Bertelsmann acquires Smashing Ideas for Random House no comments
Bertelsmann has acquired digital media agency 
Smashing Ideas for its Random House division for an undisclosed sum. Smashing Ideas specializes in making interactive enhanced books for mobile devices.
From the press release:
The fifteen-year-old Seattle-based Smashing Ideas is renowned for offering strategic marketing solutions and creating immersive, interactive content experiences, from games to branded sites to story-based applications, across multiple digital distribution channels, including online, smartphones, tablet devices, and iTV. They serve a roster of prominent clients such as Mattel, Nickelodeon, PBS, Cartoon Network, and Disney. Last year alone, Smashing Ideas generated 500 million game plays and half a billion page views for its clients. Smashing Ideas added an ePublishing unit last year, coinciding with the arrival of tablet devices in the marketplace.
Smashing Ideas will continue to operate independently out of their Seattle headquarters, as well as their U.K. office, primarily focusing on its current and future client businesses.
Last September, Random House, Inc. established a partnership with Smashing Ideas to develop first-rate mobile applications for selected titles. The first two apps, developed with the Random House Children’s Books division, Wild About Books and Pat the Bunny, both climbed to #1 in the books category in the Apple App store.
Smashing Ideas will become an even stronger partner for Random House’s digital content initiatives, concentrating on the company’s development of fun and meaningful digital product and branding solutions. Within Random House, Smashing Ideas will be focused particularly in the children’s, educational, lifestyle, and reference areas, as well as on working with Random House publishers to develop new content solutions for the mobile and online marketplaces.
