Google to buy Feedburner?
That’s what what U.K. blogger and Web 2.0 consultant Sam Sethi is saying, based on a “trusted source.”
Chicago’s Feedburner places ads at the bottom of RSS feeds, the subscription technology that early adopters use to read blogs and other news. It is slowly becoming mainstream, so while advertising on feeds is a mere trickle right now, it will likely soon become substantial.
This would give Google one more way to fill out its offerings. It is tiresome, for us publishers, to have to sell ads separately, once for the web site, and again for our feeds (no big player offers a way to place an ad on both feeds and sites). By buying Feedburner, Google would become a one-stop shop. There are a few other companies that let people advertise in RSS feeds, including Pheedo, but Feedburner is considered the leader.
One rumor puts the deal amount at around $100 million, which wouldn’t be bad, considering Feedburner only raised $10 million from Mobius, Portage, Sutter Hill and Union Square Ventures.
Keep in mind that rumors of a Feedburner sale have come and gone — and that the rumor mill for M&A these days is somewhat out of control.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
