14 DAY TRIAL // As I've already said in multiple articles, Yahoo urgently needs a shock to revamp it, its executive planning an internal reorganization that is meant to bring fresh ideas to the company. It seems like the company is trying another way for self-revamping: the acquisition of Metacafe, a website that allows users to upload and share their videos.
Before the YouTube acquisition by Google, Metacafe was the most powerful rival for YouTube but, since then, the website is going down and it is losing more and more users. According to Techcrunch, the number of monthly unique visitors declined from 4.2 million in September to 3.1 million in November, a drop of approximately 25 percent.
"The rumors around a possible Metacafe acquisition continue to swirl around Silicon Valley, with Yahoo being considered the most likely acquiror, at a $300 millionish acquisition price. Another potential acquiror is a rumored industry consortium looking to buy its way into the space. We've gotten confirmation from a number of potential acquirors that the company hired Lehman Brothers to shop them around, and were asking for $200-$300 million," Techcrunch said.
However, it seems that Yahoo is concerned about the content that is published on the Metacafe site, the adult content being one of the biggest problems for many companies. I think Yahoo already has enough problems to make their executive think twice before taking a decision, so I'm sure the company is afraid of the lawsuits Google already has over copyright infringements.
Although Yahoo wants to save the company with a Metacafe acquisition, it seems that Metacafe is in the same situation as Yahoo, in need of an investment to help the website gain more popularity, visitors and money. So, I'm not sure this would be a smart decision for Yahoo?