European Social Media Powerhouse Wikio Changes Name And Focus, Raises Big Round

  x You have successfully emailed the post. Wikio Group, the European social media powerhouse, has a big announcement this morning. It's changing its name and focus and is raising almost $25 million. 

Wikio is a rollup of social media properties by Pierre Chappaz, who previously sold price comparison engine Kelkoo to Yahoo for over $400 million.

The company started out as a Digg-like aggregator but it seems that, as in the US, the aggregator model never broke past a niche appeal to bloggers and tech early adopters. Wikio also acquired Overblog, a popular free blogging service, and announced a plan to start a Demand Media-like product.

Now Wikio is changing its name to Ebuzzing, the social media marketing company it bought and which brought in the lion's share of its business. Ebuzzing brings together brands and bloggers for advertising and promotions. It seems that Wikio (now Ebuzzing) is turning itself into a social media advertising network. 

The pivot was probably at least partially brought on by Google's search algorithm revamp, which cut Wikio's traffic in half.

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