Think Partnership will acquire the blog search engine IceRocket from billionaire NBA owner Mark Cuban.
Cuban and IceRocket CEO Blake Rhodes co-own the blog search site, and have announced a letter of intent from Think Partnership (THK), a Northbrook, IL-based technology solutions provider, to acquire IceRocket. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“I am thrilled that IceRocket is uniting with Think Partnership, enabling us to connect the huge and growing blogging community to the business opportunities and network provided by Think Partnership, especially Litmus Media’s Valid Click network and PrimaryAds’ affiliate marketing network,” Rhodes said in a statement.
Also, Rhodes will remain on as CEO after the deal closes. Various tasks, including due diligence and negotiations with Wachovia Bank (WB) over its loan agreement with Think, remain pending.
“Both of our companies are focused on providing the highest integrity services to our users and building core enabling technology that can eliminate click fraud and “splogging” on our networks in real time.” Cuban said in the announcement.
Think’s president, Scott Mitchell, likewise extolled the anti-splogging capabilities developed by IceRocket. Splogging, or spam blogging, refers to blogs created solely as holders of keywords and advertisements. They exist solely to collect advertising “clicks” and benefit the splog owner without providing any actual value to readers.
With Think’s technologies, IceRocket could become a revenue generator for blogs. Efforts by privately held BlogAds and Federated Media provide advertising for blog publishers; the Think services referenced by Rhodes could enable IceRocket to build a similar position.
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David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
