news.com.com— To woo Zuckerberg, Yahoo has offered about $900 million for Facebook and says it will keep the company somewhat independent, with Zuckerberg in charge.
Sep 22, 2006View in Crawl 4
It's kind of pointless to speculate on what will and won't come out of this. Take a look at another great startup bought by yahoo, Flickr. It may not have quite the same userbase as facebook, but even after being bought by yahoo it remained a great site, and wasn't adversely affected by the change in ownership. Let's just hope the same happens for facebook.
Call me biased / ignorant, but think about the copious amounts of personal information available on Facebook. Even though many would say "hey, you put it there, you shouldn't expect it to remain private", I trust it a hell of a lot more in the hands of an individual than in the hands of an uber-national company, who's sole purpose is to collect, categorize, and make such information as accessible to the public as possible.
The article says the site made $50 million last year and is on track to make $100 million this year. The site is profitable and Zuckerberg has maintained his majority stock percentage giving him the say in what happens. I wouldn't sell if I was in his position. He can write himself a check for a few million from that $100 million the company will bank and for any normal person that would be enough to live off of for a lifetime. That way he keeps his company, his minimalist lifestyle, and the soul of facebook intact.I really don't like that he considers 2 Billion a worthy ammount to sell out for though. Though I expect with that kind of bankroll we would see a large ammount of Zuckerberg projects in the bay area.
"Sure, but it's not easy to make even the best-funded project as popular as Facebook has become.."I am calling it now- front page digg story titled "Next big project from the creator of Facebook". With the popularity of Facebook, all you would have to do is associate the new project as being "from the creator of facebook" and lots of people would be interested in it.
If Yahoo does with Facebook what they did with Flickr, this can be a good thing. I wouldn't mind Yahoo testing some ways to integrate Yahoo services with Facebook – instant messaging being one of them. But they have to be able to convince users that the fundamental nature of Facebook – clean, simple layout; strong privacy settings – will remain unchanged.
I think keeping control of your ideas and work up to this point is much more important to Zuckerberg than taking a larger sum at buy out and be summited to watching what you had created be mis-managed.
Yahoo isn't going to pay $900 million and keep it closed off. And even before all this hullabaloo, Facebook was planning to open up to the "unwashed masses" anyway. To Zuckerberg and his team's credit, they've played this perfectly. Watch Friendster fall on its face, let MySpace be the first to sell...and then let the hype build. They were probably right to turn down the offers they got in the past, but they are NEVER going to be more appealing to an acquiror than they are now. Yahoo is desperate and needs to make a big move after their stock s**t the bed this week. When the economy slows, advertising is the first thing to go (see: YHOO's own revenue warning earlier this week). I'm going to dump all my YHOO shares if they go through with this.
"Mark Zuckerberg is a member of the Google generation, one too young to remember all the ambitions dashed and fortunes lost when the last dot-com boom ended. That may be one reason Zuckerberg, the 22-year-old founder..."Uhhh, too young to remember? Yeah, because all current 22-year-olds were blind, deaf and dumb at that age. Good job, Saul.
underburnSep 22, 2006
PLEASE Dont sell.
mattl920Sep 22, 2006
It's kind of pointless to speculate on what will and won't come out of this. Take a look at another great startup bought by yahoo, Flickr. It may not have quite the same userbase as facebook, but even after being bought by yahoo it remained a great site, and wasn't adversely affected by the change in ownership. Let's just hope the same happens for facebook.
danepSep 22, 2006
Call me biased / ignorant, but think about the copious amounts of personal information available on Facebook. Even though many would say "hey, you put it there, you shouldn't expect it to remain private", I trust it a hell of a lot more in the hands of an individual than in the hands of an uber-national company, who's sole purpose is to collect, categorize, and make such information as accessible to the public as possible.
jer2eydevil88Sep 22, 2006
The article says the site made $50 million last year and is on track to make $100 million this year. The site is profitable and Zuckerberg has maintained his majority stock percentage giving him the say in what happens. I wouldn't sell if I was in his position. He can write himself a check for a few million from that $100 million the company will bank and for any normal person that would be enough to live off of for a lifetime. That way he keeps his company, his minimalist lifestyle, and the soul of facebook intact.I really don't like that he considers 2 Billion a worthy ammount to sell out for though. Though I expect with that kind of bankroll we would see a large ammount of Zuckerberg projects in the bay area.
thedrunkmonkeySep 22, 2006
"Sure, but it's not easy to make even the best-funded project as popular as Facebook has become.."I am calling it now- front page digg story titled "Next big project from the creator of Facebook". With the popularity of Facebook, all you would have to do is associate the new project as being "from the creator of facebook" and lots of people would be interested in it.
omaryakSep 22, 2006
If Yahoo does with Facebook what they did with Flickr, this can be a good thing. I wouldn't mind Yahoo testing some ways to integrate Yahoo services with Facebook – instant messaging being one of them. But they have to be able to convince users that the fundamental nature of Facebook – clean, simple layout; strong privacy settings – will remain unchanged.
pseudoastronautSep 22, 2006
I think keeping control of your ideas and work up to this point is much more important to Zuckerberg than taking a larger sum at buy out and be summited to watching what you had created be mis-managed.
nitsujSep 22, 2006
Naughty, sneaky spammer.
amalik49Sep 22, 2006
Yahoo isn't going to pay $900 million and keep it closed off. And even before all this hullabaloo, Facebook was planning to open up to the "unwashed masses" anyway. To Zuckerberg and his team's credit, they've played this perfectly. Watch Friendster fall on its face, let MySpace be the first to sell...and then let the hype build. They were probably right to turn down the offers they got in the past, but they are NEVER going to be more appealing to an acquiror than they are now. Yahoo is desperate and needs to make a big move after their stock s**t the bed this week. When the economy slows, advertising is the first thing to go (see: YHOO's own revenue warning earlier this week). I'm going to dump all my YHOO shares if they go through with this.
tastethevenomSep 22, 2006
"Mark Zuckerberg is a member of the Google generation, one too young to remember all the ambitions dashed and fortunes lost when the last dot-com boom ended. That may be one reason Zuckerberg, the 22-year-old founder..."Uhhh, too young to remember? Yeah, because all current 22-year-olds were blind, deaf and dumb at that age. Good job, Saul.
cellisSep 23, 2006
I-P-O, I-P-O, I-P...thats what I'd do, except for Sarbanes
fallenone05Sep 26, 2006
Sold!
dangederrorsDec 28, 2008
I'm only a member of face book because of family. I don't understand it. I like myspace better.