Saturday, February 03, 2007

Emap acquires YoSpace!

Nice move! Yesterday Emap announced it had acquired YoSpace, a mobile user-generated content platform provider for £8.7m in cash + a further earn out of £5.7m.
YoSpace have been working in mobile since 99 and havent had it easy. They made a name in emulators and virtual handsets before developing what is now described as a Media Community Platform - this is essentially a platform for managing user-generated mobile videos, pictures, audio and text. Three UK use it for their SeeMyTV UCG product offering and O2 have a similar offering also running on the YoSpace MCP.
Emap has now bought itself a very robust, scalable, capable and proven solution (+ a great team) that can be used to sweat the UCG assets of their numerous brands. Emap will compete with YouTube, MySpace etc horizontally, through sub-segment brands such as FHM, Bike, Kerrang, Kiss, Smash Hits (not so sure about appetite for a UCG Steam Railway and Trout Fisherman portal :-)

This is very sensible strategy from Emap and a relatively cheap acquisition that adds significant value to their brand portoflio. I say "cheap" because I think YoSpace could have got more. There arent too many of these platforms in the market, and very few that are proven with paying customers.

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