Google acquires Channel Intelligence for $125 million to improve Google Shopping
Google has entered a definitive agreement to acquire Channel Intelligence, a consolidated company owned by the ICG Group, for $125 million in cash.
The deal is still subject to the formal closing conditions and is expected to be completed during the first quarter of this year.
In a press release issued today, the ICG said they expected to gain roughly $60.5 million as a result of the acquisition, although a portion of this will be held by a third party and “subject to potential identification claims.”
ICG later added that did not expect to owe any income taxes in relation to the acquisition by Google.
Channel Intelligence specializes in produce e-commerce, providing companies with the technology needed to sell their products online. This includes a number of data-driven services that are designed to help improve product sales online. such as CI Boost: where-to-buy, product search engines, shopping engines and Facebook platform services.
Chanel Intelligence’s customers include Target, Philips, HP and Best Buy, but more importantly it was also a featured Google Shopping launch partner, developing a technology that can help maximize sales and Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) with Product Listing Ads (PLAs) – somethgin which the company stresses has become an increasingly important channel for merchants.
Over on the Channel Intelligence website, the team has left the following mesage:
“For over ten years, we have focused on making it easy for consumers to find and buy products online and help our clients grow their business. We’ve worked with Google for years, and look forward to the great things we will be able to do together.
All CI services will continue to offer the excellent client service and great performance that our clients have come to expect over the years.”
Google is looking to strengthen its business in e-commerce, as heavy hitting rivals such as Amazon become the default search and purchasing tool for customers. Google wants more people using it search engine to find the best deals on products – an area which Channel Intelligence has a good deal of experience in.
Image Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
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Study: Motivation Is More Important Than IQ For Succeeding In Math
“While intelligence as assessed by IQ tests is important in the early stages of developing mathematical competence, motivation and study skills play a more important role in students’ subsequent growth,” says researcher Kou Murayama, in a new long-term study exploring why students succeed in math.
Looking at the progress of 3,520 students as they matured from 5th to 10th grade, Murayama finds that self-confidence and good study habits are more important than inherent intelligence.
While IQ is often considered an important trait of a good student, other research finds that self-confidence is roughly twice as predictive of learning college chemistry than SAT Scores [PDF]. As a result of this latest research, Murayama recommends that schools should focus more on the psychology of learning as the content itself. Indeed, given that nearly half of students drop out of college, motivation is certainly an overlooked factor in our education system.
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The Defense Intelligence Agency Is Looking For Contractors To Help It Exploit Mobile Devices
The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency is looking for a few good contractors to help it kick up its mobile information gathering capabilities, according to a new request for information (RFI) posted to its website Dec. 12 and spotted today by Fierce Wireless. The request has the government organization soliciting information sources for technology aimed at exploiting digital media and hardware, with a special request for exploitation of mobile devices with methods not generally available on the commercial market.
The request looks to be a general effort by the government to find ways of better unlocking the potential of information on cell phones and tablets. The rush to mobile isn’t just something that startups and established businesses are trying to keep up with, in other words; the U.S. government wants in on the action, too.
The RFI is pretty broad overall, covering not just mobile, but also “exploitation systems in Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. On the whole, it looks like a fairly straightforward ask for outsider expertise in hacking and digital intelligence. But the mobile section looks like essentially an admission that truly valuable efforts on this front would take the form of portable devices that would be able to gather info from exploited media information sources.
Here’s what the whole thing has me thinking of: the scene in every episode of Person of Interest where Jim Caviezel pairs his own mobile phone with his target’s, allowing him to overhear and see any activity on that device completely unnoticed. Isn’t that real yet? If it isn’t, the government seems to want some outside help to make it so.
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Simple-minded spies: Belgian State Security employees overshare information on Facebook and LinkedIn
You’d never catch James Bond or Jason Bourne doing this, I’m sure: dimwits working for Belgium’s State Security Service are reportedly sharing the name of their employer on social networking sites.
A report in local newspaper De Standaard says Belgian State Security officials and politicians charged with overseeing the civilian intelligence agency have already expressed concerns over the LinkedIn and Facebook profiles of certain employees.
It appears that a simple search reveals that some State Security workers are publicly sharing the name of their employer, which obviously poses security risks.
Indeed, I ran a search this morning and found this:
It’s worth noting that State Security officials wouldn’t confirm that these profiles are genuine, which means at least some of them have half a brain. It’d sure be funny if they confirmed they are in fact real profiles.
Someone high up in the Belgian intelligence agency told De Standaard that ‘Russian and Chinese security services employ thousands of people, enabling them to do searches for this kind of information on social networks and exploiting it’.
He or she added that the simpletons oversharing such information on LinkedIn and Facebook are setting themselves up as ‘targets for hostilities’. Not to mention FarmVille requests and pokes, I might add.
Image credit: Thinkstock
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Sentia Media acquires Australian social media monitoring service BuzzNumbers
Social media monitoring platform BuzzNumbers has been acquired for an undisclosed sum by Sentia Media, the two companies have announced today.
Since its founding in Sydney in 1982 as MediaMonitors, the recently rebranded Sentia Media has built one of the largest media intelligence businesses in the Asia-Pacific area. The BuzzNumbers acquisition serves to bolster the social media intelligence component of their offering as older firms recognize the growing importance of this sector as media.
BuzzNumbers mines social data and offers its users analysis and insight into trend sentiment on various networks and has done quite well out of it, with rapidly growing revenues, staff and clientele from 2010 to today. Australian readers may remember their showcase of the technology with the BuzzElection site that broke down social media coverage of the 2010 Federal election.
Given BuzzNumbers’ solid business model, it had the potential to join the many other Australian startups who see sustained growth as the goal rather than an exit. This is a byproduct of the risk aversion that sees most Australian founders avoid capital in favor of bootstrapping.
While not an approach that gives rise to many Facebooks, it is one that delivers consistently profitable founder-owned job providers such as Envato and Campaign Monitor, and businesses that bootstrapped to profits and success before taking their first investment money, such as 99designs and Atlassian.
BuzzNumbers was founded by Nick Holmes à Court in 2007. Holmes à Court, who is a relative of one of Australia’s wealthiest women, Janet Holmes à Court, also serves as an advisor for Sydney-based startup incubator StartMate. Given this latest exit he is now much better positioned for the task of advising new founders, as one of the relatively few Australian tech founders who have seen an exit by acquisition.
Image Credit: gerlos
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