Murdoch Buys Social Media News Agency Storyful

Rupert Murchoch's News Corp group is paying EUR 18m (c.$24.6m) for Dublin-based social media news agency Storyful, which offers a combination of journalistic expertise and proprietary technology, including social media dashboards and other real-time discovery tools and feeds.

Storyful was set up in 2010 by former foreign correspondent Mark Little (pictured). The company's technology allows clients to integrate video into their news or advertising via online and mobile platforms, and to monitor social media conversations and sentiment. So far in 2013, verified user-generated videos managed by Storyful generated 750 million views for its partners.

Following the acquisition, Storyful will operate as a standalone business unit within News Corp and continue to work with its existing roster of global customers, which includes The Wall Street Journal. Little and Executive Editor David Clinch will carry on overseeing the company's operations, and Rahul Chopra, SVP of Video for News Corp, will join the Storyful management team, taking on the additional role of CRO. Additional business development and advertising sales staff will be hired and will be based in New York.

Little comments: 'By joining forces with News Corp, Storyful can quickly transform its vision into a global reality. We believe that journalism in the age of social media needs to be open, innovative and collaborative, and so does the business model that will sustain it. News Corp is a natural fit for a company which wants to help reinvent the news industry.'

Web sites: www.newscorp.com and www.storyful.com .