News
Report: Google, Microsoft To Battle Over Digg
- By Becky Nagel
- March 07, 2008
According to a
story
posted on TechCrunch this morning, Microsoft and Google are both preparing to
make bids on the user-driven news aggregation site
Digg.com.
TechCrunch's Michael Arrington reports that Digg has been working with New
York City-based investment bank Allen & Co. to find a buyer for a while
now (the same company it worked with last year when it was seeking
a $300 million bid). Citing an anonymous source, Arrington wrote that "two
media/news companies, and two big Internet companies -- Google and Microsoft"
are already involved in the due diligence process, with both Google and Microsoft
about to present their offers.
According to TechCrunch's source, Google will reportedly offer between $200 and $225 million -- which Digg is likely to accept -- and Microsoft is looking to offer less.
Microsoft already has an advertising
deal with Digg, but if Google wins out in the process, "Any sale is
likely to give Microsoft an option to terminate that advertising deal, which
means Google isn't valuing Digg based on revenue, either," Arrington wrote.
"But it is a big slap in the face to Microsoft to steal Digg away, and
Google can certainly generate revenue on all those page views."
To read the full article, go here.
About the Author
Becky Nagel serves as vice president of AI for 1105 Media specializing in developing media, events and training for companies around AI and generative AI technology. She also regularly writes and reports on AI news, and is the founding editor of PureAI.com. She's the author of "ChatGPT Prompt 101 Guide for Business Users" and other popular AI resources with a real-world business perspective. She regularly speaks, writes and develops content around AI, generative AI and other business tech. She has a background in Web technology and B2B enterprise technology journalism.