By: Jim Krane, AP Technology Writer (AP) Internet traffic measuring firm comScore Networks Inc. said it bought a competing business from Jupiter Media Metrix, the technology analysis and Internet audience measurement firm, for $1.5 million.
In April, Jupiter announced that it was considering selling off parts of its business in order to avert a financial crisis, after its auditor questioned the company's viability.
Reston, Va.-based comScore, a privately held company established in 1999, said it bought only Jupiter's Media Metrix division, which tracks popularity of Internet sites in the United States and Canada.
Several dozen Media Metrix employees will join comScore's just-established Media Metrix division, and comScore will house them in new offices in New York and Toronto -- home of existing Jupiter establishments, said comScore Vice President Dan Hess.
The $1.5 million cash purchase is effective immediately, comScore announced.
Hess said comScore will maintain most of Media Metrix's measurement tools, but will use its own measurement software, which resides on servers of Internet sites being measured. Jupiter's current system sits on individual PCs of Jupiter's panelists.
Also Thursday, comScore announced that it raised $20 million in investors' funding that will bankroll the acquisition and integration of Media Metrix, while allowing comScore to retain cash reserves to pursue "future strategic opportunities." Hess declined to say whether comScore has further acquisition targets in mind.
The company is not yet profitable, but hopes to become so "around the end of the year," Hess said.
In April, Jupiter Media Metrix said its auditor, Ernst & Young, found "that because of operating losses and a working capital deficiency, there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern."
At the time, Jupiter said it was weighing the sale of one or more of its four business units to help the company survive.
Jupiter's four units are its technology research arm, Jupiter Research; its Internet traffic measurement unit, Media Metrix; online advertising measurement operation, AdRelevance (which was sold to NetRatings in April); and its European research and measurement arm.
In February, Jupiter called off a proposed $71.2 million merger with NetRatings Inc., another Internet tracking firm, after the Federal Trade Commission warned that it would challenge the deal.
Shares of Jupiter Media closed down a penny, at 33 cents, on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Thursday.
On the Net:
http://www.jmm.com
http://www.comscore.com
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