Analytics Dashboard Net...

Netvibes has just been acquired by European product design company  Dassault Systèmes (sure this isn’t the type of thing I usually write, but I like the founder Tariq Krim so bear with me here … ). French startup Netvibes is a sentiment analytics dashboard that allows Fortune 500 companies to track their social media presence throughout the realtime web. Dassault is a “3D experience” design company — which lets designers virtualize how products will work in the real world — so the acquisition actually seems jarring at first, but Netvibes CEO Freddy Mini tells me that the buy actually makes sense in terms of connecting what people say about a product to its design process through the Netvibes dashboard. “With the birth of the real-time Web, companies need to adapt to everything and everyone inside and outside their borders. To accomplish this, we need a way to connect and combine different products and uses, internal and external data sources, personal and professional apps, and human curation and algorithms—across all devices and departments, in real-time and in context,” Dassault Systèmes President and CEO Bernard Charlès wrote in a release. “It is the synchronization of the outside world and the inside world into one world,” Mini said over the phone. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but Mini says that the deal made, “everyone happy” — in a French accent, of course.

Thismoment Acquires Pos...

You’d be excused for not paying much attention to Thismoment or Position2. They do the dirty work a lot of entrepreneurs don’t want to do, namely run marketing promotions and, in their wake, figuring out how many people actually paid attention to those things. In a world of “organic eyeballs” and viral va-va-voom, there’s little place for Mad Men style commercial promotion… or is there? Thismoment just paid an undisclosed sum for Position2 and will begin folding Position2′s technology into its offerings. Thismoment began life as a photo-sharing site (“It was Facebook Timeline before Facebook timeline,” said founder Vince Broady) and pivoted do supply content management tools for major brands. “With our Distributed Engagement Channel (DEC) platform, we’ve focused on social content management, and the creative layer – the app, promotion or campaign – through which the content is delivered,” said Broady. “With the Brand Monitor acquisition, we complete the picture by adding conversation monitoring and advanced analytics – including sentiment analysis – both of which provide real-time feedback on the success of social content and creative initiatives. So now, you cannot only execute a program, but actually see if it’s working and react in real-time.” By connecting content delivery – essentially sites dedicated, say, to a specific promotion – and Position2′s brand awareness tools, users can create a branded page and then watch as users respond through multiple channels including Facebook, Twitter, and on the web. If there’s anything we can learn from this acquisition it’s that brands are looking more closely to social media and following the feedback loop from eyeball to Tweet to Facebook rant with an intensity heretofore unrivaled. We can scoff all we want about ham-handed attempts at social media interaction, but Thismoment works with over a hundred Fortune 500 companies and those guys, as they say, aren’t fooling around.

Tech Blog GigaOm Acquir...

Hot off the press release presses: tech blog GigaOm has acquired paidContent from The Guardian. Rumors of the acquisition  were first reported by Peter Kafka at AllThingsD. Wrote GigaOm founder Om Malik in a blog post : “ The ethos of paidContent and our company are in sync. GigaOM’s core belief is that as connectivity becomes ubiquitous, it changes everything from society to business to we the people. paidContent from the very beginning has been built on the idea that connectedness is and will change media. It makes perfect sense for us to team up. Since then, Paul and his team worked tirelessly to make it happen.” The two sites have  seemingly had had a sympatico mission, hosting conferences and serving up analysis and thought leadership in addition to breaking news. While neither company disclosed a price, the deal was most likely done for less than the $30 million that The Guardian reportedly paid for paidContent, which actually turned out to be $6 million to $12 million.

Exceptional Acquires Er...

Web app error tracking startup Exceptional has acquired fellow error tracking application and competitor, Airbrake , from web design and development company thoughtbot. Financial terms of the acquisition were not released. Simply put, Airbrake tracks errors in web apps. The app will collects errors generated by a variety of applications, and aggregates the results for review by developers. Airbrake’s service is used by a number of high-profile companies including Groupon, eBay Square and AT&T. Together, the two companies have tracked over 5 billion errors since 2008. With a combined 75,000 customer base and counting, these two error handling companies handle over 30,000 reports per minute.

Dimension Data Buys Tel...

Telecom expense management (TEM) solutions company Xigo , which Greg likened to a Billshrink for large companies , has been acquired by one of its partners, IT services and solutions provider Dimension Data for an undisclosed sum. Dimension Data says the acquisition of Xigo, formerly known as Invoice Insight, will enable them to offer enterprise customers an integrated cost optimization solution for spend analysis, sourcing, provisioning and invoice processing. The company adds that it will focus on increasing Xigo’s market share in the United States and roll out the services to other countries “over time”. Dave Spofford, CEO of Xigo, will continue to lead the Xigo team and report to Dimension Data’s Americas CEO Jere Brown.