VideoEgg to buy Six Apart, rename itself Say Media

Ad network VideoEgg announced today it will buy marketing and blogger network Six Apart to create a combined media company dubbed Say Media.

The goal of the new business will be to hook up advertisers with consumers at a time when online attention spans are limited and ads that interrupt people aren't proving effective, according to VideoEgg. Say Media will team up VideoEgg's technology with Six Apart's social publishing and blogging network in an attempt to create more interactive and conversational ads.

VideoEgg's press release makes some bold projections about the new company.

Say Media could help advertisers reach as many 345 million consumers, claims VideoEgg, citing forecasts from ComScore on both VideoEgg and Six Apart separately and the potential number of "unduplicated" audience in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. But critics who dispute such estimates say that online ad companies often quote figures based on the number of ads they place rather than the number of people who'll actually see those ads, according to VentureBeat.

VideoEgg CEO and co-founder Matthew Sanchez will head the combined company. Six Apart CEO Chris Alden is planning to leave, but Six Apart co-founder Mena Trott will join the board of Say Media.

VideoEgg began life in 2005 as a video upload site before transforming into an ad network. Six Apart just shut down its Vox blogging network but will continue to support both its Typepad and Moveable Type blogging tools, according to TechCrunch.