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Social Networking - Monday, April 14, 2008

RadioOne Pays $38M For CommunityConnect's Ethnic SocNets

Multimedia conglomerate Radio One has acquired NYC-based Community Connect for $38M. Radio One owns and/or operates 53 radio stations in 16 domestic urban markets.

The firm runs niche social networking sites for African-Americans (BlackPlanet.com), Asian-Americans (AsianAve.com) and Latinos (MiGente.com). And this year we just launched two new sites focused on the GLBT market (Glee.com) and the Christian market (FaithBase.com). The company's Web sites provide information regarding jobs, politics, culture, music, and entertainment.

Community Connect was founded nearly 12 years ago and amazingly its founders CEO Ben Sun and CTO Michael Montero are still with the company. Community Connect had raised VC funding from Dominion Ventures, ConnectCapital Comcast Interactive Capital,and Jump Ventures.

Interestingly, last week IAC announced that it is getting into the niche demographics business with the launch of a search engine for African Americans called Rushmore Drive.

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