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Sony snags Grouper video sharing site for $65 mil
In news from the "what are they thinking?" department today, Sony Pictures Entertainment has acquired video sharing site Grouper for a cool $65 million. What's that? Never heard of Grouper? You're certainly not the only one, with Nielsen/Netratings reporting just 430,000 visitors in July -- although Grouper's co-founder Josh Felser says it's actually closer to 8 million. Either way, it's well behind the current rockstar of the video sharing space YouTube, which, if you follow some analysts' reasoning, is now worth something in the $2 billion range. As a result of the deal, Grouper says it'll work with Sony to promote the company's movies and TV shows on the site. Another reason Sony apparently found Grouper particularly appealing is because it operates its own peer-to-peer network -- a way to distribute high-quality downloadable movies, perhaps? Either way, it seems a little bizzare, given Sony's Connect service, but hey, they really friggin' want you to put those clips on the PSP, because lawd knows most people aren't using it for games, or, ahem, UMD movies.
