Report: Feedburner to Google for $100m
Techcrunch is reporting that last week's rumors about Google being close to acquiring RSS feed management and advertising firm Feedburner have been confirmed. The purchase price is in the ball park of the rumored $100 million, in a mostly cash deal that locks the founders in for a couple of years.
This is a great deal for both Feedburner and Google. For Google it gives them access to over 720,000 feeds including, 111,000 podcast or videocast feeds, many of which can now be added into the Adsense network. It also gives Google access to a wealth of data and information about how people consume blogs and information across the greater blogosphere.
For Feedburner, which has raised around $10 million from Mobius Venture Capital, Portage Venture Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Union Square Ventures, it gives them access to Google's muscle and resources (not to mention a nice exit).
The price itself seems like a steal to me. Feedburner's 422,000 publishers may not seem like a lot for a $100 million investment, but that 422,000 publishers actually translates into access to many millions of readers that Google can push advertising to.
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I'm so confused about thsi deal. With all the new versions of browsers now having their own RSS view, who sees these RSS feeds styled by Feedburner's stylesheet anymore? I can't remember the last time I even looked at one of these things. Maybe in IE 6?
So if all the browsers are circumventing Feedbuners stylized view, isn't the "Adsense" opportunity on these pages quickly becoming useless?
Nate,
They are actually placing ads in the feeds not on the pages. It doesn't matter what FR / Browser you are reading feeds in the ads still show up.
- Sean
Yeah, I considered that, but thought no, that must be absurd.
The reason I use RSS is because email sucks. There is just so much spam (ads) to deal with in there, that RSS keeps out the garbage. Now Google is going to start trying to inject this crap into the feed?
Am I the only one that isn't excited to have ads start showing up in my reader?It's going to be a no brainer to start deleting the feeds that start showing up with ads.
Ahh, its the ad in the post in my reader that I guess we'll see as adsense. Huh. I wonder what that stats are on who reads the whole post in their reader. I just get the headlines in the reader, and when I click it opens up the post in a browser. Am I a minority here?
Hi Nate, as a publisher I view RSS as crucial - and what's more, I use full-text feeds because I see RSS as a 'first class citizen' of the Web, just like HTML. In other words, people can choose to read R/WW in whatever way they like, in an RSS Reader or on the site. I am like you though, in that many times I click thru to the site to actually read a full article. But still, if for whatever reason I took away the full-text feed and replaced it with an excerpt -- there would be an outcry! :-) So you have to give people the choice of reading in an RSS Reader or site, and you can only do that by providing a full-text feed.
As for this news itself, well like many people I have been hearing rumors of it for weeks (well before it got onto the blogs). I too am a little surprised at the price, I thought FB might sell for more. But I am no expert in acquisition pricing.
Richard, I am glad you give a high priority to rss feeds because that is where I find and read stories here on this site. I also thought the $100 million price tag was a steal for Google. I would be very curious to see what this nabs the founders. If they have $10 million in funding, you know their investors are going to want a heft chunk back. Factor in employees and their salaries and any stock options, and that probably only leaves $10 million per founder. Still not shabby, but no where near as much as YouTube.
I wonder if they'll do any integration with Analytics considering both services have site stats.
Great point Dan, I use Google Analytics for the "heavy lifting" site stats for r/ww, so it would make sense to integrate FB Analytics into that UI (assuming the sale goes ahead).
yea. i like this deal alot. good for google. good for feedburner. two great companies.
"Still not shabby, but no where near as much as YouTube."
Why is this being compared with youtube? This site is nothing like youtube or no where near the traffic or exposure of youtube. YouTube created a revolution in online video sharing.
Does a site have to be sold for $1 billion+ to be considered a success these days?
$100 million seems like a huge amount of money to me for a service which mainly appeals to technology savy people.
This is a good move for Google especially in light of Google's universal search service. As for the price - talk about a bargain.
Ummm..Feedburner has really got such a great deal..I think feedburner was founded in 2003 itself?
Well, I think it is a little cheap. Blogs are huge, and to have up to date, accurate information about them is gold dust, feedburner may also benefit from unspecified muscle and services, and I wouldn't be surprised if the founders stay on for a while as consultants.