A new major player?
How fickle is stardom

More big news from the major player front.

Privately-owned Specific Media announced a $100 million investment from Francisco Partners yesterday after raising $10 million last June.

Specific reaches 130.7 million people across the web, making it the fourth largest ad network behind Advertising.com, Yahoo, and publicly-traded ValueClick's 133.5 million person reach, according to TechCrunch, which also says Specific plans to remain independent.

It's also rumored that AOL will buy content-targeting ad network Quigo for $300 million, according to Kara Swisher.

AOL jumped into the ad business with its $435 million purchase of Advertising.com in 2004.