Fox Interactive Media has made what the company calls its first “major” acquisition since low-profile Peter Levinsohn took over late last year, picking up interactive ad technology firm Strategic Data Corp.. The company’s home page has been turned over to the announcement. No terms disclosed, which makes it hard to gauge just how major it is. (Of course, we’re working on it.) SDC fits in with FIM’s needs to convert the massive traffic for MySpace and traffic to its other sites into actual dollars. FIM plans to use SDC to deliver “highly-targeted, graphical performance-based advertising” on the “literally billions of Web pages viewed each day” across the FIM network. In addition to MySpace, which serves the bulk of those pages, sites include IGN, Direct2Drive, AmericanIdol.com, and AskMen.com.
—SDC’s technology combines “sophisticated statistical and predictive algorithms, demographic and geographic segmentation, and performance tracking,” according to the description on its site. It was charging clients based on the percentage of measured profit increase after the system went into use. The company says on the site that it is working with “variety of large online properties and networks.”
I’m checking on a few other details and will update when I get those answers.
Update: SDC is based in Santa Monica and was headed by Richard Janssen, former co-founder and COO of Homestore. The company was founded in 1999 by Lee Cooper, professor of marketing at UCLA’s Anderson b-school and Giovanni Giuffrida, a doctoral candidate in computer science at the university. In the past it had investment from Smart Technology Ventures, J Net Venture Fund I, Constellation Ventures and a group of private investors through Ziffren, Brittenham, Branca and Fischer.
Related: News Corp In Talk With Online Ad Tech Firm?