News
Report: Google, Microsoft To Battle Over Digg
- By Becky Nagel
- March 7, 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 reported 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.