Affinity Labs is a start-up of Christopher Michel who in 2004 sold community site Military.com to Monster for $40 million. The Military.com community has since exploded in traffic and has been a phenomenal financial success for Monster according to all accounts. Christopher Michel has also partnered with Monster to sell advertising for the Affinity sites.

The sites reportedly receive about 800,000 visitors per month combined.

The sites as listed by Monster are:

– PoliceLink: www.policelink.com

– FireLink: www.firelink.com

– GovCentral: www.govcentral.com

– NursingLink: www.nursinglink.com

– ArtBistro: www.artbistro.com

– TechCommunity: www.techcommunity.com

– TheApple: www.theapple.com

This makes Alan Meckler’s July purchase of vertical jobs oriented community site mediabistro.com for $20 million cash and a $3 million earn-out a significant bargain. Unlike Affinity Labs, Mediabistro is an established web business that was founded in 1997 and had estimated annual revenue of $5-6 million. Affinity’s revenue is likely much less and has a business history of only about one year.

Obviously Monster is relying on it inner knowledge of Affinity and its very positive history with the founder.

Vertical communities continue to be red hot acquisition targets!

Google has been searching for applicants via MediaBistro to fulfill roles in New York, Chicago, and Mountain View. These jobs in consumer advertising insights (nice title) will fuel a project called the Google Brand Accelerator (GBA).

“GBA will allow Google to consistently deliver the most efficient and effective digital platform upon which the world’s leading brands are built,” said the posting. “We will connect advertisers’ brand message to the target audience at the highest moment of relevance through innovative and accountable online marketing solutions that offer unmatched precision and scale.”

Though they cited GBA as something to become an “indispensable partner” for advertisers and agencies, it sounds an awful lot like a step toward shoving aside the ad agency middleman. Why use a third party when Google can accelerate your brand through its dominant position in online advertising?

Back in July, when a Google blogger inadvertently shattered any remaining illusions about Google as a business, Danny Sullivan had this to say about Google and advertising in the health industry:

To be safer, Google ought to get back to just selling space and not trying to be an ad agency to these groups. That’s what ad agencies do, and they aren’t hit by the burden of also having to run supposedly unbiased information resources.

What happens to unbiased information resources when part of your company is busy trying to accelerate the brands of cash-carrying advertisers? Google’s position on this should be illuminating.

Google Seeks Edge In Voice Traffic Talks

Job postings that appeared on MediaBistro at the end of July for Google indicate they are taking more aggressive stances in making deals for network services. Of particular interest: Google has tagged one of the two Strategic Negotiator positions as ‘Voice Focus – Global Infrastructure.’

Though Google has received attention recently for its proposed ‘white-label’ mobile phone hardware, we’ve always believed Google has much more in mind for wireless communications. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said several times the growth and revenue available through mobile has been part of the company’s strategy.

Even though the job title for one position has been labeled as Voice Focus, the job description reads far more generically when it comes to networking services. This is part of the description:

Negotiation and purchasing of IP transit services in North America, Europe, Asia, and/or Latin America; negotiation of partnerships with Internet exchanges, regional peering providers, and paid peering arrangements with major carriers.

Pretty common stuff, yet Google hints at deeper desires in the job title. We’re going to count this as another piece of speculative evidence that Google plans a challenge on the wireless industry. Imagine being able to pick up an iPhone-like mobile device that has its web and VoIP service supported by Google advertising, running on a Google-branded network.

Who could resist the price of free for service, along with a range of hardware delivered by Google’s partners in the wireless device industry? Google could become a global utility provider of wireless service, while selling mobile ads that Schmidt called “twice as profitable” as their non-mobile counterparts.

The submarine networking position doesn’t look as sexy as the voice focused one, but it’s just as important. Getting Internet traffic from continent to continent means sending it underwater. A truly global voice/VoIP solution means Google needs some favorable deals here as well.

Jupitermedia Folds Up Mediabistro For $23 Million

What started as a way to connect media types with employers through a series of cocktail parties evolved into Mediabistro. Laurel Touby turned her website into a nice payday.

The deal with Jupitermedia pays $20 million up front for Mediabistro. Over two years, Jupitermedia will pay an additional $3 million.

Touby won’t depart from the web to spend her days arranging parties. She will remain with the company as senior vice president under terms of the purchase.

Rafat Ali at Paid Content said the sale culminated after a long auction process and multiple parties expressing interest in Mediabistro. The $23 million price tag hewed closely to last year’s valuation.

“This comes close to what the company hoped for ($25 million or so) when it started the M&A process in early 2006, though one would have expected the valuation to go up in the almost two years since then,” he said.

The acquisition represents Jupitermedia’s second job site purchase since late last year, when Alan Meckler’s company purchased JustTechJobs.com

We also noticed available opportunities for YouTube in Boston, also referenced at MediaBistro. Similar YouTube jobs in Detroit, Dallas, and other cities seek candidates as well.

Speculation on a Google move into Boston received some circumstantial backing. The Boston Channel reported that Google wants substantial office space in the area:

…the Internet giant has been looking for anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 square feet of office space. Cambridge was said to be at the top of the company’s list because it’s believed Harvard and MIT can provide a pool of technology talent.

Such a move would be an economic boost to the Boston area, according to the article. Google recently revealed plans to open a datacenter in North Carolina, where its job impact would replace long-departed furniture industry jobs with a number of new positions.

Google has rapidly expanded operations, on at least a planning level, to span the US. Their places of operation can almost be drawn on a map of America with a circle. To date they have largely left the middle of the country out of their plans, Chicago being the closest city to the traditional Midwest where they have operations.

If they do move into the Midwest, we think Cincinnati could be a candidate. In 2005, Google and other investors plowed around $100 million into Current Communications Group, which works with Cincinnati-based Cinergy to deliver broadband and voice services over power lines (BPL).

A move there backing the initiative could be instrumental in getting BPL a higher profile, and would help Google in its net neutrality battles by demonstrating the effectiveness of BPL as an alternative to the telecoms and cable companies that dominate the broadband business.

Semel covers everything from how Yahoo got into search to what’s in store for the future of search.

More coverage on this over at mediabistro, BuzzMachine and of course, Barry.

Lee Odden is President and Founder of
TopRank Online Marketing, specializing in organic SEO, blog
marketing and online public relations. He’s been cited as a search
marketing expert by publications including U.S. News & World Report and
The Economist and has implemented successful search marketing programs
with top BtoB companies of all sizes. Odden shares his marketing
expertise at Online Marketing Blog offering
daily news, interviews and best practices.

Three of the new blogs focus on the media. Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Spiers hinted to MarketWatch that the New York and Los Angeles editions could also edge into news and gossip about advertising and entertainment, as a way of testing the market for additional blogs.

Two of the other new blogs cater to Web designers and journalists who use the Internet for research. No RSS feeds yet, but Spiers told me via IM they are pending.

From MarketWatch:

“The idea is to publish news and gossip about the media business, drawing insiders to the sites — where advertisers can pitch new jobs to them, among other things.

“We were creating content [for the site] on a daily basis,” said Elizabeth Spiers, editor in chief at MediaBistro.com, in an interview. “The blog format allows is to do that throughout the day.”

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.