ATD is reporting that Google is offering well more than twice what had been previously offered – $6 billion, instead of $2.5 billion. That sounds more like it. As I wrote yesterday, $2.5 billion sounded very low for this particular asset. (And this from the guy who thought YouTube was overpriced.)
Clearly, that leak to Vator.tv last weekend was timed to push a deal point, I’m guessing.
Key to this deal is Marissa Mayer, who recently took over local for Google and was promoted to boot. This would be her defining deal, and the integration of the acquisition would be critical. Google has had mixed results in this department so far – YouTube is clearly on its way to being a winner, but took far too long to get there. Many small pickups have proven to be big winners – Applied Semantics comes to mind. And Blogger, FeedBurner, and many other small acquisitions never really found their footing, but DoubelClick was a huge win.