Three Reasons Microsoft Paid so Little for Facebook
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Microsoft's $240 million investment is much smaller than the rumored $750 million that Facebook sought. Why the difference? Epicenter's Terrence Russell analyzes the deal.
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Three Fools chime in on the social-networking site's valuation.
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Yahoo has been trying to buy Facebook for a good while now, with the most recent rumored amount being for $1.62 billion. TechCrunch has obtained documents on Yahoo&#8217;s valuation of Facebook, and expected advertising revenue growth over the next 10 years. From TechCrunch: Leaked documents in our possession state that an early offer was $37.5 million for [...]
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Microsoft will take a 240-million-dollar stake in the wildly popular social networking website Facebook as part of an expansion of the two firms' strategic alliance, the companies said Wednesday.
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Microsoft buys a $240m stake in the social networking site Facebook, beating rival Google
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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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IT has never been able to prove it's true value to the business, and as such it is treated as a cost center, which is the first thing to get cut in poorly run companies. But with Web 2.0 booming, all the assumptions that you hold about IT should be put on notice: change is in the air. Web 2.0 companies have had to grow their own technology for economic functionality. Free means crap right? Wrong. How many of you keep Yahoo! Mail running on your BlackBerry's along with Exchange because you know Exchange will be down sooner or later?
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One drag on Googleâs earnings in the fourth quarter was the payments it was required to make to social networks, especially MySpace. The money it made didnât cover the guarantees.
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Taking on the world, one annoying product at a time The three brothers who coined millions from the Crazy Frog phenomenon have followed Microsoft in taking a stake in Facebook.â¦
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Blog: Microsoft has dropped its "Get the Facts" website, but the replacement isn't much better.
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SAN FRANCISCO At the Web 2.0 conference here in 2005 -- back before Google had paid $1.65 billion for YouTube and people were talking about valuations for Facebook of $15 billion -- Zach Coelius, a precocious 25-year-old who had snuck into the hall without paying, stepped up to the microphone and...
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BREAKING NEWS - This afternoon, Microsoft won the apparent battle for an equity stake in social networking applications provider Facebook, making a $240 million equity investment in the company. In exchange, Microsoft will become the exclusive third-party supplier of Facebook's advertising platform.
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Microsoft will take a 240-million-dollar stake in the wildly popular social-networking website Facebook as part of an expansion of the strategic alliance of the two firms, the companies said Wednesday.
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Rich Zygler asks in one of his recent blog posts, if Microsoft purchasing a 240 million dollar chunk of Facebook is a good thing for the language it's written in - PHP.   Microsoft is buying a piece of Facebook. What do we all think this means for PHP since Facebook is one of the "web 2.0" leaders built on PHP? The way I see it, [there] are [six] options.   Among the possible outcomes he lists are things like Microsoft rewriting the site, Facebook continues as it is or (next to impossible) Microsoft sees the error of its ways and fully embraces open source.
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The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft may take a stake of up to $500 million in social network, which could push valuation toward the $10 billion mark.
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The price tag for Facebook, the second-largest social-networking Web site, just keeps rising. But what does that mean for MySpace, which is the No. 1? Microsoft and others are said to be considering a minority investment in Facebook that would value the three-year-old company at more than $10 billion. At least one analyst, Vijay Jayant of [...].
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No, Facebook isn't a $15 billion company. Yes, Microsoft is smart.