BubbleShare, Counting Unhatched Chickens

I don’t know if BubbleShare leaked the info in purpose, but what do you, as the founder of a startup - get out of leaking that you’re negotiating an acquisition with a large company?

Fame? Some free press? Whatever it is, if the acquisition is something you’d like to happen, I’d rather focus on that than on the fame/press deal, so in general terms - there may be exceptions I guess - if you leak something like this in purpose you’re not doing yourself any favor. Not to mention how much it’d say about your integrity. One thing’s for sure : whenever there’s a leak, either it was in purpose, or “the wrong person” was told about the deal… Unless someone’s been wiretapping you, which in most cases it’s unlikely.

Hey…leaks always happen. When you have staff members its a fact of life. Its just difficult to keep things under wraps.

Also the truth is if there was a leak the co would not confirm because then it would just legitimise the info out there.

Jeez, what a mess. I’m curious to know what really happened.

Is it realistic that News Corp. would call off the deal because of a leak? I mean, if they like the company/technology/people, wouldn’t it seem fickle to close the door on account of this alone?

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a deal discussed and that it feel apart for reasons other than the leak.

Good luck Albert and BS! Its a great product after all.

We’ll probably never know what happened. Loose lips sink ships though. It’s ashame, that would have been a hot partnership. LOVE bubbleshare.

As long as Bubbleshare stays the same, who cares? This is one of the best sites around with a unique idea and awesome results.

This was not the first time that news of a Bubbleshare acquisition got tossed around and certainly won’t be the last, so I find it hard to believe that the deal got dropped because of a leak.

A good deal is a good deal, or not. Period.

Bubbleshare is the one photo service doing something new and worthwhile, and it’s the one that my mother seems to be able to use without any pain.

I agree with John that if the company likes the company/product/people, to call it off because of an unconfirmed leak sounds stupid. But if you don’t know the whole story, it’s hard to tell. If you ask me, from out here, the “rumor” was handled correctly by BubbleShare.

As for staff members, I don’t know how many employees Bubbleshare has, but in general many of these startups don’t have many employees and it’s not too hard for everyone to ride on the same wagon. In the end, I don’t think it really matters that much, at least to us, users.

BTW, I’ve seen people “leaking” a rumor because they saw the founder of a startup in the neighorhood of some well known company’s headquarters. Geez, be careful if you’re a CEO/founder and are ever invited *just* for lunch at the Googleplex

i agree with RBA. At where i work, we have to sign NDA from time to time.

Having been through the acquisition of a few companies, there is generally one simple reason for the target to leak: to drum up interest from other potential acquirers and hopefully raise the price (sometimes it’s just inexperience and excitement, but there is a real strategic motivation). This is usually risky because the letters of intent usually prohibit any disclosure that the parties are talking.

Speaking of photo sharing sites not getting acquired, what happened to Zoomr? Seems like we went through two rounds of rumors already there (and a particularly green denial by Tate), but no updates?

all these rumors starts to annoy me. Like the rumors on Metacafe getting traffic dip. I read in gigaom that hitwise thinks otherwise. now what?

And on that topic, today google release top search terms for 2006. Bebo #1 (where is facebook??) and Metacafe is #4. Some people here never heard about those two. The common for those two sites is that they are INTERNATIONAL destinations - not just American. It seems like people here thinks that there are no life on the other side of the planet.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/.....t2006.html

ANY PRESS, EVEN BAD PRESS, IS GOOD PRESS.

For example, techcrunch …

A photo with a story, I like it.

Tech Tutorials: http://www.hotcoding.com

I suspect that they may have been aware that the deal was likely to fall over, and quickly decided to gain some huge exposure from the “close call” deal.

Likely to be covered on many many blogs, and mentioned in traditional media outlets also, as it relates to Fox.

@Jevon - I agree. Somebody knows what they’re doing. Besides, “no deal” opens the door for bigger better deals. Keep an eye on them, especially with companies hungry to buy innovation into web 2.0.

if there was a deal and they dropped because of a link…then it doesn’t seem like they were very interested…is a leak a real reason to drop a acquisition?

I’m rather glad that any such deal fell through as, having had contacts with Albert Lai and other Bubbleshare staff, I know them to be some of the most friendly, open and honest company representatives I’ve encountered in a very long time!

News Corp certainly doesn’t have the kind of corporate culture that would give me much confidence as regards their ability to let Bubbleshare continue to be an innovative and friendly subset of a huge multinational.

I hope that other investors or buyers whose corporate culture may be better suited to Bubbleshare may come along but even if they don’t, and as others have commented, the company and its site remain just as good as ever they were.

As someone in the tech community in Toronto, I’d like to note that it wasn’t the company trumpeting the deal. It was apparently someone who’d been asked for advice on it who mentioned it to someone else… the rumor then spread fairly quickly.

The Newscorp bit and the 5M are the standard line. And the “Newscorp doesn’t like it when companies talk” bit has been repeated so many times it was considered gospel truth that the deal was either about to close or was dying a slow and painful death.

Anyways, a great team at Bubbleshare. I don’t personally like the service, but Albert’s a genius and everyone in town loves him

A very crowded space, surprised that Fox dropped the deal as it is also a hot space.