So does this demonstrate that (1) Myspace had terrible taste (2) People have made expensive mistakes in photo-sharing sites before, will again, and might be right now (3) We will forget about this acquisition, as we forgot about that one

or all of the above?

The article lists photobucket as having 25 million uniques in March '07. Looks like it has 16 million today and in a steep decline.

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/photobucket.com/

Should put [2007] in the article name.

Brilliant editorial re-post. Let's wait for the comments to catch up. And bookmark this thread so that 4 years hence the Instagram folly can be made plain. That's the great thing about the valley - there are always more 24 year olds arriving.

I've always hated Photobucket's UI. The two sites will get along great.

The big story here is MySpace had the money to spend.

The acquisition was made 5 years ago. It's an old article.

This was a big deal when it actually happened. You're reading a very old article. At that point in time, Myspace was only beginning its inevitable downfall and was already owned by News Corp. Justin Timberlake and an internet ad company, Specific Media, bought Myspace for $35 million less than a year ago. Finally, News Corp/Myspace resold Photobucket to another company a few years ago for a fraction of the original price.

I had the same thought, but this link is for an article written in 2007.