• ValleyWag, Tuesday, May 8, 2007 11 AM

Photobucket has concluded the terms of a sale to MySpace, News Corporation's social network. The deal is not done, though the major points had been agreed upon. It's only a matter of time before MySpace completes a purchase for nearly $300 million. Sources told Reuters the price would be closer to $250 million.

A squabbling couple? Indeed, since 2005, when Photobucket-hosted videos and images became a major force on MySpace, the companies have found themselves inextricably linked. Photobucket is a free, big, storage bank for users to dump their media files and upload them to social networks like MySpace, where it's especially popular.

However, as its unique user base grew to 17 million, according to comScore, Photobucket quickly became something of a MySpace frienemy (like YouTube) that proved too large for News Corp. to block--although the media giant tried on a couple occasions. Widespread complaints quickly nixed those efforts, which were seen as negotiating tools to goad Photobucket into accepting a News Corp. offer. However, once Photobucket hired Lehman Bros. to organize a sale, MySpace was always the most likely buyer. While $250 million sounds like a lot, it would have been far more if Google or Yahoo were pulled into a bidding war.

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