Falk eSolutions AG, a global provider of online advertising delivery and marketing management solutions, based in Germany, announces agreement to be acquired by DoubleClick Inc., a leading global provider of digital advertising technology and services for marketers, ad agencies and web publishers.

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Jupitermedia Corporation (Nasdaq: JUPM) yesterday announced that its Jupiterimages division has acquired France-based Stock Image S.A.S for around U.S. $11.1 million in cash. Stock Image is a leading resource for rights-managed images through its Stock Image brand and royalty-free images through its Pixland brand.

“With the addition of these high-end French and European styled rights-managed and royalty-free images from Stock Image and Pixland, Jupiterimages has further expanded its diverse range of image offerings. Combined with our recent acquisitions of Agence Images, a leading distributor of rights-managed images in France, PR Direct, a leading distributor of royalty-free images in France, and Goodshoot, a leading resource of royalty-free images located in France, Jupiterimages is now one of the largest organizations in the important French image market,” stated Alan M. Meckler, Chairman and CEO of Jupitermedia Corporation. “We are pleased that Michel Rawicki, founder of Stock Image, will continue to provide world-class imagery for Stock Image and Jupiterimages through an ongoing production agreement. We anticipate significant marketing and business synergies between Stock Image and our Jupiterimages division. We expect that this acquisition will be accretive to our earnings and cash flows,” added Meckler.

Recently, Jupitermedia Corporation invested in a very popular free stock photo web site located in Hungary called Stock.xchng. They bought a stake in a little bit more than 49% of the company.

Jupitermedia Corporation is owner of several high-profile web sites like internet.com and their new strategy is to focus on stock photo business. They already have a large network of royalty free photo services.

Does this mean that they are going to be the next Microsoft, only for photos?

According to adult magazine xbiz.com, controversial domain name, sex.com, the world’s probably most interesting domain, has been sold to Boston-based Escom LLC for $14 million! On CNN, reported price was $12 million. Anyway, this is for the Guinness World of Records!

This is interesting release by well-known company, one of the oldest venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners where they admitted their biggest mistakes and lost chances. This is one more proof that even professionals make mistakes.

http://bvp.com/port/anti.asp

There were two interesting acquisitions several days ago. Yahoo! purchased Webjay, social networking company that enables users to make and share music playlists, and AOL bought video search engine Truveo.

Who made the best acquisitions in 2005? Is it Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft? It is interesting how much buzz these companies make in blogosphere because they are 3 biggest players in Internet business. SEO by the SEA has made nice compilation of acquisitions made by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

One of the companies which Google bought was DodgeBall, social networking site, very important area for Google Local strategy. Also, Urchin Software is now Google Analytics.

Google:

Android

Akwan Information Technologies

Dodgeball

Urchin Software

Yahoo! was more oriented to so called Web 2.0 services and tags and bought Flickr that is highly popular photo community service, del.icio.us and upcomming.org, then blo.gs, Dialpad was bought because Yahoo have started offering VOIP, Alibaba was bought to strenghten their Chinese dominance

Yahoo! didn’t only buy companies that have good profits. On the contrary, some companies like del.icio.us didn’t even have any profits but they have big customer base and know-how.

Yahoo:

Ludicorp Research & Development Ltd (Flickr)

TeRespondo

Dialpad

blo.gs

Pixoria (Konfabulator)

Alibaba

upcoming.org

WhereOnEarth Unlimited

Del.icio.us

Verdisoft

Stadeon, Inc.

Microsoft with Ray Ozzie started their Live strategy to compete with Google. The most important acquisition that Microsoft made in 2005. was buying Groove Networks. Groove Networks CEO is now Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie and he is the key player in bringing Microsoft more web oriented with offering web services.

Microsoft:

FolderShare

media-streams.com AG

Teleo Inc.

FrontBridge Technologies

Groove Networks Inc.

Sybari Software Inc.