A few months ago, Doug McIntyre at 24/7 Wall Street published a list of the top blog acquisition targets, along with potential valuations. The list was fairly comprehensive and already, two of the companies have been picked off - Ars Technica by Conde Nast and PaidContent by the Guardian.
Now, 24/7 is back and they're taking the list to a new level, trying to act as matchmakers. The new list, which adds a few new blogs, proposes likely acquirers for each target. For example:
- Huffington Post to the Washington Post
- Gawker to Time Warner (People/TMZ)
- Perez Hilton to Viacom/MTV
- Seeking Alpha to MSN/Money
The full list is on the 24/7 Wall Street site. I continue to expect that the second half of this year will bring at least 3-4 more blog acquisitions. B2B blogs are the new trade magazines but without the traditional cost structure. I think it's likely that TechCrunch, GigaOm and Mashable will be acquired soon with financial blogs not far behind. The political blogs like HuffPo, Talking Points Memo and Drudge would be well-served to shop themselves right now as political interest heats up. I'd guess their values will drop by a quarter or more after inauguration day.
