Dublin-based and Rome-based Populis, which is trying to position itself as a European content farm like Demand Media and Associated Content, is buying the 44-strong Italian blog network Blogo from Italy’s Dada group (announcements: Dada, Blogo).
The deal is worth a €6 ($8.02/£5.01) million to Dada, which wants to focus on its core business, its own-branded, music-centric entertainment web network. The company also operates social portal Splinder, U.S. mobile company Upoc and the Giglio music TV channel operator. Blogo.it is scheduled to make a €300,000 ($401,130/£250,695) 2010 loss on €2.1 ($2.8/£1.76) million revenue.
We examined Populis’ business in October, when the company, founded in 2004, rebranded from GoAdv. Paying small amounts to 1,000 non-professional writers, it publishes 15,000 articles per month, across its network of 500 websites.
Those articles are fed out through its properties Excite Europe, the BetterDeals portfolio of niche consumer guides and the blog networks Nanopublishing and Blogosfere. Blogo.it will sit alongside those blog networks, giving Populis more heft on the professional content front.
Blogo.it publishes blogs in several typical consumer lifestyle verticals and claims 8.5 million Italian monthly uniques; Dada claims a combined four million for Blogosfere and Nanopublishing. The deal gives Dada a bigger share of the Italian blog content sphere.
Dada had purchased Blogo.it in two chunks, which we covered, in 2007 and in 2008. Dada’s H1 2010 revenue was largely flat at €77 ($102.49/£64.38) million. The company is “rationalizing the portfolio of non-core activities”.