Friday, May 18, 2007 - Posts

Popfly

Microsoft releases neat mashup tool

Popfly is the fun, easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, Web pages, and applications. Popfly consists of two parts:

1 Popfly Creator is a set of online visual tools for building Web pages and mashups.

2 Popfly Space is an online community of creators where you can host, share, rate, comment and even remix creations from other Popfly users.

Silverlight is shining bright.
Now Rory has a Popfly video up on Channel9

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Microsoft Online Advertising

Microsoft to Acquire aQuantive, Inc.

Microsoft just announced they are acquiring aQuantive, Inc., for $66.50 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $6 billion.

The advertising industry is evolving and growing at an incredible pace, moving increasingly toward online and IP-served platforms, which dramatically increases the importance of software for this industry. .Today’s announcement represents the next step in the evolution of our ad network from our initial investment in MSN, to the broader Microsoft network including Xbox Live, Windows Live and Office Live, and now to the full capacity of the Internet. Microsoft is intensely committed to creating a thriving advertising business and to partnering closely with all key constituencies in this industry to help maximize the digital advertising opportunity for all. - Steve Ballmer

This acquisition into digital media, aQuantive is the parent of Atlas, DRIVEpm and Avenue A | Razorfish doesn't say much about Steve's confidence in the Online Services Group.

I spoke to Steve Berkowitz, the VP of Microsoft's Online Services Group several weeks ago in New York about placing ads from Microsoft on community blogs, he said we want to do it right and we're not ready yet.

$66.50 a share for aQuantive when they were at $35.87 just yesterday! $6 billion is twice the price Google paid for DoubleClick and is by far the largest acquisition in Microsoft's short history.

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