Merger mania hits lobbying groups and traffic trackers
The Direct Marketing Association said it has acquired the Association for Interactive Media, a move that will join the DMA's 4,100 corporate members to AIM's 250 members to create what the DMA called the largest Internet industry trade group.
The combined organization will lobby for the interests of Internet marketers on Capitol Hill along with those of software makers, Internet service providers and online content companies, officials of the groups said in a press conference on the deal.
AIM will be operated as an independent entity under the DMA, and AIM's employees will become DMA employees, DMA President and CEO Bob Wientzen said during the press conference. Financial terms will not be disclosed, he said.
Boost to e-commerce sought
"We hope we will see this new association grow as dramatically as AIM has," Wientzen said. He called the deal "a sign of the times" and said it mirrors similar moves on the part of more established Internet businesses to merge with entrepreneurial startup companies.
"Each side needs the other to move e-commerce into a successful future," Wientzen said.
AIM President Andy Sernovitz called the merger "the non-profit equivalent of Lycos and Wired Digital or CDNow and N2K." "Our members are the ones who go to work each day and figure out how to make money on the Internet. We're going to try and put the 'commerce' in e-commerce," Sernovitz said.
The move will also give AIM more lobbying muscle, he said. (The group's membership was estimated at 350 companies in August; in today's announcement, the number was put at 250.)
More muscle
"The DMA has been at the forefront on many of the issues that are important to us: privacy, spam, taxes, and helping to get consumers to feel comfortable about buying online," Sernovitz said. "The DMA is the central organization in fighting these battles effectively for business."
With the number of technology industry lobbying groups estimated at between 50 and 60, some industry officials told ZDNN in August that the lobbyists were ripe for consolidation.
The New York-based DMA's members include IBM Corp. (NYSE:IBM), Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq:DELL), J Crew, Time Inc. (NYSE:TWX), America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT)
Members of Washington, D.C.-based AIM include Yoyodyne Entertainment Inc. (which was itself purchased by Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) Monday for $29.6 million in another significant merger), Hotmail, Nielsen Media Research, SportsLine USA (Nasdaq:SPLN), Universal Studios, and MTV Interactive. It was a busy day for Web deals.
Two of the largest Internet site traffic measurement services, Media Metrix and RelevantKnowledge, said Monday they will merge to become Media Metrix Inc.
Also Monday, online music store GoodNoise announced it has acquired two of its competitors, Nordic Entertainment and Creative Fulfillment Inc.
The combined company will launch a new music site at the www.emusic.com address, aimed at being "the premier location for finding, purchasing, and downloading music on the Net," GoodNoise Chairman Bob Kohn said in a statement. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.