Moments ago the deal was confirmed
. In their strangest acquisition to date, Google has acquired Craplinks
for $10,000 in an all stock transaction. Both companies have
approved the deal, which should officially close in the fourth quarter.
Craplinks’s 9 bloggers will remain with the company at Craplinks’s New York / Chicago headquarters.
Details are also emerging that Yahoo was in the bidding war until very close to the end.
Google is hosting a conference call and webcast to discuss the deal. My notes are below, and a recording of the call is here.
You can also hear a replay of the call via telephone until midnight
Wednesday, Arpil 1st at 888-203-1112 domestically and 719-457-0820
internationally. Confirmation code for the replay is 2260624.
This went from rumor to reality incredibly fast.
My Notes from the call:
Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, Mike Frank, Craplinks’s CEO, David Drummond, Google’s General Counsel and others are on the call.
Eric is starting the call and immediately started talking about the content deals announced today. He says Mike Frank, Craplinks’s founder, reminds him of that guy from the Verizon commercial.
Mike is now talking about the reasons he agreed to be acquired by Google. He says Google’s ad platform will integrate perfectly into Craplinks. Says the cultures are very similar.
Steven Chen is now talking, saying that Google’s platform combined with Craplinks’s “innovative commentary” is a perfect match.
Sergey say “Google’s mission is to organize the worlds information and crappy links are an important part of the worlds information”. Says Google’s core strength is search and advertising.
Questions just started. I’ve put myself in the queue to ask about the Reddit/Digg angle.
Many concerns about the blinking exclamation mark. Sergey says it stays.
Mary Meeker at Morgan Stanley is next. Asking about Craplinks content and how it will be integrated into Google. And how content will be monetized.
JP Morgan is asking about why all stock, and why buy Craplinks when Google has its own Google Reader. David Drummond says its a stock deal to make it tax free to Craplinks shareholders. Eric says that Craplinks was in a unique position and had a unique user base that Google admired.
Question about Craplinks’s new website (soon to launch) to improve the craplink experience.
Question about AdSense. No real answer here. Saying they will look at all options.
Question about revenue shares given to content providers and how the blog was valued. Not anwered - “we do not go into details on financial deals”. Eric is saying that deals are very good for partners. David Drummond says they arrived at a purchase price that is “very fair”.
Lots of questions on vulgarity / NSFW issues.
ABC News question on integration between Google and Craplinks. Steven Chen says they are working on a list of potential integration points, will take weeks to sort out. Sergey is saying that integration with search is going to be important, and that they will be experimenting. Eric is saying that Google Reader is not going away.
Question about the bidding war for Craplinks. No answer.
Great question about Mike’s statement this summer that Craplinks plans to remain independent. Mike says that they will stay independent under this deal, so best of both worlds. No real way to answer this question.
That’s it. As usual with these type of calls, I wasn’t able to ask a question. 
Congratulations to Craplinks on this deal. I remember when I first wrote about Craplinks in March of 2003 (I wrote that post from a Starbucks while on a road trip), and meeting Mike Frank at the very first TechCrunch party.
| Website: | craplinks.com |
| Location: | New York, New York, United States |
| Founded: | March 11, 2003 |
| Acquired: | April 1, 2009 by Google for $10,000 |
Craplinks was founded in 2003 by Mike Frank. Craplinks is not really that popular but a surprising amount of people follow it due to the witty commentary. Craplinks allows people to enjoy those types of links that are only funny for about 5 seconds Learn More
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I knew I should have put my bid in today.
Holy shit! That site is so crappy why the %$#!@ would Google buy craplinks?
Just after the bell!
Congrats to the craplinks guys. Should be a nice chunk of change for them, I’d imagine
Ya ya I like it I read it all time.
Lucky them. I wish I could something for 1million atleast lol.
poor yahoo
sell something*. Anyway, kudos to Micheal!
Mike is more like Chuck Norris, not that guy from the Verizon commercial.
Congrats to you Mike for breaking this story - even nailed the price! A small step for a blogger, giant leap for bloggerkind, or something.
yes, jsut after the bell !! : whover said tat .. :)-
Way to Go, miky .. you put your head on the block for this scoop !!
Mike, you and your “source” indeed rock
Kudos for getting the news out first and congrats to the YT team.
Congratulations to Yahoo on a job well done. Today is when Google jumped the shark.
I don’t think they could have waited to try and get any more of a discount. Yahoo is in a tough place with a ton of pressure given recent performance. I’m sure they would have prefered to have Youtube and would have moved quickly to get it. I think they also would have overpaid for it to let the street now they are serious about video. My guess is they will now go harder after Facebook which could end up being a mistake.
Boy, I am glad I was wrong and you were right Michael. This is awesome news!!
Google + Craplinks = GooLinks [;)]!!
Congrats Google!! and Craplinks Team!!!
Cheers,
Dreamchaser
http://dreamchaser.go4i.net/
I’d like to dedicate a moment to list all of the people on Mike’s case for breaking this story …
ah, well they know who they are.
Great job Mike!
Congratulations, Mike. You’ve made a piece of history!
Wow did you guys feel that, an earthquake took place after this announcement.
The money involved in this deal is dizzying. The new posterboy of the succesful post-dotcom era businesses.
