MySpace And Photobucket Officially Tie The Knot

Say a loving couple split for a brief period because one half did something without the other?s permission, leaving the other half to lock the other out of its world. You figure it?s not too serious, and they?ll probably mend their ends sooner or later. Well, what if, soon after hugs, the kisses, the apologies and the forgiveness get passed about, the two decide to get hitched? Would that be a normal conclusion to a brief moment on the rocks?

Who knows? What I can say for certain is that MySpace and Photobucket, two close friends recently known to travel a rough patch, have decided to make permanent their ties, with the former buying up the latter. So maybe it?s not exactly a marriage, per se. No need to scrutinize things too closely, though. It is what it is.

Making many a headline yesterday, the MySpace-Photobucket deal rang in at a seemingly quaint $300 million. Why quaint? Well, Photobucket is pretty much nipping at the coattails of YouTube and Flickr, and just one of its competitors managed to grab $1.65 billion from Google?s coffers. Many millions went to Flickr, too. Therefore, it?d be understandable to assume a billion-dollar check would be written out to the folks at Photobucket for it?s own grand supply of photos and videos. $300 mil? A total steal.

That makes two bargains for Murdoch and his media conglomerate. The mogul pocketed MySpace in ?05 for $580 million, and with just a $300 million investment on top of his first big Web 2.0 purchase, he now holds domain over an $880 million duo with a total of 60-70 million unique visitors per month between the two.

Photobucket is a necessary addition to MySpace. It will act as the main source for videos and photos for the network (already does so to a great degree), and will likely grow a substantial amount over the next year or so. The growth of the business will of course help MySpace recoup the $300 rather quickly, which is generally what acquirers aim for after an investment as been made.

Though sites like MySpace, Photobucket, YouTube, Facebook and others are near their heights of success, there?s still reason to maintain a cheerful outlook about their futures. Obviously, they remain big players in the media and social networking genres, and it is unlikely - even in the face of stiff technological competition (more featureful sites, etc.) - that they will trend downward in a few years to reside in the realm of bygone Web 2.0 memories.

Consolidation is often a sign of a slow down, but history does tell us that booms cannot last forever. This MySpace-Photobucket marriage is certainly a great match made not a moment too soon. Because of it, it is safe to predict that both creations will last a considerably long time.

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