IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 29 July
29-07-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
Google explores social games market | IEDR reports record registrations
The Irish Times reports that RSA has announced a EUR65 million-plus acquisition of 123.ie. The sale, which is subject to regulatory approval, has netted a multi-million-euro windfall for 123.ie's main shareholders, Derek Richardson and Managing Director Andrew Collins. 123.ie offers mainly motor, home, pet and travel insurance products through its web and call centre operations. It will continue to operate under its own brand and structure following the acquisition, and there will not be any impact on customers or employees.
The paper also says that a woman has been given a suspended sentence for posting sex adverts on a classifieds website on behalf of two unwitting people. Aishling Madden was convicted earlier this month following trial. She had initially admitted posting the messages to the Gumtree website but then claimed she had brought a group of people back from a night out and that they had done it. Madden's defence counsel said she suffered from mental health issues.
The Irish Independent says that Google is squaring up to Facebook in the market for online games, as part of the search engine giant's attempt to build a social networking business. Google is believed to have opened talks with several games developers that have come to prominence on Facebook. Google chief Eric Schmidt stoked rumours over the new push into social networking by promising any Google service would differentiate from Facebook. Google has already made an investment in Zynga, maker of the game FarmVille, and is also reportedly in talks with other developers, including Playfish and Playdom. Rumours suggest Google's new social networking platform will be called Google Me.
The paper also reports that the IEDR, the registry for the .ie domain, has reported its best ever second quarter figures for domain registrations. According to figures from the IEDR, a total of 9,448 .ie domains were registered between April and June 2010, up 1.1 percent on the year-ago period. The number of new registrations in the first six months of the year was 19,099, almost the same as the number registered in the first half of 2009. The total number of .ie domains at the end of June stood at just under 146,000, with Irish sole traders and limited companies accounting for 82 percent.
The Irish Examiner says that Swedish author Stieg Larsson has become the first writer to sell more than 1 million e-books on Amazon. The author of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' has been named the first member of the Kindle Million Club, which has been set up to honour authors whose entire body of work has produced more than a million sales for the electronic bookstore. All three books in his popular Millennium Trilogy are among the top 10 best-selling Kindle books. Larsson died of a heart attack in 2004 before seeing his novels become best-sellers.
In other news of Amazon, the Financial Times reports that the online retail giant is rolling out a new generation of the Kindle e-reader. The new Kindle is smaller, lighter and faster than its predecessor, with more storage and battery life. However, it still has a relatively small, grayscale screen that is not touch-sensitive. It will sell for USD189 in the US with free 3G downloading, while a Wi-Fi-only version will cost USD139. It will go on sale at the end of August.
According to the same paper, Sony unexpectedly swung to a quarterly operating profit as improved demand for electronics and aggressive cost cuts improved its bottom line. The company posted April-to-June operating profit of JPY67 billion versus a consensus analyst forecast of a JPY13.1 billion loss and compared to a loss of JPY25.7 billion a year earlier. Sony saw big improvements in sales of LCD TVs, PCs and PlayStation 3 game consoles and game software. For the year to March 2011, the group lifted its operating profit outlook by 12.5 percent to JPY180 billion.
The Wall Street Journal says that Adobe Systems has signed an agreement to launch a public tender offer to acquire all of Day Software's shares for about USD240 million. Day Software's products help companies manage the unstructured content -- including files containing animation, video, photos or text -- that powers company websites. The deal is subject to a minimum acceptance threshold and is expected to close sometime in Adobe's fiscal fourth quarter.
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Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 