Revver is one of the video start ups which suddenly became well known when the success of market leader YouTube took video sharing from the domain of the geek to a worldwide boom.

The site was launched in late 2005, and has since seen a good level of investment, securing $12.7 million in 2006 from investors that include Turner Broadcasting and the venture capital division of Comcast.

Up For Sale

Now, just over a year later, and the company seems to be up for sale, with News.com claiming an asking price of between $300,000 and $500,000, which includes taking on debts thought to total around $1 million.

Former employees are also claiming the company has shed about half of its total staff over the last 18 months. So what has gone wrong?

Rather than innovate, when you have a site which is head and shoulders above all the competition, both in terms of usability and traffic, is it better to just copy them and be done with it?

Regular visitors to online video sharing service Revver will notice some major changes now active on the site.

Now, with its new layout and features, Revver is looking more like the most popular video site, YouTube (but with less bold colors), which is currently in the process of being redesigned.

Making much better use of space, the Revver website manages to pack more videos and more information onto the homepage while maintaining a simple and uncluttered arrangement.