Miva sold MIVA Media to Adknowledge $11.6 million for MIVA Media in March. MIVA Media, was nan advertising network, and included the Espotting and Findwhat.com brands. Another of MIVA, Inc.’s divisions, MIVA Direct, was not part of the transaction and continues to be owned and operated by MIVA. The company is focusing on the expansion of its toolbar and ALOT product portfolio.

According to Peter Carrao, president and CEO,  the Q1 ’09 revenue was $6.2 million compared to $8.5 million in Q4, and the reduction in revenue from Q4 ’08 to Q1 ’09 was primarily a result of the both the decline in users of the toolbar home page and desktop products and a decline in average revenue per user.

“..The decline in the number of users of our toolbars, home pages and desktop products; as a reminder our primary channel for acquiring new users is direct response and display advertising. As we focused on managing our balance sheet in the lead up of the Miva Media sale, we reduced our advertising spend and this impacted our base, and in turn our revenues that we generated.”

Carrao also said a new name for the company will be announced shortly.

Adknowledge paid $11.6 million for MIVA Media, plus assumption of certain balance sheet liabilities, and subject to certain retained assets and liabilities and post-closing adjustments. MIVA Media, an advertising network, was founded in 1999 and includes the Espotting and Findwhat.com brands. Another of MIVA, Inc.’s divisions, MIVA Direct, was not part of the transaction and continues to be owned and operated by MIVA.

Adknowledge has been busy, picking up acquisitions that were focused on social media, including Cubics, Lookery, and social analytics company Adonomics.com. The company also purchased Mediarun, a display ad network.

MIVA, Inc. has reduced total headcount from 129 on December 31 2008 to approximately 50, which includes the transfer of approximately 75 MIVA Media and certain corporate staff to Adknowledge.

“Adknowledge’s financial strength and strong bottom-line performance have allowed us to make strategic acquisitions,” said Scott Lynn, CEO of Adknowledge, in a statement. “We plan to quickly combine MIVA Media’s strong industry position and experience with Adknowledge’s core predictive targeting technology to improve results for MIVA Media’s advertisers.”

Adknowledge continues to evaluate additional acquisition opportunities. “Our advertiser and targeting platforms enable us to easily ‘plug-in’ acquisitions into our infrastructure and recognize immediate synergy,” said Lynn.

MIVA, Inc. intends to use the proceeds from the sale of the MIVA Media business to focus on the expansion of its ALOT product portfolio. MIVA, Inc.’s common stock continues to trade on the NASDAQ under the trading symbol ‘MIVA’. MIVA, Inc. intends to change its name and ticker symbol in the near future.

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Blinkx sent MIVA a letter stating its intentions. It reads, in part:

“Our proposal represents a 54.0% premium above the closing price of MIVA common stock of $0.78 on August 7, 2008, and a 36% premium over the average closing price for the one month prior to August 7, 2008.

By whatever financial measure one might use, we believe this proposal represents a compelling value realization opportunity for your shareholders and the quickest and most secure way to see such value, particularly given the several challenges MIVA faces in the near term, including: risk and cost associated with the new technology platform, a deteriorating cash position, continued deterioration of the Media EU business and continued decline in revenue and profitability.”

A deal would certainly help Blinkx unveil the technologies — like video ad product AdHoc — that it’s been hammering out recently. (MIVA would give Blinkx a leg up distributing the product).

MIVA is set to report Q2 earnings on Monday. No word on MIVA’s response yet.

The start page is designed to leverage MIVA Direct’s existing toolbar distribution without causing a need for significant additional advertising expense. The start page will generate new ad inventory for MIVA’s media clients and type-in search traffic for MIVA Direct’s search monetization partner.

Rob Roe, General Manager/SVP for MIVA Direct stated, “This partnership is aligned with our strategy for building consumer media and at the same time increases our consumer value proposition. We believe that this represents an opportunity for revenue growth and incremental EBITDA contribution.”

Netvibes founder and CEO Tariq Krim said, “As a Netvibes Premium Universe partner, MIVA has established itself as a key player in the rapidly emerging widget economy.”

There are two main elements that make this new barcode technology so interesting. The first is that it removes the time lag between people being intrigued by a commercial and actually going on to do something about it. The technology adds a sense of immediacy and engagement that even direct response press and TV advertisers can only dream of.
The second is the effect the new technology could have on the future of the advertising market as a whole. By adding this new level of interactivity suddenly all forms of advertising become totally measurable. Stick a barcode up on a billboard for example and you can immediately and easily measure actual response rates. And it’s not just billboards either. The same is true of press ads, direct mail and even sales promotion campaigns. For direct response advertisers this could have a major impact. Instead of being restricted to the inclusion of 1 800 numbers and URLs, offline ads could start to evolve into far more powerful pull marketing tools.
So what could this mean for advertisers? In the future, we could start to see outdoor and press ads being sold on the same pay-for-performance basis that underpins the Pay-Per-Click model online.
There has been considerable press recently surrounding Google’s move into print and more recently TV and radio advertising, however to date these developments have been based purely on a different way in which to buy ad space rather than a new paradigm in how the actual ad space itself can be used. With these new barcodes that could change. In the future we could see the Pay-Per-Click networks offering integrated pay-for-performance buys that span different media both on and offline. This could turn the traditional offline ad model on its head by linking offline ads with the digital world in a way that until now has never been possible.
The mobile marketing sector is developing, of that there is no doubt. Just don’t be surprised if, as it develops, it results in far reaching implications for the broader advertising market as we know it.

