Condé Nast owns the magazine Bon Appétit, the extremely popular food cooking and lifestyle portal Epicurious as well as the Gourmet brand, which no longer exists as a print magazine but lives on as a Web publication and in TV programming and cookbooks. Though Condé Nast didn’t detail its exact plans to integrate ZipList’s universal recipe box service into its own Web portals, it appears to be letting the company maintain its independent status for the time being. Here’s the statement issued by Condé Nast president Bob Sauerberg:

“This acquisition enables Condé Nast to deliver on our commitment to marry quality content and innovative technology, giving unprecedented scale as we focus on creating additional revenue streams in the digital space. … Our goal is to build ZipList as an independent company while collaborating with our food brands to integrate its core technology, and to create partnerships that allow other companies to do the same.”

Like other recipe clipping apps, ZipList allows its users to grab dish ideas they find on different food sites and store them in a digital recipe box. The difference is ZipList doesn’t view itself as a destination site or portal like Paprika or KeepRecipes. Instead it acts as the recipe-saving service and grocery list-generating app for 6,500 food sites and blogs. But rather than keep those recipes and lists trapped in thousands of different mutually exclusive recipe boxes, ZipList has made its box universal, accessible through the same login credentials on any partners’ sites as well as its own Web portal.

That puts Condé Nast in a somewhat awkward position. Presumably it will add ZipList’s universal recipe box to Epicurious and its other Web properties, which means customers will be aggregating and accessing its competitors’ recipes from within Condé Nast’s sites. Likewise, some of Condé Nast’s biggest rivals in the food biz — MarthaStewart.com for one — use ZipList’s service. If they continue to work with ZipList they will do so knowing they’re supporting one of their biggest competitors in food and lifestyle media. It will be interesting to see how Condé Nast walks this line.

Condé Nast’s Sauerberg and Martha Stewart Living president and COO Lisa Gersh will both be appearing at paidContent 2012, May 23 in New York City.

No deal terms were announced. It’s understood Data Explorers owner Bowmark Capital had been looking to sell the firm for the last year.

The company claims to track more than 85 percent of global securities transactions.

Markit wants to inject Data Explorers’ services in to its own, including adding new services for exchange securities, dividend forecasting and quantitative research.

London-based Data Explorers says it quadrupled revenue and tripled profitability over the last four years with global expansion.

Market also acquired Wall Street On Demand, which provides visualisations for financial data, in 2010.

Deal terms were not announced (release).

Fotolia lets photographers sell royalty-free photos to re-users and currently counts almost 16.5 million images.

France-based Wilogo says it has sold 2,006 designs and paid designers £943,985 since founding in 2006. Customers pay £295 to post design specifications for logos, print work, stationery or other items.

Both companies’ boards have approved the deal. But the interesting part is: why does News Corp. (NSDQ: NWS) which co-owns NDS together with Permira, want rid of the software which powers its BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) and DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) PVR boxes, as well as Canal Plus’?

$5 billion in cash may be one reason, something which could provide a welcome dividend to worried News Corp shareholders.

But a big shift is also about to happen in TV distribution and reception, and it means less of a role for old-line set-top boxes and the satellite and cable infrastructure above and behind them.

BSkyB will this summer unbundle its own-brand pay-TV channels from satellite, offering them to direct subscribers via connected TVs, game consoles, tablets and other devices, all through landline internet. It has also acquired an out-of-home WiFi network so subscribers can watch mobile TV in cafes. And it recently invested in Zeebox, a social TV app startup that can change TV channels from iOS.

Much of this would radically change the importance of the conventional box under the TV, even if the market is nevertheless currently replete with dedicated internet TV boxes vying for market share, before the majority of TVs sold have such features integrated.

In emerging markets, where Cisco wants to take NDS, broadband networks are less established. And the change won’t happen overnight in the west either. Cisco says many NDS clients have five-year contracts. Cisco’s announcement does not say whether DirecTV and BSkyB have committed to renew with NDS.

In 2008, a California judge dismissed a claim from rival Echostar (NSDQ: SATS) that NDS hired computer hackers to crack its TV access card’s encryption. Last September, the claims resurfaced in a case filed by disgruntled News Corp shareholders, who claimed the company had sat on information about the EchoStar case.

NDS’ main assets are its VideoGuard DRM software and MediaHighway, middleware used to deliver EPG and PVR on set-top boxes. The company also has its own over-the-top TV product called Infinite TV.

Cisco wants to ally NDS with its Videoscape multi-screen viewing platform, though the company will remain independent. CEO John Chambers (via release): “Our strategy has always been driven by customer need and on capturing market transitions. Our acquisition of NDS fits squarely into this strategy, enabling content and service providers to deliver new video solutions that leverage the cloud and drive new monetisation opportunities and service differentiation.”

Cisco has previously snapped up the Tandberg TV distribution provider.

Youku has proposed buying all Tudou’s stock in a deal valuing it at more than $1 billion. The transaction, if approved by shareholders, would create a combined company, “Youku Tudou Inc”, but Tudou will retain its brand.

The motivation is saving on the escalating cost of securing broadband infrastructure to deliver video to audiences.

“This transaction would also lead to improvement in the industry structure and the underlying economics of the online video sector in China,” Youku CEO Victor Koo says (via announcement).

