Advertising, ad campaigns, ad agencies, and the people that make it happen

The Social Networking fever is starting to ramp up in Europe now with the news that one of Germany's largest publishing houses has purchased the 1-million strong StudiVZ community, Germany's answer to Facebook. The deal marks the first megabucks Web 2.0 acquisition in Europe. Germany's largest online student network was apparently acquired for as much as €100 ($150) million by one of the country's biggest publishing companies, Holtzbrinck Group, which publishes the venerated Handelsblatt and Die Zeit newspapers. After a bidding war Stuttgart-based Holtzbrinck announced the deal on Wednesday. StudiVZ, which is Germany's answer to America's Facebook has more than a million members. As usual, the founders and early investors, such as the Samwer brothers who founded, and sold for millions, ring tone company Jamba, will make out like bandits. In contrast to the dot-com Internet bust in Germany, advertisers now can’t get enough of the new online communities, which is being reflected in the capital markets. The most recent Internet IPO in Germany, business network OpenBC/Xing, raised €75 million, opening at €30. Today shares are selling at about a euro above the opening price and the company has a market capitalization of €160 million. There’s a lot more about this market at Spiegel on-line.

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