Photobucket valued at a mere $60 Million
As you may have heard, if you’ve been paying attention, MySpace/News Corp are currently in the process of trying to sell Photobucket, the video and image sharing service it acquired for $250 million dollars with an additional $50 million earnout in 2007. The buyer is a company called Ontela, who come with 40 million backing from Disney’s Steamboat Ventures arm. The deal with Ontela is thought to be at an advanced stage though sources close to both companies are putting the valuation at around $60 million, an 83% reduction from what MySpace paid.
If reports of the valuation are correct, then it’s one hell of an embarrassment for MySpace and its backer News Corp to have gotten a valuation so catastrophically wrong.
This kind of publicity is the last thing that MySpace needed. The social network is increasingly seen as losing out to the simpler more user friendly Facebook and the sheer publicity of Twitter, with many claiming that the only real USP it currently retains is customisability and some cache within the music business.
For the time being Ontela are not currently commenting on the story. Nor, unsurprisingly, are MySpace.
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