“We expect to see significant synergies across a number of areas including leveraging licensed content over a larger user base and realizing efficiencies in bandwidth management and other common expenses.”

Chinese online video revenue grew 48 percent through Q4 alone, to 1.48 billion RMB ($234 million), and was up 139 percent over the year, according to Enfodesk, Analysys International. As broadband adoption grows there, the online video opportunity becomes greater.

This isn’t just a significant deal in China. Both Tudou and Youku went public in New York in 2010 and 2011, raising a combined $375 million.

Youku has 25.3 percent of the segment’s revenue, Tudou 14.5 percent. They operate much like YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG), majoring on user-uploaded videos but doing an increasing number of deals with domestic TV show makers and global movie companies to host ad-supported and premium videos. Competitors have been building and buying to stay in touch.

The big Sina (NSDQ: SINA) portal had targeted video as its main investment area. It had bought up stakes in Tudou. Now it will end up without influence in Tudou and struggling to build its own capability.

Salmon reported late Sunday that CNN is buying Mashable, the consumer social media news site that has been branching out into other verticals, for more than $200 million with an announcement due Tuesday. Turner has been shopping for good digital fits with CNN, which acquired personalized aggregater Zite last August, and has had talks with Mashable, among others.

But a source familiar with the situation describes the report of a deal as a rumor and tells paidContent no announcement is scheduled.

Mashable, founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005 as a 19-year-old blogger, and CNN, already one of its partners, could be a good fit in a number of ways. In addition to more than 15 million monthly visitors, Mashable has more than four million social media followers across Twitter, Facebook, Google+ et al and a high profile with consumers. It’s held conferences at Disney (NYSE: DIS) World and on a cruise ship, while its SXSW party draws more attendance than several tech brands combined.

The report and particularly the valuation captured instant interest and some skepticism. While I wouldn’t be surprised to see CNN wind up with Mashable, I don’t see Turner paying $200 million — or even coming close — for it.

Update: A couple of notes in the light of day: Mashable could get close to $200 million if the valuation is at the highest range times earnings. Would it come as a flat payout? An earnout based on post-deal performance might make the most sense for Turner. Also this morning, Brian Stelter reports that talks are ongoing, which tracks with what I’ve been hearing. Will a deal actually come of it? As I know all too well there are moments when deals can look very close — and when they might not be as close as they seem. Felix may turn out to be right on everything but the scheduled announcement. The numbers may vary. Or it may not happen at all.

Just to lay it all out there, TechCrunch offers a second or third hand report that (I’m not sure) Pete Cashmore is telling Mashable senior staffers the acquisition rumor isn’t true. Which, of course, doesn’t mean an acquisition isn’t happening.

Wouldn’t be surprised if CNN did buy Mashable. But for $200 million? Wow. I want that valuation! So say we all bit.ly/zhEKov

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 12, 2012

Jeez, who is surprised? They’ve practically been in bed for last 2-3 years. Price is fantastical. CNN buying Mashable? reut.rs/zNnmWx

— Rafat Ali (@rafat) March 12, 2012

OverDrive, the leading distributor of e-books and digital audiobooks to libraries, has acquired Booki.sh, an Australian company that provides a cloud-based e-reading platform. Booki.sh also provides the e-bookstore platforms for several Australian independent bookstores.

OverDrive “will expand the Booki.sh distribution and digital bookstore platforms as well as integrate Booki.sh HTML5 and EPUB reading technologies into OverDrive library and school services.” That means that library patrons could soon be able to read borrowed e-books on their web browsers, as they can with Amazon’s Kindle Cloud Reader.

Brighter Option‘s technology lets agencies, including GroupM, Omnicom and Aegus, buy ads through the Facebook Ads API. The company is one of more than 20 which Buddy says it assessed over the last six months in its bid to buy in to this space.

Brighter Option claimed 291 advertisers in the last quarter, reaching 92.5 billion page impressions. In the same quarter, Facebook sold $943 million in advertising, according to its recent IPO filing – 44 percent more than a year earlier. But the space is nascent and even Facebook concedes many of its current customers are still only experimenting with formats.

Buddy Media’s tools are geared toward marketing conversations with consumers. Adding Brighter Option, with its self-serve SAM toolset, gives it the ability to let customers buy targeted ads as well as marketing engagement.

24/7 RealMedia was announced as a client for the combined offering along with the deal announcement.

The parent group has proposed taking Alibaba.com private for HK$19.6 billion ($2.5 billion), so that it can focus on longer-term goals instead of satisfying investors in the short term.

Meanwhile, talks in which the parent group wants to buy Yahoo’s 43 percent stake in Alibaba Group, which Yahoo bought for $1 billion in 2005, have reached an impasse, AllthingsD reported last week.

“The privatisation is completely unrelated to any discussions that are presently taking place with Yahoo,” Alibaba.com chief finance officer Maggie Wu told investment analysts on Tuesday.

“The scheme will not be conditional on the possible transaction with Yahoo.”

Wu said the group has $1.8 billion in cash on its balance sheet and intends to finance the Alibaba.com privatisation through committed new financing and the existing spare cash.

Alibaba.com on Tuesday reported profit fell six percent to 385.9m yuan ($61.3m) from a year earlier in the three months to December 31, blaming it on economic slowdown especially in Europe and the U.S..