Blinkx Rises And Falls On Mystical Google-News Corp Acquisition Chatter
This story was written by Robert Andrews.
Market speculation from an Investec analyst (via Bloomberg) that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) or News Corp (NYSE: NWS) may buy voice recognition-based video search index Blinkx did wonders for the company today - then petered out a little. FT.com casually noted the company may seek a Nasdaq listing, adding to its listing on London's AIM market. Blinkx shares jumped by 50 percent in the morning to a seventh-month high, valuing it at 102 million ($204 million).
But they fell back after lunch to settle at a valuation of around 80 million ($160 million) an hour before the close. Perhaps because the company just issued a statement to the market saying the board "notes" the price rise but "is not aware of any external bids or bid-related reason for the movement". Curious
Blinkx has been adding services and video partners at a rate of knots - tied in to its speech recognition, it has its revenue share-based Ad Hoc ad platform and it recently launched its Blinkx TV platform. Being fundamentally a video search platform (with ads tied in), one can imagine interest from Google (and that colourful logo does nothing if not pay homage to Mountain View. FT.com also linked the London/San Francisco-based site to News Corp back in 2005 and Blinkx has been linked to Google since as far back as 2004. As I wrote last month, though Blinkx has an impressive catalogue of video content behind it, it's not yet pulling it together as a portal in its own right
By Robert Andrews