So, it was a foreplay storm before the calm climax - MySpace acquires PhotoBucket
Wasn’t it last month that MySpace blocked PhotoBucket for infringement of the Terms of Use - Photobucket CEO: Our videos don’t have ads?
Well, that seems to be a foreplay storm for the calm climax coming in - MySpace acquires PhotoBucket.
Om Malik’s deduction on why MySpace bought PhotoBucket is that the MySpace photo service hasn’t really gained as much traction and MySpace users continue to gravitate towards Photobucket. According to Hitwise, “Photobucket accounted for 73% of Photography category visits leaving MySpace and Photobucket is by far the most dominant photo website for MySpace users.”
He further adds that, it could be one Happy Monday for Photobucket’s investors - Trinity Ventures and Insight Venture Partners. Their good fortune would mean that other Silicon Valley moneybags would be willing to take riskier bets on start-ups that have high traffic, but little in terms of revenues, profits.
Photobucket was founded in 2003 by Alex Welch and Darren Crystal; it took off in 2005 as users on social network sites such as Myspace began to use the service to store and display pictures of themselves and their friends.
The figures are sketchy but Photobucket, and its bankers Lehman Brothers, were looking for at least $300 million. Well, looks like all other widget maker companies that leech on social networking sites like MySpace can take a breather as there is different mode of revenue in the making. Best wishes to all Widgets!