According to TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, the rumors have been confirmed and Google is purchasing FeedBurner for $100 Million.
The deal is apparently in the closing stages and according to Michael’s source, the buyout is all cash and the founders of FeedBurner will be staying with the company for the next couple of years.
The information we have is that the deal is now under a binding term sheet and will close in 2-3 weeks, and there is nothing that can really derail it at this point.
Does this mean that all of the blogs we subscribe to with RSS powered by FeedBurner will be serving Google AdSense ads? We hope not :)
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10 responses so far ↓
Ryan Christensen on May 23, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Several blogs I’ve read seem to be similar in their concern that “all of the blogs we subscribe to with RSS powered by FeedBurner will be serving Google AdSense ads?”…
Perhaps I’m just really missing the boat, but could someone explain exactly what leads them to believe Google would want to do that? I posted a similar comment on Young Go Getter:
You don’t need ROI to justify a purchase… look at YouTube! :) (Or, more seriously, Urchin? Blogger?) At least FeedBurner has some services it can (and does successfully to my knowledge) make money off. I think I have faith that if it does happen, we won’t see it destroyed.
I think common sense says purchasing FB and spamming feeds with ads would be among the most effective things Google could do to piss off an absurdly large portion of the web community. (Accordingly, I don’t see it happening.)
Raj Dash on May 23, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Damn it all!! This sucks so much. Time to find an alternative.
Loren Baker, Editor on May 23, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Is it that bad Raj? I think Feedburner’s power is not only in its advertising program, as Ryan reminded us, but also in its acceptance by the blogosphere as THE feed syndication measurement tool (although probably a handful of bloggers could tell you what those numbers actually mean).
Wonder if Google would work feed syndication popularity into their algorithm?
Ryan Christensen on May 23, 2007 at 6:33 pm
That’s actually a very interesting point Loren — I can imagine that Google sees a great deal of value in that sort of statistical data.
Either way, I’ll be very interested to see how this pans out (for both FeedBurner and its members…)
Raj Dash on May 23, 2007 at 6:59 pm
It’s not bad, not for Google.
I’m not saying I don’t use Google services - I love and use many of them daily. I just don’t like that “everything” belongs to one company, whether Google, Microsoft, or whatever. I’m pure anti-monopoly.
Dan on May 23, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Is there any start-up (decent one) Google can’t buy?
They can just pick and choose what they want.
Andy Beard (on feedburner) on May 24, 2007 at 3:52 am
I went into some depth yesterday before the “official” rumour confirmation on Techcrunch.
I am sure it is a good deal for Google and Feedburner, but I am not sure it is a good deal for Bloggers.
I would like to see Feedburner have some healthy competition before being purchased.
Raj Dash on May 24, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Oh by the way, watch Technorati be Google’s next acquisition, pretty much capturing a lot the best blogospheric services. Knock wood
WebStractions on May 24, 2007 at 9:01 pm
“Does this mean that all of the blogs we subscribe to with RSS powered by FeedBurner will be serving Google AdSense ads?”
Probably not. But I can see them converting it over to Atom.
As for the statistics from feeds in combination with Analytics, should be a powerful duo to crunch data with. Just another piece of the puzzle to analyze patterns with.
endeki on Jan 21, 2008 at 8:39 am
one day google will buy my site, I hope :)
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