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Facebook On The Block

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the folks-on-the-service-already-selling-themselves dept.

conq writes "BusinessWeek reports that Facebook has turned down an offer for $750 million and is looking for 2 billion dollars. The article speculates that one possible suitor would be Viacom. From the article: 'A Facebook deal would help Viacom founder and Executive Chairman Sumner Redstone fend off a growing challenge from News Corp. The media conglomerate run by Rupert Murdoch has poured enormous resources into the Internet during the last year. It acquired social-networking pioneer MySpace.com last year for $580 million.'"

2 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. The internet bubble is back in force! by mcguyver · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sure, its' alexa ranking is 62 but $2 billion for a site created two years ago? WOW! You would think a billion worth of investment into engineering and marketing could easily recreate facebook.

  2. The problem with their thinking by tansey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So here's what companies see when the learn about sites like Facebook or MySpace: - Huge number of people - Vast majority are under 25 - Rapid word of mouth and hype spreading Now they think to themselves: "WOW, it's just like a TV show that gets millions and millions of teenage viewers---imagine the advertising potential! We'll make a fortune!" Unfortunatly for them, they're wrong. Commercials and product placements on TV are wildly different from those on the internet. TV requires you to watch them, and things can be soaked in subliminally with relatively little effort on the advertiser's behalf. Why is this? It's because people's attention is focused on what's going on, and the advertisements just slip in there most of the time. It's a fairly benign form of advertisement if you're engrossed in the program. Websites like Facebook on the other hand would require advertisements to distract the users from what they want to do. Banner ads and flash animations don't blend into webpages like a race car driver wearing 800 different brand names or a supermodel drinking a soda on TV. All internet ads do is to cause frustration and resentment among the users towards the product. So, while I'm sure advertisers wish that they could keep the same strategies and ideas that they have been using in TV, film, and radio for the last 100 years--sorry, you can't. The internet doesn't work that way. --- Just my 2 cents.