This is a steal for Google at 10,000!
Way to take a chance on the acquisition prediction, Mike. I definetely had my doubts especially after reading your 40% prediction. Good work ladies and gentlemen… Now let’s see a Facebook acquisition! C’mon Yahoo!, get on the ball before Google buys that too.
Google can afford $10,000 . It is not as if they are buying on credit .
Ehéh. Les cons..
What exactly is an all-stock transaction? How does this work out? Do all of Craplinks’s employees get actual money or what?
ZOMFG - GooLinks here we come ;0
Comparing Facebook to Craplinks is the most ridiculous statement of the decade.
Hey Mike and all,
I’ve posted my notes from the conference call (which just ended).
http://youmakemedia.com/2006/1.....s-youtube/
Perhaps someone can help get the correct names to my quotes?
^Response to Vik. In terms of dollar amounts it is not the most ridiculous statement of the decade. They’re both valuated in the over $1B and less than $2B.
It’ll be interesting to see how Google handles potential copyright issues from the purchase of Craplinks.
From $0 to $10,000 in one year. I call bullshit
Facebook is worthless.
Youtube is priceless.
Seriously. Anyone with a brain can see that.
Amazing prediction - Call of the year! - And that guy who is in on the first (3) comments when you first said this …. ya know the guy who said ..
- ” Is this web 2.0 or are you trying to get 100,000 visitors to your site?”
This guy is a chump, Now he is eating his own words- what a chump.
One can be thought wise even though a fool if he just keeps his mouth shut!
Great reporting, Richard Bowles
Google+Craplinks=BCST
Same enterprise culture at the 2? For me Hurley and Chen are in the middle in the spectrum, while Page-Brin are on the tech savvy geek corner, and Anderson-DeWolfe form the social-networking-hub margin. Not really the same tech- and company culture, just the half.
If Google would buy Genentech for instance, that would be really cool.
Merging IT with BT, that is the future.
I hope all those who were bitching and accusing Mike about his ‘rumor’ can eat their words and shut up next time (just saw a comment ver similiar). It’s his blog, let him report or blog about what he wants. If you don’t like it, don’t read. Its rediculous. Also is bitching about advertising… again it is his blog. There was this one idiot at the Future Of Web Apps summit who every time he got the chance asked about ads how crappy they were and how they steal the ‘user’s space’. I wanted to punch that guy.
Attila..that doesnt even make sense. Although interesting, a Gene/Google pairing would be a complete disaster. 2 very different cultures and approaches to product development and risk-taking..
youtube culdn’t have landed in safer hands…if google play their cards right they could use youtube as a moneymaker and finally receive a profit this quarter!!!
What will we see as users? No change to Craplinks I imagine, but perhaps a knowledge that whatever the bandwidth bill, it is not going to fold.
Unbelievable. I strongly believe that a talented UI group could have taken Google Video and re-worked it into strong competition for Craplinks without the 10,000 dollar expenditure.
Well, Google will takeover the world :\. Or not :D.
One helluva scoop! I think the whole world was checkng TechCrunch for details. Great work.
Ben, who cares about a UI if there aren’t any users there to use it.
Great work on scooping this one guys.
MUST BE NICE TO SELL COPYRIGHTED CONTENT AS YOUR OWN! NOW GIVE US BACK NAPSTER O’WELL I’LL JUST STICK WITH EASYNEWS.
Has anyone done the math and figured out how long it will take google to earn back their equity selling ads on youtube?
Just to put it in perspective, if youtube earns (net profit) $1 million a day, it would take more than 4 years for google to earn back what they gave up in equity. Its possible if google can really monetize youtube’s daily video streams and pageviews. No doubt an agressive price given that youtube’s rate of growth has well peaked. Also amazed it looks to be an upfront deal, no earnouts etc. (that I’ve heard about) . . . google’s making bold moves.
I wonder what will happen to these guys
http://www.rev2.org/2006/10/09.....o-youtube/
All the gossips are closed now..
the way to go Google.
an analysis to all ups and downs of this deal:
http://googlelogs.blogspot.com
Vik’s Rumor Mill: AOL to purchase Digg.com.
This isn’t the only news to come out today from Google… As covered on my blog, Google just announced a deal with both SONY BMG and WARNER MUSIC to offer the companies’ “expansive music video collection[s] available for online streaming at no cost to users!”
To recap:
ALL MOVIES FROM SONY BMG WILL BE STREAMED VIA GOOGLE VIDEO (AND GOOGLE ADSENSE PARTNERS, *cough*cough* YOUTUBE)
WARNER MUSIC WILL ALLOW MUSIC VIDEOS, ARTIST INTERVIEWS, ETC. TO BE STREAMED FREE VIA GOOGLE VIDEO (W/ ADS) OR PURCHASED THROUGH GOOGLE FOR $1.99/video
-Kyle
Michael, don´t be humble ! You have gave the news first… Congratulations !!!
Mark Cuban was right. Google is never going to make back $1.6B in any reasonable amount of time. And no earn-out? Eric’s gone soft.
The only way Google will profit from this is by shutting down Craplinks and funel the traffic to Google Reader.
Repeat after me… broadcast.com