IQ News: Razorfish Captures Tag Media: Shop Becomes Razorfish L.A.

In its fourth acquisition since spring, Razorfish, New York, has bought Los Angeles-based tag media, a design shop best known for creating Fox’s Web show, “The Visitor.”
The company, to be known as Razorfish Los Angeles, includes 10 full-time staff members and had nearly $1 million in revenue last year. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Razorfish CEO Jeff Dachis said tag media’s experience with broadband applications and West Coast location will help Razorfish service more entertainment and media clients. “We need to have New York and Los Angeles,” Dachis said, adding, “The tag group is really culturally aligned with us.”
Tag CEO and president Richard D. Titus, who will be managing director of Razorfish Los Angeles, said the company, founded a year and a half ago, had been approached by several other agencies but none viewed the Web in the way his company and Razorfish do. He said both he and Dachis believe “parallel media” will converge on the Web. For example, the tag online creation “The Visitor,” was linked with Fox’s television show of the same name. He cited tag’s work with clients such as Metropolis Entertainment, creators of Independence Day and Godzilla, and technical work for NASA, Intel and Microsoft as complementary to Razorfish’s work for clients such as Charles Schwab & Co.
Both he and Dachis also eschew the notion that content on the Web is a moribund relative of content in other media. “We think it’s just getting started,” Titus said.
Razorfish has also acquired Avalanche, New York; Plastic, San Francisco; and CHBi, London, since the start of the year. It reported $20 million in revenue through the four quarters ending in March 1998.