Revver Inc., which operates an online video site that struggled to compete with YouTube, has been sold to online-entertainment network LiveUniverse for less than $5 million, according to reports Tuesday.

LiveUniverse is led by Brad Greenspan, the former chief of Intermix Media Inc. which was the parent of MySpace.com before its sale to News Corp.

The $5 million sales price was a steep discount from an estimated $12.8 million that was sunk by investors into the company, which targeted professional and amateur video makers instead of YouTube’s mass audience.

Revver also differentiated itself from YouTube by pioneering a new business model that involved sharing the revenues generated by ad sales with the content creators. The company has technology that can track a video’s movement across the Internet.

However, Revver’s site failed to gain traction, and reports said that by the time of the sale all of its founders had left and half its staff had been cut.