Monday, December 23, 2013

News Corp Acquires Storyful the Social News Agency


Interesting to compare Mark Little's Blog explaining the acquisition of the Dublin based "social news" agency with the official News Corporation press release

I can understand Storyful's delight in being acquired for 25 million dollars. I'm not sure I understand why Newscorp needs to acquire the news agency in order to "expand Storyful’s video products and services for newsrooms, advertising agencies and brands. News Corp will also utilize Storyful’s tools to help drive engagement and revenue across News Corp’s businesses". Sounds rather muddled to me.

News Corp still has a long way to go to rebuild the public trust after the UK phone hacking scandal. So, from the outside looking in, it is rather early for acquisitions unless they are purely interested in absorbing the technology into properties like the Wall Street Journal.

I note on the website that Storyful's client list includes the BBC and Australia's ABC. Both have stormy relationships with NewsCorp. I guess they will quickly look for alternatives.

So did Newcorp buy the technology or the brains?  

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