Earlier today we reported on Strands’ launch of their new social aggregation service. After creating a diversion at the Strands offices, I was able to grab 10 beta keys. If you’d like one, send in a request - the first 10 get them so be quick.

Don’t take one unless you actually plan to use it!

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Comment reputation service SezWho is announcing the acquisition of semantic intelligence provider Tejit today. I spoke with SezWho CEO Jitendra Gupta who said that Tejit’s technology will help SezWho with semantics translation. He wouldn’t disclose the financial terms of the acquisition.

Gupta explained that their reputation service which provides registered commenters with a score will be enhanced to provide sub-scores based on the vertical to which the person is commenting. For example, a technology person might have a very high reputation score in technology but that score shouldn’t carry over to politics or entertainment. 

SezWho provides an add-on to the commenting system you are currently using on your blog or forum. Unlike popular comment replacement systems Disqus and Intense Debate who completely replace the comment system on a blog or forum, SezWho sits on top of the current comment system provides a variety of additional beneftis and still carries the discovery that the other replacement systems offer. Gupta noted that many of the new replacement services are walled gardens and have high switching costs including loss of search engine optimzation and data ownership.

Gupta ended the call by stating that the acquisition of Tejit will help SezWho to become the leading and best reputation service online. Check out my interview from last year with Gupta.

Both companies are based in San Francisco and the 3-person Tejit team will become part of the larger SezWho team.

SezWho has also provided the chart below which they say describes the differences between their service and the comment replacement systems (Disqus and Intense Debate).

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Source:CenterNetworks

Editor’s note: The news below was provided to us under embargo until noon today. Another blog has posted early and per our policy, we will still post. 

Strands is announcing the launch of a new private beta today. The new service seems similar to Valley-darling FriendFeed but takes the good part of FF one step further. Strands is offering a service that not only aggregates your friends social profiles, but also offers "tastes". The "tastes" are recommendations for other content based on the content you like from your friends. I’ve written many times about how important discovery is for Web sites and blogs and now Strands is pushing discovery into individuals lifestreams.

Strands is also focusing on Data Portability with this new service. They note, "Without inventing new or proprietary technologies, we will identify and encapsulate taste-related data and enable the users who own it to take it with them. We will leverage into existing efforts including OpenID, OAuth, and APML-style representations for our relative preferences of all types and not just our attention preferences. Users will be able to take their taste profiles with them to other websites that are prepared to be taste profile consumers."

There’s a desktop application (shown below) that displays your friends activities in real-time. The application also records what you are doing and sends the information to your friends streams. So if you are listening to the Beatles in iTunes, it will let your friends know which song you are currently listening too. Better be careful before you pull up that naughty Web site you like to visit every day!

Check out our interview with Strands VP Communications, Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria.

Just hitting the wires — CBS to acquire CNET for $1.8 billion. There’s a call at 8:30AM and we will cover the call live. Ashkan called this one almost down to the exact price.

Update: Check out our live notes from the conference call.

CNET shareholders would receive $11.50 a share if the deal closes. This amount represents a 45% premium to Wednesday’s closing price and above any price at which the stock has traded in about two years. Shares of CNET rose 42% to $11.30 in recent premarket activity, while CBS’ stock fell 3% to $24.10.

This deal would bring more technology content to the airwaves. No, I doubt we will see Rafe Needleman calling the next Giants-49ers game, but what we might see is shows like Natali DelConte’s Loaded appear on any of the CBS television networks. I can see strong online-tv convergence with this deal.

Here’s the release:

CBS to Become a Top Ten U.S. Internet Company with Unparalleled Content and Reach, Boasting Approximately 200 Million Monthly Unique Users Worldwide CNET Networks’ CNET, ZDNet, GameSpot.com, TV.com, CNET News, UrbanBaby, BNET, CHOW and Search.com, Among Others, To Be Combined with CBS Corporation’s National and Local Interactive Businesses

NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO, May 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS.A and CBS) has entered into an agreement to acquire CNET Networks, Inc., it was announced today by Leslie Moonves, President and Chief Executive Officer, CBS Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, CBS will make a cash tender offer for all issued and outstanding shares of CNET Networks for $11.50 per share, representing an equity value of approximately $1.8 billion. The acquisition will make CBS one of the 10 most popular Internet companies in the United States, with a combined 54 million unique users per month, and approximately 200 million users worldwide.

