice the increasing importance of hyperlocal, it announced in August that it would soon add features to detect and display the location when users tweet, according to The Deal.