WebMediaBrands announced today that it has acquired Inside Network, the publishing company that publishes Inside Facebook, as well as Inside Social Games and Inside Mobile Apps. The price: $7.5 million in cash and 4,183,130 shares of the common stock ($6.5 million worth) of WebMediaBrands.

“Inside Network Inc. is a leader in covering the Facebook and social gaming ecosystem through reporting, research, and events,” said WebMediaBrands CEO Alan Meckler. “When combined with our leading social media blogs such as AllFacebook, SocialTimes, and AllTwitter, I believe that WebMediaBrands is now the leading source of news and information about Facebook, social gaming, Twitter, and social media.”

“We plan to move aggressively with initiatives designed to grow our combined editorial, research, and events operations, as well as dramatically augment our online education coverage of social media and our job board presence in the social media arena,” he added.

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Alan MecklerWe made an acquisition. Justin Smith’s www.insidenetwork.com. http://mbist.ro/jgYAwa 2 hours ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto

“This is pretty awesome news for those of us in the WebMediaBrands family, because along with the acquisition comes some of the best experts on Facebook and social games in the world,” writes Neil Vidyarthi at Social Times.

Inside Network Founder Justin Smith said, “WebMediaBrands has created a powerful platform for delivering news, research, education, and events to the social media industry. Since our founding, Inside Network has always focused on providing the highest quality information, research, data, and events for the social app ecosystem. Combining our efforts should naturally enable us to move even faster to deliver products and services to this rapidly growing industry in multiple areas, including industry news and research, conferences and events, and job listings for the social and mobile application ecosystems.”

Smith will become VP, Social Media of WebMediaBrands, and will continue to operate Inside Network. He will also become a member of the board of directors.

WebMediaBrands, which used to be JupiterMedia sold Internet.com for $18 million about two years ago.