Major players in the media are snapping up certain types of Internet properties left and right. This Globe and Mail article explains why.

An excerpt:

Welcome to the new tech boom. While News Corp. is the most brash of the world's big media companies pursuing on-line strategies — mostly through acquisitions — it is not alone. Five years after the tech bubble burst, old-media businesses are rushing back to the Web, planting their flags on-line as the Internet eats away at newspaper and television audiences.

It's a cognitive shift for the media sector that's only starting to register with many companies. Up until a few years ago, even Mr. Murdoch, arguably one of the most powerful people in media, swore off the Internet. "He didn't feel it was ready," Todd Chanko, a media analyst at Jupiter Research, said in an interview. Now he's leading the charge.

But the model is different this time around. Media companies are hunting for so-called sticky sites that have little to do with news content or programming, but offer enough gimmicks, such as photo publishing, music broadcasting or community networking. They want sites that keep people surfing longer and exposed to more advertising.

With the dollar value of Internet ads expected to nearly triple by the end of the decade, rising to more than $25-billion (U.S.), international media giants such as News Corp., Viacom Inc. and NBC Universal have started buying websites by the armload to boost their ad revenue. No longer willing to compete against the Internet for viewers, they are simply going where the audiences, particularly the younger ones, have gone.

News Corp. started the frenzy last summer when it took a $580-million gamble on Myspace.com, a popular social networking site used mostly by surfers aged 14 to 29.

At the time, the deal looked exorbitantly expensive. Although MySpace is a cult hit among people who use it to post photos, music, blogs and connect with friends, it was making less than $5-million a quarter. But the deal came with something News Corp. couldn't easily manufacture: an audience of 46.2 million monthly visitors, proving the Internet can draw crowds similar to the most popular TV shows.

A string of other Web deals have followed over the past year that could make MySpace look like a bargain, including a move by News Corp. to buy IGN, a video gamers' site, for $650-million. New York Times Co. purchased About.com, a clearinghouse of on-line advice sites for $410-million, while Viacom, the owner of MTV and Paramount, bought several Web properties, including NeoPets, a popular children's site, for $160-million.