IAC purchases Seattle restaurant guide site Urbanspoon

NEW YORK — Online media giant IAC/InteraActiveCorp has acquired Seattle-based Urbanspoon for an undisclosed amount.

Urbanspoon operates Web restaurant guides across a number of cities, and offers a popular free application for the Apple iPhone. The sale occurred in February, but was disclosed today in IAC's report of its first quarter financial performance.

IAC Chief Executive Barry Diller also disclosed in the company's earnings call today that the company has had discussions with Yahoo about acquiring that company's personal-ads business.

"Whether [the discussions] will go anywhere or not is, of course, enormously speculative," he said. "But I think Yahoo has said it's not an absolute core asset to their future, and it is core to us, personals."

IAC's financial report showed that the recession took a bite out of the company in the first quarter, as revenue fell 22 percent in the Internet company's media and advertising unit, which includes the Ask.com search engine.

Shares of IAC jumped $1.17, or 7.3 percent, to $17.13 in afternoon trading Wednesday, however, as investors likely found solace in the fact that IAC slightly exceeded revenue estimates and said it bought back stock during the quarter.

The New York-based company said that in the first three months it lost $28.4 million, or 19 cents per share.

This compares with a profit of $52.8 million, or 38 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. However, that quarter included income from operations that IAC has since spun off — home shopping network HSN Inc., time-share business Interval Leisure Group Inc., ticketing service Ticketmaster and lending and real estate business Tree.com Inc.

Excluding special items, IAC lost 2 cents per share. On that basis, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a profit of 1 cent per share.

IAC said revenue fell 10 percent to $332 million, better than the $330 million analysts expected.