The FTC has no objections; Fox Interactive Media is free to acquire Photobucket. As a result, the photo-sharing site will probably get snapped up in the near future.
FTC Clears Fox Interactive To Buy Photobucket
Rumors from a couple months ago pegged Photobucket’s price tag at $250-$300 million, and there’s no reason to believe things have changed in the meantime. On another note, since Fox Interactive Media owns MySpace, expect to see both names involved in the deal.
MySpace has been in the news a lot in recent days. The good (from MySpace’s perspective): MySpace TV, a new video site, launched. The bad: MySpace’s numbers in the UK seem to be slipping. A third item, which may fall somewhere in between: MySpace’s founders want a lot of money.
This latest development can also be tied to three different things. First, Yahoo may have to worry about renewed competition with its Flickr service. Then, Bogdan Popa points out that Photobucket “also enables users to upload videos,” so MySpace TV may become closely involved. And – it would feel strange if Google wasn’t mentioned at least once in an article – Popa even suggests that “a major improvement over this side of the product might get YouTube into trouble and affect its traffic.”
There’s no word on when the Fox Interactive-Photobucket will take place, but as mentioned earlier, expect it to happen in the very near future.
