Tsavo Strays From The Acquisition Model, Develops Three Lifestyle Blogs

Start-up Tsavo Media, an online media network started by UserPlane founder Mike Jones, has officially added a trio of new blogs, Manolith, Twirlit and KidGlue to its growing media mini-empire. Tsavo, who has appeared to implement a growth by acquisition strategy since its start in September, opted to develop the three blogs in-house.

Tsavo is trying to tailor digital content directly to a consumer’s online experience. Twirlit, which includes content showcasing celebrity gossip, fashion, food and beauty; and Manolith, which features posts on gadgets, style and men’s health; are both blogs targeted at consumers in their mid-20s to mid-40s. Kidglue rounds out the mix with resources and news for parents. Last week, Tsavo announced the acquisition of popular foodie recipe site OpenSourceFood, which has been integrated into its search aggregator and network, Daymix, under the name NibbleDish. Daymix serves as both a platform for the blogs and as a giant automated search technology. Through Daymix, users can not only search for personalized content, but can also create and embed widgets of their favorite topic searches. See the Michael Arrington widget below. Tsavo also recently created a nifty Twitter-based search engine called Twithority.

Funded by deep-pocketed private equity firm American Capital, Tsavo has made several acquisitions since its birth, including the publishing assets of Canadian digital media network MoxyMedia and the online marketing and search engine optimization firm Better. We speculated last year about how Tsavo and American Capital are good fit for each other in terms of implementing an expansion by acquisition strategy.

While some compare Tsavo to new media network Demand Media, Jones doesn’t agree. He prefers for Tsavo to be compared to a smaller Hearst Media, CNET or even parts of Sugar Inc.’s blog platform. It should be interesting to see how Tsavo continues to differentiate itself from the aforementioned (and well-established) digital media networks in the future.