"There are very few opportunities to acquire a profitable, growing, well-managed Internet company like CNET Networks," said Moonves. "CBS stands for premium content and unparalleled reach, and CNET Networks will add a tremendous platform to extend our complementary entertainment, news, sports, music and information content to a whole new global audience. Together, CBS and CNET Networks will have significant additional exposure to the fastest- growing advertising sector and can accelerate our growth through a number of new content, promotion and advertising initiatives. We could not be more pleased with the prospect of adding CNET Networks and its tremendous team of people to the CBS family. I look forward to working with Quincy Smith, Neil Ashe and the considerable combined talent at both companies, as we build upon our success."

Based in San Francisco, CNET Networks owns many of the Internet’s leading entertainment, news and information sites including CNET, ZDNet, GameSpot.com, TV.com, mp3.com, CNET news.com, UrbanBaby, CHOW, Search.com, BNET, MySimon and TechRepublic. The company, which reported significant profits in 2007 on revenues of $406 million, has a large international footprint, particularly in China.

Upon closing, CNET Networks’ sites will be combined with CBS’s stable of dynamic and growing interactive businesses. These include CBS.com, CBSSports.com, CBSCollegeSports.com, MaxPreps.com, CBSNews.com, last.fm, Wallstrip, MobLogic, CBS Radio and CBS Television Stations digital media platforms, and the distribution network of the CBS Audience Network, which is made up of more than 300 partner Web sites and reaches 82% of all online users in the United States.

"The core businesses of CNET Networks and CBS Interactive represent near perfect category symmetry in premium online content," said Quincy Smith, President, CBS Interactive. "Together we will have a terrific opportunity to not only grow our established businesses, but to build new attractive verticals of content as well. This is the beginning of an era for both CBS and CNET Networks; plus, it’s going to be great to work with Neil and his team, many of whom I have known for many years."

"We’re thrilled to join CBS and combine our interactive media experience with CBS’s world-class content," said Neil Ashe, Chief Executive Officer, CNET Networks, Inc. "CNET Networks operates some of the most important premium online brands, serving the most sought after online audiences. Today’s announcement brings together two organizations that complement each other and working with Leslie, Quincy and the talented people at CBS, we look forward to taking our business and our brands to the next level."

"We look forward to completing the acquisition of CNET Networks and the terrific benefits it brings to CBS as Quincy, Neil and their combined teams build upon our success," Moonves concluded. "At the same time our strong cash flow allows us to pay among the highest dividends in the industry, and we are committed to continue to pay our attractive dividend to return value to shareholders."

The Board of Directors of CNET Networks has unanimously approved the merger agreement and unanimously recommends that CNET Networks stockholders accept the tender offer and tender their shares.

The transaction is subject to customary conditions and is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year.

Source:CenterNetworks

Last month we interviewed Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria from Strands about their business and their acquisition of Expensr. Today Strands is announcing another acquisition — this time it’s NetworthIQ. NetworthIQ will become part of the moneyStrands application which is currently in private beta. No financial details were provided regarding the acquisition.

Gabriel defines moneyStrands as, "moneyStrands is an online money management solution that allows users to aggregate their online financial information in one place, providing them with an instant snapshot of all their finances. It provides users with the best personalized recommendations possible, helping them find new ways to save money and invest."

Mark Hendrickson believes that the acquisitions were made more for the human capital than the actual technology.

The personal online money management category is heating up with a variety of startups playing in the space including: Wesabe, Geezeo (a CN sponsor), Mint, and now moneyStrands coming soon.

Earlier today Strands announced the acquisition of Expensr and the creation of moneyStrands. I had the opportunity to sit down with Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria, VP Communications to learn more about what Strands offers and about why they acquired Expensr. Our chat transcript is below.

Allen: Can we start with a brief bio about yourself?

Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria: I am VP Communications at Strands, my background is in communications and business development, founder of a digital manufacturing company (Saktec Robotics). Strands was founded by Francisco J Martin, a European Scientific entrepreneur. PhD in Computer Science, his interests are Sequence analysis and distributed systems. He is the founder and former CEO of Isoco, Intelligent Software Components.

