Rumors of this transaction have been pending for some time, but official word was only released today: LiveVideo, a subsidiary of MySpace founder Brad Greenwood’s LiveUniverse, has acquired online video sharing site Revver. Although terms of the deal were not disclosed, LiveVideo has acquired 100 percent of Revver stock, which values the transaction at under $5 million. The buyout total is probably a disappointment to Revver investors, who have sunk over $12 million into the Los Angeles-based company over the last few years.
“Merging with LiveVideo.com and getting access to have Revver.com and its content partners promoted by LiveUniverse’s network of Web sites is a win-win proposition for Revver and its creators,” said Revver CEO Kevin Wells, in a statement. “We expand our reach and enhance our ad products, and all content creators get a stronger media platform that offers greater potential for revenue sharing opportunities.”
LiveVideo will continue to run Revver as a separate property, although it will immediately combine ad sales and customer service operations for both companies.
Revver has been having a difficult time competing with the Google’s YouTube onlien video site, and has been trying to carve out a niche for itself in amateur and professional videos free of copyright claims, and providing tools to enable users to post videos to their blogs and social networking sites. Revver offers video creators a share of any ad revenue generated from video plays; this policy has led to a dispute with MySpace that has been running for over a year, in which MySpace blocks external services that generate revenue on content embedded in MySpace pages. MySpace also blocked PhotoBucket; it eventually acquired the company in July 2007 at what many (including Revver) believe was a significantly reduced price because Photobucket relied so heavily on MySpace users.
