Socialmedian, a social news start up, has been bought by Xing, the Germany based business social network. Xing is similar to LinkedIn, and is positioned to utilize Socialmedian to provide its professional services to users. Socialmedian will receive about $4 million in cash and stock, with also be paid an earn-out based on performance for up to 2.5 million euros.

IMDB, the Internet Movie Data Site, owned by Amazon , has acquired  Box Office Mojo, a popular movie data site. The sale will allow IMDB to provide more comprehensive box office data figures, and integrate some of  its film and TV credits data on BOM. The terms of the sale were not disclosed.

The humor Site, National Lampoon, expands into the e-commerce market with the acquisition of JerkassClothing.com that sells youth and college oriented t-shirts. The terms of the sale were not disclosed.

RealEstate.com has bought certain assets of New Homes Realty, an online real estate company. New Homes Realty’s cache of Web sites, that includes NewHomes.com providing interested home shoppers a database of thorough real estate information for new and existing homes,  will now be run by RealEstate.com. As an Internet-enabled real estate brokerage that operates in 14 markets with more than 1,100 sales agents, RealEstate.com allows consumers a more efficient way to buy or sell homes by utilizing real estate services, tools, and helpful advice. Financial terms of this deal were not revealed.

The fast growing industry of selling and buying online properties can be a very lucrative and rewarding. However, it can be confusing to even the sophisticated entrepreneur that has experience in the regular world markets. If you want to develop good skills at selling websites, and avoid certain pitfalls, You must understand certain strategies and tips for success.

The following are some essential website selling tips:

Once you are committed in selling your site, you must determine a reasonable selling price that reflects the worth of your site, and also attracts potential qualified buyers. The goal should be to sell your site to the most qualified buyer within a short period of time. Many people believe that the value of a website is based on what a potential buyer may pay. There are different formulas used, but one method for evaluating the value of your website, is the website valuation tool at: http://www.websitebroker.com/valuation.php.

After determining a sale price for your website, you must market your website for sale to potential qualified buyers. There are various marketplaces to sell your website online. Most reputable marketplaces will charge you to list your site for sale, but will increase your exposure to qualified buyers.  When listing your site for sale, it will be important for you to easily communicate with potential buyers and evaluate their credibility and reputation.  The sale of the website may require some time. In fact, it may take several months if you want to receive a reasonable profit or best price for your website.

An interested buyer will conduct  due diligence prior to considering making an offer. The buyer will want to know whether  your website for sale is profitable and what is the potential for future profits. You should be prepared to readily provide proof of the metrics of your website, to prevent the buyer from losing interest and moving on to a different deal. This will also increase your credibility as serious and reputable seller.

   You should be prepared to the present the following information to a potential buyer : 

1. Access to or information relating to the visitor and page view data .
2. Revenue, and expense data with breakdowns. 
3. Major sources of your traffic with breakdown of natural,direct, and PPC traffic.
4. Minimal background information about yourself.
5. Reason as to why you are selling your site. 
6. Number of staff and outside resources.
7. Amount of time per week dedicated by you to running the site.
8. Any additional information that you may think will be useful.

Once you have negotiated an accepted sale price, a purchase contract should be signed by the seller and the buyer. It is safer to use and escrow service to complete the sale transaction to void any last minute problems. 

Selling a website can be challenging at first, but if with some useful tips and formulas,  you can gain valuable experience in becoming a reputable seller.

A digital content company, hswinternational.com, has acquired the health information social networking site, dailystrength.org. Dailystrenght was launched in March of 2007, and it hosts approximately 500 communities that relate to issues such as illnesses, parenting, divorvce, and weight loss. According to the terms of the deal, dailystrenght will be paid $3.125 million in cash, and will receive an additional payment of up to $3.525 million, based on pageviews increase. It is interesting to note that the additional amount is based on pageviews increase, rather than revenues.