Photobucket is the world’s largest photo sharing site. It also handles user created video. According to comScore, Photobucket has 17 million unique monthly visitors. That is about half of what YouTube has, and the issues of content copyright are much, much smaller.
On the back of an envelop, Photobucket is worth $800 million to $1 billion, based on recent sales of big websites like YouTube (GOOG) and MySpace (NWS). The usual suspects for the list of buyers would be Google (GOOG) which already offers photo sharing, Yahoo! (YHOO) which has a large photo sharing section and MSN (MSFT). Based on comments from Time Warner (TWX) management, AOL is not likely to make any big internet purchases.
The dark horse buyer might be Kodak (EK). The company has been in trouble for some time, as it tries to convert itself to a supplier of digital photo supplies and equipment. Buying Photobucket would be a big gamble, but Kodak needs to do something or blow away like a tumbleweed.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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