Allen: What is Strands and where did the idea come from?

Gabriel: Strands is a developer of social recommendation technologies to help people discover new products and services. That is our mission and where we dedicate all of our resources. The idea of a need for a new of generation of recommender systems came from Francisco playing with iTunes at the end of 2003, and from 2 facts:

• already then, it was difficult to decide what to buy, there was already too much content to choose from. Francisco realized that the need for help to discover things we might like, would only increase, not only in the media space but in general.
• Francisco saw iTunes playcounts… and realized that existing recommender systems do not recommend based on actual behavior and how it evolves, but based on purchases, ratings, or expert decisions, which don’t reflect people’s real tastes. So, there was a need for a recommender system that would understand people’s evolving tastes, and would recommend based on understanding.

We devote of our time and energy to making web personalization more universal. In this regard, we strongly believe data portability and taste sharing will be very important for personalization… and we are working on that space. Identifying and summarizing people’s preferences, encapsulating them and allowing people to take their tastes with them from one place to another is one of our goals. Some of our thoughts are covered in this article.

Allen: Can you briefly describe each of the services that make up Strands?

Gabriel: Strands applies its recommendation technologies to 3 areas:

1.- business solutions: Strands helps people find content in our client’s sites: http://bizsolutions.strands.com/ It does not make any sense that online retailers show the same content to you that to me… when we have different tastes which we -in most occasions - have already expressed.

2.- social media: we will soon launch services to help people discover things they might like, based on their online behavior, and will also help them make sense of all their dispersed social media activities. We announce yesterday a cool music player for mobile devices, with discovery, community and taste sharing.

3.- personal finance: We just announced moneyStrands. moneyStrands is an online money management solution that allows users to aggregate their online financial information in one place, providing them with an instant snapshot of all their finances. It provides users with the best personalized recommendations possible, helping them find new ways to save money and invest.

Allen: What’s the team like at Strands?

Gabriel: The team is made up of 150 people.

• Strong technology team focused on the recommender engine. They’ll take any excuse to correlate items. If they have any reason to believe that two items go together, that’s useful information.
• 3 teams for each of the 3 areas (b2b with its sales team, social media, personal finance)
• strong mobile team
• 60% of the team in the US; 40% Europe

Allen: Have you raised funding? If so, how much and from who?

Strands has raised $55M in funding, $49M of which were raised in 2007. The 2 largest investors are: one of the world’s largest retail banks, BBVA; and the owner of a media group, Antonio Asensio. Also a VC firm (Debaeque) and the team.

Allen: How are you marketing the services?

Gabriel: B2B: The solution has been designed to require very little integration and set-up time, so clients can start providing personalized recommendations in just a question of hours. We have a sales team dedicated to that. Social media and personal finance: we are now in product development mode.

Allen: How are you monetizing Strands?

Gabriel: Most of 2007 $12M sales came from licensing the technology. We license the technology as a service to small and large players. Advertising is a very small fraction.

Allen: Who are your competitors?

Gabriel: There are lots of companies trying to solve the overload problem, which is great for the user!! In fact, one of these days we should publish some of our research reports with a list of all the players… Obviously there are different levels of development, but we do see there is more funding coming to this area. Some of the funded companies are here: http://blog.strands.com/2008/04/02/loomia-raises-5/

Allen: Why did you decide to acquire Expensr? What made the service attractive?

Gabriel: Expensr brings an good understanding of the online personal finance space, and has created a loyal following among young professionals, without any marketing… just viral growth. They have been pioneers in the online personal finance space.

Allen: What’s the Web market like in Spain? What’s hot in the area?

Gabriel: I guess the biggest difference between Europe and the US is the use of the mobile web. I don’t have the last numbers, but while mobile penetration here in the US is aprox 70%, in most of the European countries is above 100%, in some cases it gets to 115%. In Spain and Europe in general, the mobile is part of the online experience, although nothing compared to Asia:). As for the hottest web property, I guess it is Facebook, sorry not to have a more original response!

Thanks for your time Gabriel!

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