As a result, all 12 UK Conde Nast websites will be serviced by MIVA, which will provide PPC ads to sites lincluding Vogue.com, GQ.com, Glamourmagazine.com, CNtraveller.co.uk, Tatler.co.uk, and Vanityfair.co.uk. The agreement allows for 6 pay-per-click ads across the 12 sites, which will be displayed at the bottom of the page. Using MIVA’s PCMS tool, advertiser logos and ads will be targeted for the proper demographic with relevant content.

Though the MIVA Mail technology, 500,000 opt-in emails sent on a consistent basis will also host the MIVA ads. This tool enables the latest ads in the MIVA network to appear no matter when emails are opened.

“”Our core objective is to continue to build and maintain equity for our individual online titles, and revenue was just one of the factors that influenced our decision in which Pay-Per-Click partner to appoint. We felt that MIVA with its expertise in delivering content driven Pay-Per-Click Ads was the partner best placed to deliver substantial revenue for us, but most importantly, ensure that only totally relevant ads are displayed on our sites,”” said Serena Privett, Commercial Director, Condé Nast Interactive.

MIVAÂ’ President and CMO Seb Bishop added, ““Condé Nast Interactive has a prestigious portfolio of sites that reach an extremely targeted cross-section of web users across key verticals. This new agreement provides a fantastic opportunity for our advertisers to reach these audiences and ties in with our strategy of delivering high-quality vertical traffic.””

Condé Nast will also comprise a portion of the MIVA MC Managed network, the company’s in-house PPC network designed for large online publishers that offers ongoing account management and optimization services, along with custom PPC implementation.

US-based press release distribution company TransWorldNews will use MIVA’s PPC and in-text ads, as well as a bevy of European properties, including French automotive site Argusauto.com and finance site Boursier.com, Germany’s Sport1.de sports portal and MyVideo.de, and Spain’s Grupo Zeta.

The new partners have become part of the MIVA MC Managed network, a PPC network designed for larger publishers that includes online account management and ad optimization tools. Not to be confused with MIVA MC, the company’s self-serve PPC ad network.

Last month, MIVA signed a deal with UK newspaper publisher Johnston Press Plc to provide PPC advertising across the publisher’s network of 300 newspaper and classified websites.

“We believe we’re building a good level of momentum following the signing of these new partner agreements,” said MIVA CEO Peter Corrao in a statement. “These are prestigious publishing brands across both the U.S. and Europe and we believe the wins are a significant vote of confidence in our ability as online monetization experts.”

“This next course-correcting step, while difficult, is fundamental to achieving our turnaround goal for stabilizing cash and returning to positive operating margins,” said CEO Peter Corrao in a statement. The company expects to cut its workforce in the US and Europe by about 20% by the end of May 2007. MIVA has its headquarters in Fort Meyers, Florida and has offices in New York, and several in Europe. MIVA expects the initial cost of restructuring to reach about $4 million.

“This step complements our strategy for increasing the overall mix of MIVA-owned primary traffic, which we believe over time, will facilitate higher gross margin revenue on top of a more efficient cost base,” added Corrao.

MIVA’s pay-per-click network covers North America, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. It also provides e-commerce, email marketing and SEO services. MIVA has not yet released its fourth-quarter earnings for 2006. According to a press release, the company will release those numbers in March 2007.

The Precision Network is currently in beta and exists alongside MIVA’s existing Core Network. While the Core Network will provide broad ad distribution, the Precision Network will only focus on a few specific vertical categories.

Advertisers will be able to use a combination of both Core and Precision. “As the Pay-Per-Click market continues to mature, we believe there will be increasing demand amongst advertisers for both horizontal and vertical networks,” said MIVA CEO Peter Corrao in a statement. “The new Network is designed to provide lower volume, higher value leads to advertisers; while our Core Network will continue to provide a higher volume of leads at a lower cost.” US verticals covered by Precision includes 18 vertical markets, while UK coverage will start smaller with 5.

To promote the launch, MIVA is providing advertisers with a team of experts to help them determine the most effective ways to make use of the different categories. Both the new and old networks can be managed through MIVA’s AdCenter dashboard utility.