Fox Interactive, the corporate parent of MySpace may not be commenting on its rumored $250 million purchase of photo sharing & hosting service Photobucket, but the tongues are already wagging with many wondering who’s next. The name of the photo-sharing start-up quietly doing the rounds of likely buyers is one that is going to surprise many.
We have heard from multiple sources that Fotolog, a social photo site is one of the fast growing properties, getting a (notoriously unreliable) Alexa ranking of 24, which puts it above Photobucket.
The New York-based Fotolog started in May 2002 and now has eight million members, and is doing about 3 billion page views a month, with about 13 million unique users. In the last month alone the start-up has added about 700,000 users. Quantcast data puts them at about 26 million uniques.
So why is this company not getting the attention? Mostly because it is big in Spanish-speaking regions and in Southern Europe. The company has signed a deal with AOL, which will likely goose up the revenues for this little start-up.
But one should not confuse Photobucket and Fotolog. Fotolog CEO John Borthwick, a former Time Warner executive, on his blog notes:
Photobucket is a tool that is agnostic of destination – while Fotolog is a destination. Photobucket stores image-based media, then distributes it to your page on social networking sites such as Myspace, Bebo, Piczo, Friendster, etc. Fotolog is a destination where you post one image a day which then becomes the center of a social interaction/chat with your friends. It’s intentionally simple – stripped down and focused on the social media experience.
Borthwick agrees with the arguments we made in our post yesterday, even though he believes MySpace has grander ambitions for Photobucket.
Photobucket is a photo and video tool that could become a web-wide locker for the storage of digital media. Just as eBay’s acquisition of PayPal wasn’t meant to just serve just eBay, my guess is that NewsCorp’s purchase of Photobucket isn’t just meant to serve MySpace.
So who would be interested in this company? My guess is a large media player without a social media play. IAC, Viacom and several private investors could be interested in Fotolog. This is one you need to keep an eye on.
Read More...
Summary only...
Joining Epson and a growing host of others in the miniscule PC arena, enano is throwing its own offerings in the hat while boasting about greenness all the while. The generation e2 lineup sports "book sized" enclosures, a sleek black paint job, and four different models to suit your fancy (and budget). All four units rely on one of Intel's Core 2 Duo processors, but apparently, none are sporting the Santa Rosa love just yet. The machines can be configured with up to 2GB of DDR2 RAM, 160GB of SATA hard drive space, an integrated TV tuner, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g, 7.1 surround sound audio, and feature Intel's GMA950 integrated graphics set, an SD / MS / MMC card reader, a total of four USB 2.0 ports, one 4-pin FireWire connector, DVI or VGA out via adapter, S-Video out, and audio in / out ports to finish things off. The box itself weighs in at just three pounds and measures 8.8- x 6.8- x 1.65-inches around, and while the company claims that you'll save a bundle on energy costs with this power sipper, the up front charges ranging from around $1,200 to near $2,000 probably makes up for it.
The CBS affiliate here in Kansas City (KCTV) just did an investigation into airport security, and proved that it doesn't matter what kind of ID you show when you try to board a plane, as long as the ID looks kind of real. So while people test the system and try to fly without an ID at all, I think the bigger story is that requiring an ID at all is a total sham security measure. The TV station made an ID from scratch and the screeners accepted it with no questions asked. They even have an interactive display on their website showing how they created it and all of the crazy stuff they included on it. Kind of funny and scary at the same time. 
Posts
