Peanut Labs Sells to Research Now, Promises New Survey Offers Efforts on Facebook

An early virtual goods monetization service provider, Peanut Labs, is announcing today that it is selling to traditional online survey and sampling provider Research Now for an undisclosed amount. The company began life as a social network called Xuqa in 2005 then morphed into a surveys and CPA offers provider over the last several years. Now, it plans to double down on the survey business, providing Research Now client inventory to users -- with Facebook's help, potentially. The company's surveys, for those unfamiliar appear as a form of advertising offer within social apps, typically allowing users to fill out information in exchange for virtual currency in games. A test partner in Facebook's initial experiments with offers back in April, the company tells us today that it will likely be working with Facebook directly again. It anticipates running its surveys within the Facebook Credits offers interface, alongside the current offers provided by Trialpay, a company spokesperson says. Overall, San Francisco-based Peanut Labs, cofounded by executives Murtaza Hussain, Ali Moiz, Prosper Nwankpa and Noman Ali, will become a business unit with the acquirer, retaining the same organization and structure as before. With a caveat: the company's Seattle direct survey-selling office will be integrated with Dallas, Texas-based Research Now more directly. Regarding the undisclosed terms, the company only says that they "made the initial investors very happy." The deal will officially close in October. The company's various offers product will stay mostly untouched. Its local deals product, Cherry Deals, will continue. Its CPA offers business will, too, albeit Peanut Labs will stop taking a cut of the ads and instead give the revenue to developers -- an attempt to undermine other offer providers, and lure in more developers to try out its surveys. CPA offers, which include some types of surveys, have in the past included deceitful or otherwise low-quality content -- something that the industry has been taken to task for on Facebook, and has tried to clean up as a result. Given Facebook's moves to tightly control all offers through Credits, a Peanut Labs survey deal here seems a good way for the company to transition. For recently rebranded Research Now (until today, called e-Rewards), the company will be getting access to the millions of Facebook users that Peanut Labs reaches through its client relationships. Peanut Labs gets the benefit of high-quality survey inventory and an established brand -- good for inking deals with Facebook, and appealing to developers.

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Peanut Labs Sells to Research Now, Promises New Survey Offers Efforts on Facebook

Eric Eldon

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