December 4, 2007

Rupert Murdoch Buys Beliefnet

It's official: Beliefnet, with its three million unique visitors each month and 11 million daily newsletter subscribers, has been acquired by Fox Entertainment Group, which is part of News Corp. From FEG's press release this morning:

Fox Entertainment Group (FEG) today announced its acquisition of Beliefnet, a Web site that enables consumers to better understand their faith and build diverse spiritual communities by providing content and tools for a broad range of religions and spiritual approaches.  Beliefnet, the largest online faith and spirituality destination, will become part of Fox Digital Media, spearheaded by President Dan Fawcett, which takes on an expanded role to support FEG's vast cable, TV and film brands online, and drive FEG's continued growth in the online market.  

The acquisition provides Beliefnet with vast resources to further build and enhance its already popular brand.  It  also offers an online platform for FEG to distribute content from its extensive media library and for News Corp. to expand its faith-based businesses, including HarperCollins' Zondervan and HarperOne brands, and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's faith-based programming initiative.  

Additionally, Beliefnet will provide unique, world-renowned spiritual programming to the company's various businesses. Beliefnet will also partner closely with Fox Interactive Media, leveraging the group's world-class technology and "FIM Serve" targeted advertising delivery platform.  

Now let me tell you how I first learned about Beliefnet's impending sale a couple weeks ago. I've been involved with the spirituality site going back to its pre-launch days in 1999, but I haven't spoken with, or even emailed, Steve Waldman, the site's CEO, Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder, since I ran into him in their offices last April.

But then two weeks ago, I emailed him an invite to become a Facebook friend, and 15 minutes later the phone rang. It was Steve. "Wow," I thought, "This guy's really into Facebook." Needless to say, that's not why he was calling, and he still hasn't replied to my Facebook request yet. 

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