Los Angeles, U.S.A. — BUZZMEDIA one of the fastest growing digital media companies, has acquired SPIN Media, an iconic brand and pioneer in music journalism for more than 25 years—extending BUZZMEDIA’s commitment to providing the most insightful and authentic coverage of music and culture.

Under the terms of the deal, BUZZMEDIA gains SPIN.com, an industry-leading source of news and features; SPIN’s print magazine; the award-winning SPIN Play app for iPad; and SPIN’s established events business.

“As music consumption continues to grow, there is an enormous demand for deeper context and engagement with thousands of diverse artists,” said Tyler Goldman, CEO of BUZZMEDIA. “SPIN’s category-leading editorial and photographic content provides the added social context that the audience is seeking by identifying, exploring and documenting the trends and scenes that shape music culture. While content is now being consumed across numerous devices, the key for all platforms is the type of great storytelling that SPIN provides.”

SPIN complements BUZZMEDIA’s existing suite of leading music offerings—including Stereogum, Idolator, Hype Machine, Pure Volume, Brooklyn Vegan, AbsolutePunk, Buzznet, Concrete Loop, Gorilla vs. Bear, Pop Matters, Punk News, RCRD LBL, and the recently acquired XLR8R. From a reach standpoint, these properties establish BUZZMEDIA as the fourth largest digital publisher of original music content in the U.S., alongside MTV, Yahoo! Music and AOL Music, according to comScore*.

Adding SPIN builds on this reach and BUZZMEDIA’s unsurpassed coverage of music and the surrounding culture through its in-depth and thoughtful narrative on issues that matter to millennials (18-to 34-year-olds) globally. BUZZMEDIA will continue to invest in this vision by expanding the overall SPIN editorial team and coverage areas in connection with extending digital distribution, so that audiences can better experience, consume and participate in SPIN’s original content.

“As our audience has migrated to digital platforms, so too has SPIN, as evidenced by our growing audience of more than one million digital users and our award-winning iPad app,” said Alan Nichols, CEO of SPIN Media. “This deal greatly accelerates our digital transition, enabling us to not only tap into BUZZMEDIA’s digital audience of 120 million unique monthly visitors, but also its ability to foster original, authentic and insightful voices in a digital world.”

The SPIN acquisition is part of BUZZMEDIA’s ongoing efforts to provide the voices that define popular culture for millions of millennials. BUZZMEDIA is among the top-40 most trafficked online destinations in the U.S. according to comScore, and more than one in four millennials consume content fromBUZZMEDIA digital brands every month.

For more information about Buzz Media and Spin please visit www.buzz-media.com and www.spin.com

Image Courtesy of   BuzzMedia

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comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, on February 09, 2012 released the 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report. This annual report examines how the prevailing trends in social media, search, online video, digital advertising, mobile and e-commerce are defining the current marketplace and what these trends mean for the year ahead.

“2012 promises to be an exciting year for the digital media industry as the explosion of available content and proliferation of web-enabled devices drive the evolution of the digital consumer, creating new opportunities and challenges for the entire digital ecosystem,” said Linda Abraham, comScore CMO and EVP of Global Product Development. “In order to be successful in this new paradigm, digital marketers must understand the key trends shaping the current marketplace and what that means for the future of their businesses.”

Key insights from the 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus include:

Facebook-Led Social Media Market is Redefining Communication in the Digital and Physical Worlds

• Social Networking accounted for 16.6 percent of all online minutes at the end of 2011 and is on track to surpass Portals as the most engaging online activity in 2012. Facebook continues to lead as the driving force behind this shift in consumer behavior, accounting for the largest share of online minutes across the entire web in 2011.

Bing Gains Ground in Search

• Although Google maintains a strong lead in the U.S. search market, one of the most notable stories in search in 2011 was Bing’s positive growth trajectory. Bing closed out the year by surpassing Yahoo! for the #2 position among core search engines for the first time in its history, bolstered in part by its social search partnership with Facebook implemented in early 2011.

Online Video Boom Signals Sea Change in Video Ecosystem

• Online video viewing witnessed impressive gains across a variety of measures in 2011, signaling a behavioral shift in how Americans are consuming video content. More than 100 million Americans watched online video content on an average day to close out 2011, representing a 43-percent increase versus year ago.

Digital Advertising Enters Era of Increased Accountability as Brand Dollars Continue to Shift Online

• A staggering 4.8 trillion display ad impressions were delivered across the U.S. web in 2011 as brand advertisers continued to shift dollars to the digital medium. This shift in ad dollars has magnified the need for greater transparency and accountability in ad delivery across the digital advertising ecosystem.

Smartphone and Tablets Fuel the Rise of the Digital Omnivore

• The rise of smartphones and tablets has drastically altered consumers’ digital media consumption. In 2011, the majority of all mobile phone owners consumed mobile media on their device, marking an important milestone in the evolution of mobile from primarily a communication device to also a content consumption tool. At the end of the year, more than 8 percent of all digital traffic was consumed beyond the ‘classic web’ via devices such as smartphones and tablets.

E-Commerce is Back and Better Than Ever

• Despite the backdrop of continued economic uncertainty, 2011 was a strong year for retail e-commerce. Throughout the year, growth rates versus the prior year remained in double-digits to significantly outpace growth at brick-and-mortar retail. Total U.S. retail and travel-related e-commerce reached $256 billion in 2011, up 12 percent from 2010.

Webinar – 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus: Trends Every Marketer Needs to Know

Join Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix, and Eli Goodman, comScore Media Evangelist, on Wednesday February 22nd at 2 PM EST, as they share key insights from the 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report and discuss what these trends mean for today’s marketers. For more information and to register, please visit: http://www.comscore.com/2012_Future_in_Focus_Webinar

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