Facebook software maker Slide gets $50 mln funding
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Social network software maker  Slide Inc said on Friday it had closed a $50 million  institutional financing round, marking the rising valuations of  start-ups riding fast-growing Facebook's wave of popularity.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has approached FacebookÂ in recent weeks proposing an investment that would give Microsoft a stake of up to 5 percent in the popular social-networking company, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. With Microsoft willing to invest between $300 million and $500 million, the deal would value Facebook at $10 billion or more, the Journal reported, quoting anonymous sources. Google has also expressed an interest in acquiring a Facebook stake recently, according to the Journal. Thus, Microsoft could find itself competing for Facebook's attention with Google. However, Facebook's discussions with Google and Microsoft are in the early stages and could end up with no agreement with either suitor, according to the Journal. IDG News Service's requests for comment from Facebook, Microsoft, and Google weren't immediately answered. Founded in February 2004, Facebook is one of the world's most popular social-networking sites with about 42 million active users. Facebook has been growing strongly in the past 12 months. In December, it had about 12 million active users. The site initially only admitted students, but last September it lifted that restriction. In May of this year, itÂ opened up to third-party developersÂ to create applications for the site, which has also added to its popularity with users. Along the way, it has caught the attention of big Internet playersÂ such asÂ Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. The latter reportedly tried to buy Facebook last year for $1 billion. Facebook's attractiveness is that it builds very strong and deep relationships with its users.Â More thanÂ half of its active members return to the site daily, and Facebook knows a lot about them, thanks to all the personal information people disclose on their site profiles and interactions with other members. This, in turn, offers a desirable audience to advertisers and to ad sellers and distributorsÂ such asÂ Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. A little more than a year ago,Â Facebook chose Microsoft to display banner adsÂ on the site. Facebook would be interested in using the cash raised from selling a stake for buying other companies, increasing its staff of about 300, and beefing up its technical infrastructure, the Journal reported. Facebook is also weighing the option of raising funds from financial investors, the Journal said.
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The software company's investments are showing some promise.
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SAN FRANCISCO, May 24  /PRNewswire/ -- Facebook f8 Event --  Fliptrack, a leader in user-generated musical slideshows and videos, today announced a synching slide show application built on Facebook Platform.
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Setting the stage for a possible bidding battle, Microsoft Corp. is mulling an investment in Facebook Inc. that would value the rapidly growing online hangout at $10 billion or more, according to a report published Monday
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These days, numbers just seem to blur together. Microsoft is thinking about paying $500 million for 5 percent of Facebook, which would make that company worth $10 billion. VMware, in which parent company EMC recently sold a stake to the public, is currently valued at $30 billion (that's just for VMware, not the whole of EMC).
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Facebook Inc. is encouraging other companies to sell products and create software for use on the popular social networking site, hoping to expand into an all-purpose destination on the Web.
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The investment ends two months of jockeying among Microsoft, Google and Yahoo for the right to invest in and forge close ties with the fast-growing social networking Web site.
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Bebo has developed a system to let applications written for Facebook run on its social network.
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Opsware, a data-center automation software company, and EDS renew a contract worth $50 million.
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Facebook lands a Web-based operating system company with pedigree papers.
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Facebook will help other social networking sites to run applications developed for its own software platform, it said Thursday.
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Facebook, a social-networking site that has become an open development platform, announced Thursday that it purchased startup Parakey for an undisclosed amount. The company, started by Mozilla Firefox cofounders Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt, has been creating products to unify and integrate desktop applications and the Web.
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Online social network Facebook is  close to reaching a deal with Google Inc  or Microsoft  Corp  for an investment that would value the company as  high as $15 billion, according to media reports on Wednesday.
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By PETER SHERIDAN  It takes nerves of steel  or voracious greed  for a 23-year-old university drop out to turn down 810million for his internet company, but that's exactly what Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, right, did last year.
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Facebook founder is offering up to Â£125,000 to developers who come up with innovative programs for the site.
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The company is considering an investment of between $300 million and $500 million for less than 5 percent of Facebook.