Mega search engine/portal Yahoo! announced a deal this week to acquire homepage provider
GeoCities for an all-stock purchase variously reported as being between $3.56 and $5.2 billion.
While other recent mergers have focused on high-speed access, Yahoo! is extending its Internet brand name with this acquisition, and the merger will increase the two companies' unduplicated reach to consumers exceeding 58 percent of Web traffic, elevating the combined sites to the number 2 site on the Internet behind America Online.
In the deal Yahoo! gets increased branding, and community, as well as a huge market for its portal services. Also acquired in the deal will be
WebRing.org, home of many interest groups of personal pages, which GeoCities had previously purchased in November, 1998.
WebRing.org's press release applauded the merger as "... two of the most innovative, influential and popular companies on the Web today..." and pointed out the potential of vastly increased traffic and the availability of new tools to WebRing members.
Analysts predict that Yahoo!, with a $500 million cash reserve and soaring share price, may not be through with its buying spree just yet, but no one knows as yet just who the next acquisition will involve.
In The Media:
Yahoo gets coveted GeoCities audienceYahoo!'s $5 billion buyout of GeoCities combines two high-profile
sites Yahoo Gets the Urge, Scoops Up GeoCities
