News Corp. in talks to buy Blinkx - report

SAN FRANCISCO: News Corp. is considering buying closely held Web search provider Blinkx, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing people close to the media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch last week confirmed during an earnings conference call with analysts that the company was in advanced talks to buy a controlling interest in a Web search engine, which he would not identify, and that it had budgeted up to $2 billion for investments and strategic acquisitions.

Unidentified News Corp. sources cited by the Los Angeles Times said talks with Blinkx were not as far along as Murdoch indicated. Representatives of both companies declined comment.

News Corp. this summer launched Fox Interactive Media, a new Internet division that includes all of News Corp.'s Web properties.

That division has already bought sports Web site operator Scout Media for an undisclosed fee and announced a planned $580 million acquisition of Intermix Media, operator of social networking site MySpace.com.

News Corp. has also launched a $90 million takeover bid for Australian online property-listing site realestate.com.au.

Blinkx, based in San Francisco, is best known for providing searches of video files on the Web. It competes with Internet search leaders Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. in that upstart category.

Media companies have been scooping up Internet names in a bid to profit from the online advertising boom, fueled in part by the popularity of Web search ads from Google and Yahoo. They also want to make up revenue that they lost as more classified advertising was put on Web sites such as craigslist.org.

Media mogul Barry Diller recently bought Web search company Ask Jeeves Inc., and said it is expected to be the glue that binds the disparate Web businesses -- which range from online mortgage company LendingTree to dating service Match.com -- under the IAC/InterActiveCorp umbrella.