Here’s a link and comment roundup regarding the purchase.
Sony is acquiring Grouper Networks in web-video bid – WSJ
“YouTube Inc., which had about 16 million unique visitors last month compared with 542,000 for Grouper, according to comScore Media Metrix, a research company. Grouper says comScore doesn’t measure its traffic accurately and claims its numbers were about eight million last month.”
Grouper sells for $65 million – TechCrunch
“the $65 million valuation on Grouper suggests a YouTube valuation of around $2 billion.”
Sony Pictures Buys Grouper – PaidContent
“valuation is not really based on traffic…what it does have is a solid management and technical team…and user tools”
It will be interesting to see what happens to Grouper as a result of this acquisition. Sony may actually be ahead of Apple in the NIH (not invented here) syndrome. Of course, this acquisition is from Sony Pictures, not electronics, which may or may not make increase the chances of a successful merger and integration.