MySpace Unblocks Photobucket Videos

There is good news today for web surfers who like to share their photos on MySpace: The standoff between MySpace and Photobucket has finally ended.

Photobucket announced today on their blog that the battle with Photobucket over differences that led the social-networking site to block Photobucket videos and photo slideshows is now over. The standoff had been going on for about two weeks.

"Following discussions with MySpace, we're pleased to announce that all Photobucket videos and remixes are enabled once more on MySpace with immediate effect. Both our companies are committed to putting our users first," Photobucket CEO Alex Welch wrote on the company's blog.

The dispute between the two social-networking giants came about earlier in the month when MySpace decided to block Photobucket's content from its member profiles. MySpace said that Photobucket had violated the MySpace terms of service by asking users to post a Spiderman 3 slide show ad campaign. MySpace doesn't allow third parties to advertise on its site.

MySpace basically tried to push Photobucket around, but blinked and gave up.

Photobucket said that MySpace never contacted them prior to enacting the block and said that the slideshow generated no revenue for Photobucket.

MySpace has been much criticized due to not opening itself up to third parties and not embracing Web 2.0 technologies. MySpace only grants access to its platform on an individual basis when companies request it.

In November 2006, Myspace had 38.7 billion page views, the most on the internet, according to comScore Networks. Photobucket on the other hand is the most popular photo sharing site in the U.S. Of all visits to photosharing sites, 41.4 percent go to Photobucket, according to Hitwise.

Photobucket lets users store media such as photos and videos on its servers. Users can then link them to other websites such as MySpace. More than half of its links go to MySpace, according to Hitwise.

Those numbers certainly indicate that a prolonged MySpace ban would have been very damaging to Photobucket.