S&P Calls Blogs The Next Big Takeover Target

There's really not much new in this report by Standard & Poors which calls blogging the next big takeover market. This trend has been apparent for a couple of years now if you are paying attention. Moreover, the conservative editors at S&P hedge by putting a question mark on their Title: "Blogs - The Next Takeover Target?"

"Blogs--especially the big-name brands such as TechCrunch, Gawker, GigaOm, Boing Boing, and the Huffington Post--appear to have attractive business models. This is good news for traditional media companies that are being marginalized online and off, and are hoping to catch up to--and cash in on--a rapidly evolving Web 2.0 world."

"S&P equity analyst Tuna Amobi agrees that traditional media companies seem to be recognizing the potential usefulness of blogs in driving increased traffic and engagement to their sites, but he notes there are risks, including brand dilution and negative publicity. Though he expects larger media companies to consider relatively small acquisitions of blogging sites that could potentially leverage their core media and entertainment brands, he thinks more effort will be devoted to the launch of internal offerings at minimal incremental costs."