Microsoft Corp announced it has acquired a minority stake in job-listings partner CareerBuilder.com and will use that job-search engine on MSN sites overseas in a bid to capture more of the classified advertising money migrating to the Web.
Reston, Virginia-based CareerBuilder has been the exclusive provider of job listings to Microsoft's MSN Careers site since 2004.
The job site's newspaper industry majority owners use CareerBuilder's technology for their own online classifieds and have benefited from the site's US growth as print classified advertising revenue plunged in recent years.
Microsoft declined to say on Wednesday how much it paid for a 4 percent stake. CareerBuilder said newspaper publishers Gannett Co and Tribune Co each hold 40.8 percent of the company and McClatchy Co now holds 14.4 percent.
Microsoft's move from partner to owner is the latest development in a series of linkups between newspaper businesses and the most powerful Web companies, as both industries fight for the growing pool of ad dollars shifting to the Internet.
More than 260 US newspapers, including those owned by McClatchy, the third-biggest US publisher based on circulation, have signed on with Yahoo Inc to sell advertising online, including employment classifieds. Google Inc has also been working with some of the nation's largest newspapers to broker print advertising.
CareerBuilder topped the list of "career development" sites with 15.4 million unique visitors in the US in March, research group Nielsen/NetRatings said.
Monster Worldwide Inc, which has also pursued newspaper partnerships this year, followed with 8 million visitors. Yahoo's HotJobs clocked 5.4 million visitors, the researchers said, but grew 14 percent over last year while CareerBuilder's US audience slipped 3 percent.
Microsoft is putting a defense in place so CareerBuilder can't be acquired by Google or someone else, said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group.
Microsoft also said on Wednesday that it extended its deal to use CareerBuilder content exclusively on MSN until 2013, and it said CareerBuilder will pay US$443 million over seven years for the arrangement. Microsoft will also add CareerBuilder content to international MSN sites, mostly in Europe, starting in some countries later this year.
CareerBuilder, for its part, said the overseas traffic deal will help it expand into new markets.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
RSS