$3 Billion for DoubleClick (GOOG). $6 Billion for aQuantive (MSFT). With the news that Google is spending $100 Million on FeedBurner, are we getting maybe, a little ahead of ourselves here?

I’m as excited about new media as anyone and DoubleClick and AQNT are great companies that will fit great into Google and Microsoft strategically, but really. Those valuations?

At those prices, the $5 Million (plus probable incentives) CBS paid for Wallstrip is barely significant.

On the day of the deal, Wallstrip created this video featuring Quincy Smith, head of CBS Interactive.

Over at SeekingAlpha, The question Scott Carp raises in reference to the Wallstrip deal is, why can’t big media companies (which Google and Microsoft can also now be considered) do this themselves?

For $6 Billion dollars, why couldn’t Microsoft build its own agency relevant to its products? All they would have had to do is lure a few hundred of the smartest people away from other agencies by paying them somewhere in the neighborhood of the $2.85 million they spent on each of AQNT’s 2,106 employees.

FeedBurner’s syndication platform is good and growing fast, but what’s to say Google if they spent a few million couldn’t come up with a better product on their own - and what’s to say that RSS advertising will be worth so much?

Consumer preferences change fast and FeedBurner is not the only horse in that race. Web 2.0 is built on continuous innovation. So why are new media companies following the old school model of buying ideas?

Google has a company full of geniuses and already runs an impressive distribution system, why not extend it on their own.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 1:10 pm and is filed under News, Web 2.0, advertising, video syndication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.