Comments on: MySpace Buys Photobucket: Is Rupert Murdoch An Alternative to Google and Yahoo?

By: ryan l

ryan l — Wed, 09 May 2007 14:21:56 +0000

I guess I see it as essentially buying eyeballs.. Photobucket gives Rupert yet another time to scar my eyeballs with his message du jour.(unique page impressions)

It also might be a valuable sales tool to validate some of the stats that the advertisers throw around. I would assume each one of those pics throws a nice little “ping” each time its viewed by a new unique user.

Another angle might be email accounts….maybe the overlap wasn’t quite as overwhelming when looking at users associated email accounts.

By: franky

franky — Tue, 08 May 2007 13:36:31 +0000

According to this new TC article they have bought few new users. But they have bought lots of traffic towards LiveJournal, Xanga, Blogger and many other networks. ;-)

By: Tony Hung

Tony Hung — Tue, 08 May 2007 06:39:59 +0000

Jhay,

Either that, or the cost of acquisitions

By: Tony Hung

Tony Hung — Tue, 08 May 2007 06:38:59 +0000

Franky,

They’re also acquiring *users* plain and simple. They already have some kind of service like this already, but its clear its not really about the technology, is it?

Cheers
t @ dji

By: Tony Hung

Tony Hung — Tue, 08 May 2007 06:35:21 +0000

Adam,

Thanks for the kind words. If nothing else, I try and entertain myself. I’m glad if others find it entertaining as well. ;)

Cheers
t @ dji

By: jhay

jhay — Tue, 08 May 2007 01:20:20 +0000

It was all charade? It makes sense though, MySpace users have been using photobucket since, since photobucket.

The internet has really reached the monopoly stage wherein giants keep on gobbling up the littles ones.

By: franky

franky — Mon, 07 May 2007 21:57:53 +0000

What did MySpace not create before this? They have a photo section, they have videos (if I remember well, I rarely visit MySpace). But they have never allowed external usage.
With the acquisition of Photobucket, they don’t only obtain another web property with a very low ROI and CPM, but they also broaden their web wide influence if they maintain the character of Photobucket. They could even become a YouTube competitor.

On the other side, Murdoch has always been a M&A master, this is no new behavior from him.