Rumour: Google to buy Feedburner
I have just heard from a VERY trusted source that Google is buying Feedburner in order to get into the rapidly evolving RSS Ad market. The delay in announcing the deal, I am told is solely due to the delay in closing out the DoubleClick deal.
Context & Ripple Effects
The claim arrives five months after Google's feed API showed it wanted programmatic hooks into syndication, and while its DoubleClick acquisition is still awaiting close-out — the source behind the report says the FeedBurner announcement is being held back solely by that deal's completion. The story travelled unusually fast for a single-source rumour: CenterNetworks ran it the same day, Valleywag attached a rough $100m figure, and GigaOM weighed in on what it would mean.
It also lands one day after a Google agency manager told a top agency that Google has no intention of becoming an ad agency — a denial the author openly doubts, and one this rumour cuts directly against. If true, FeedBurner's publisher network would be Google's bridge into an RSS advertising market the report calls rapidly evolving.
First-order effects
- FeedBurner's network of syndicated feeds becomes Google's entry point for placing ads inside RSS, extending ad delivery beyond web pages for the first time.
- FeedBurner's rival feed-monetization tools and independent feed services face immediate pressure to reposition against a Google-owned incumbent if the deal closes.
Second-order effects
- Other ad platforms with reader and portal businesses face a build-or-buy decision on feed advertising rather than cede the emerging inventory to Google.
- Adding FeedBurner on top of the still-pending DoubleClick purchase extends the run of ad-market acquisitions regulators will weigh when assessing Google's consolidation.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, independent RSS infrastructure consolidates under large ad networks, turning syndicated feeds into another programmatically priced channel alongside search and display.
- Publishers gain a ready monetization path for syndicated content, but pricing power and audience data concentrate with whichever intermediary routes the inventory.
The trend: Ad platforms are absorbing open content-distribution infrastructure, converting syndication formats like RSS into auction-priced advertising inventory.