Doubleclick turned down Microsoft money?
John Battelle reports that Microsoft was actually offering more money than Google was for Doubleclick and that Doubleclick went with Google anyway. — I heard the same things about Flickr. Rumors are that Flickr's owners turned down AOL's money …
Context & Ripple Effects
This rumor lands three weeks after DoubleClick first explored a sale and two days after Google's plan to acquire the ad firm was confirmed on April 20. John Battelle's report — that Microsoft actually offered more money and lost anyway — reframes the deal from an auction outcome into a choice, which is why it stings for Redmond.
Scobleizer pairs it with a second unconfirmed story: that Flickr's owners once turned down AOL's money. That echoes earlier tension around Flickr's direction, including debates over how Flickr should make money, and suggests a recurring pattern where founders weigh acquirer fit over the top bid. Both claims are rumors, not confirmed terms.
First-order effects
- If Battelle's sourcing holds, Microsoft loses its most direct route into third-party display ad serving despite bidding more, leaving Google's April 20 agreement as the only path to DoubleClick's advertiser and publisher relationships.
- DoubleClick's board and shareholders face immediate pressure to justify picking Google over a richer offer — a choice that invites scrutiny of what non-price factors (data access, culture, regulatory odds) drove the decision.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft is pushed back onto building or acquiring alternative ad-serving and targeting assets, since the auction route to matching Google's display stack has closed at any price.
- Publishers and advertisers watching the deal read the outcome as Google consolidating both search advertising and the dominant display-serving layer, strengthening the case for rivals to fund competing ad infrastructure.
Third-order effects
- If buyers really do walk away from higher bids, ad-tech consolidation turns on strategic fit and anticipated regulatory treatment rather than price — making antitrust positioning, not the checkbook, the decisive variable in who gets bought.
- A repeated founder-preference pattern (DoubleClick over Microsoft, Flickr reportedly over AOL) would shift exit dynamics across the industry: acquirers compete on post-deal autonomy and platform access, not just valuation.
The trend: Ad-tech consolidation is being decided by strategic fit and regulatory calculus rather than price, with Google positioned to absorb the display layer Microsoft most needs.