Orange Acquired Dailymotion For $168 Million By Buying Out Remaining 51% Stake [Update: Orange Confirms]

Back in January 2011, Orange acquired 49 percent of Dailymotion for $78 million (€59 million), and declared that they wanted to buy out the remaining 51 percent. But Dailymotion had to wait two years before further talks. By spending $80.6 million (€61 million) for the remaining stake, Orange acquired 100 percent of Dailymotion for $168 million (€127 million).

Rumors have been circulating for months that Orange was finally ready to up its stake. The confirmation comes from its earnings doc...

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AP Takes A Stake In Bambuser, The Real-Time Mobile Video Service That Helps Eyewitnesses Tell Their StoriesComments Off

Bambuser, the upstart mobile video service that has carved out a name for itself as a crucial tool for eyewitnesses to record and transmit footage of major events — be they political uprisings, bombings or a star sighting — is today announcing another step along the route to becoming a part and parcel of the traditional media world. It’s taking an investment from the Associated Press, the storied news organization that works with dozens of newspapers, websites and broadcasters to source and report on the news of the world. The exact amount has not been disclosed but Sandy MacIntyre, the AP’s global head of video news (who is also joining Bambuser’s board) says it is in the “mid six figures” and is more strategic about where the companies will go together in the longer term. This is the AP’s first investment in a video-based social media service. To be sure, this is not the AP’s first dalliance with Bambuser. The pair have actually been working together for the last three years, with AP reporters using Bambuser’s backend to record and then deliver video to its studios from the field; and also to source content from citizen journalists to bolster overall coverage. “At end of the day we are judged on being first and right so anything that helps us with the speed of delivery or accuracy through crowdsourcing, we will aggressively want to be in that space,” MacIntyre told TechCrunch. He notes that the decision was made to stay away from an outright purchase for now because this part of the news ecosystem is still “at an infant level.” “We are better doing this together with a startup company,” he adds. “They are experts in their space and doing a partnership makes more sense than trying to master that space ourselves.” Indeed, one of the big issues in traditional, big media companies is the inability to innovate and move fast enough to keep up with the pace of change; deals like these are one way of tackling that challenge. The plan will be to build out existing areas of coverage, but also to help Bambuser build out its bigger business model, effectively doing for other news organizations what it already does for the AP: creating a cost effective platform that can be used by reporting teams to both record and transmit video footage, and also help source footage that can

Zuckerberg Replies To His Facebook Commenters’ Questions On ImmigrationComments Off

Jeff Chiu / AP “If it’s just about tech wanting to hire more people, not as impressive” commented one of Mark Zuckerberg’s 18 million Facebook followers. “It’s definitely not just about tech immigration” Zuckerberg shot back in the comments for a video he’d posted from his political advocacy group FWD.us. Replying to average joes and reporters alike, Zuckerberg tried to clear up confusion about his lobbying.

Live From Facebook’s ‘New Product’ Mystery AnnouncementComments Off

Just last week, a small chunk of the tech press was surprised to find invitations for a Facebook announcement waiting in their mailbox.

“A small team has been working on a big idea,” it read.

The only other thing Facebook would say is that they’d be showing “a new product”. No comment on what it might be, or which team it would come from. We’re live at Facebook HQ to find out what it is.

Rad, A Parisian Hipster Fashion Portal, Gets $3.3M Led By Index To Go InternationalComments Off

Rad Because fashion never goes out of style, fashion portals continue to bring in the money not just from consumers looking for the next big thing — be it style or bargain, and ideally both — but also investors keen to ride the wave. The latest example is Rad, a Paris-based startup that focuses on hipster clothes and accessories and likens itself to the online equivalent of Urban Outfitters. Today, Rad is announcing €2.5 million ($3.3 million) in funding. Rad is just under one year old, but on its own steam and through viral marketing it’s already picked up 1 million users. This round of money, led by Index Ventures, is the first it has raised and Rad will use it to expand its business internationally. That will be first to the UK and Germany, and co-founder and CMO David Smadja tells us that the aim is to hit the U.S. in two years.

LinkedIn Outage Due To Possible DNS Hijacking [Update: Fidelity.com Also Affected]Comments Off

LinkedIn confirmed via Twitter that its site suffered an outage due to “a DNS issue.”