Although the deal has yet to be confirmed by either party, it appears that MySpace did, in fact, acquire Photobucket. And although the figure $300 million has been mentioned, the terms of the arrangement (assuming such an arrangement exists) remain unknown.
News of this deal first came courtesy of Valleywag, the well-known “tech gossip rag.” Nick Denton writes that “[t]he photo sharing service . . . may announce the deal as early as this [Monday] morning.” Also, “After final negotiations at the end of last week, Photobucket has called an all-hands staff meeting for 10am PST this morning.”
A number of onlookers have already said that they believe this is the “real deal” (forgive the pun); 108 people (out of 280 voters) on Mashable thought the two companies are a “perfect match.” And Hitwise’s LeeAnn Prescott, among other notable figures, might agree – just last month she wrote an article titled, “Photobucket Accounts for 73% of MySpace’s Photo-Related Traffic.”
On a more practical level, that 10 AM meeting would still leave plenty of time in the business day for all the usual speech-making and press release-writing.
Yet a point against the deal’s reality also exists: Photobucket already updated its press page once today, and the single new post merely announces a partnership with Snap. (The result: “What used to be an ordinary link now has a nifty thumbnail ‘SnapShot’ that lets people browse through your Photobucket album.”)
So did MySpace buy Photobucket or not? How about Microsoft and Yahoo? Or Google and Dow Jones? These past few days have been filled with acquisition-related rumors, but in respect to the MySpace-Photobucket deal, at least, we may soon receive a definitive answer.
UPDATE: The acquisition has been confirmed.
